Service Desk Lead

ASM Research•Lorton, VA

About The Position

The Service Desk Lead oversees daily operations of the external-facing service desk, supporting customers/clients with product, technical, or account issues. This role combines hands-on customer support with team leadership — supervising analysts, managing ticket/call queues, and ensuring service levels and customer satisfaction targets are met.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree, or Associate degree +2 years relevant experience, or 4 years relevant experience
3+ years of experience in customer-facing technical support or service desk role.
Strong customer service and de-escalation skills; experience handling escalated/upset customers.
Experience with CRM/ticketing platforms (Zendesk, Salesforce, Freshdesk, ServiceNow, etc.).
Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
Ability to multitask across channels (phone, email, chat) under time pressure.
Demonstrated ability to coach and motivate a customer-facing team.
Must have an active Secret Clearance.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with SLA-driven, contractual support environments.
ITIL Foundation or customer service certification (e.g., HDI) a plus.

Responsibilities

Supervise, schedule, and mentor Service Desk Analysts/Agents handling customer calls, chats, and tickets.
Serve as the escalation point for complex, sensitive, or dissatisfied-customer issues.
Monitor queues (calls, chat, tickets) in real time to ensure SLAs and response-time targets are met.
Track and report on key metrics: CSAT/NPS, average handle time, first-contact resolution, SLA compliance, ticket backlog.
Monitor and support Tier 0 (self-service/chatbot) deflection effectiveness for external users.
Develop and maintain customer-facing support procedures, macros/canned responses, and knowledge base articles.
Handle escalated customer complaints professionally, aiming for first-contact resolution and retention.
Coach agents on product knowledge, communication skills, and de-escalation techniques.
Coordinate with Product, Engineering, and Account Management teams on recurring or high-impact customer issues.
Identify trends in customer inquiries and recommend process, product, or documentation improvements.
Administer the ticketing/CRM system (e.g., Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud, Freshdesk) — queue setup, routing rules, tagging.
Ensure compliance with SLAs defined in customer contracts and service agreements.
Support onboarding and training of new customer support agents.
Assist in after-hours/weekend coverage planning as needed for customer-facing support.