Sr Customer Service Advocate Specialist

Northwestern Mutual•Franklin, WI

About The Position

A point-of-contact and technical expert for their assigned financial representatives. Is responsible for expediting special handling cases, negotiating resolutions, providing proactive field case work consultation, and helping to educate/train financial reps and their staff. This position is a cross-functional role empowered to marshal organizational resources to resolve troublesome service issues and identify root causes in order to improve the field customer experience while balancing the financial and strategic goals of the company.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in business or an equivalent combination of education and progressively responsible work experience.
Minimum of four years of insurance operations experience.
Highly motivated and self-directed with the ability to manage and prioritize concurrent assignments.
Advanced customer service skills and technical knowledge of the operational aspects.
Demonstrated ability to build relationships, apply knowledge across complex business areas, and effectively navigate the organization to find solutions.
Deals well with ambiguity.
Heightened ability to influence without authority.
Demonstrated ability to negotiate skillfully in difficult situations with both internal and external stakeholders.
Demonstrated problem solving through analytical ability, judgment and decision making skills.
Focuses on the best interest of the customer while complying with all relevant laws, regulations and policies.
Demonstrated advanced interpersonal, leadership, and verbal and written communication skills.

Responsibilities

Demonstrated advanced understanding of product and servicing needs of assigned network offices.
Understands the importance of our home office - field relationship and strengthens these partnerships through a shared vision of delivering a remarkable experience for our clients.
Responsible for building strong relationships with clients', field force and internal business partners through trust, mutual respect and teamwork.
Responsible for Service Recovery.
Adept at de-escalating volatile concerns and reestablishing confidence in our brand promise.
Possesses exceptional internal communication and coordination skills.
Works closely with the internal business to identify and detail our clients' concerns and/or expectations, and collaborates with them to provide exceptional service.
Accountable for managing all concerns assigned from our clients and network offices - from initial contact through final resolution.
Informs applicable stakeholders on resolution progress and coordinates communication to all involved parties.
Collaborates with internal partners to track, trend and perform root cause analysis around elevated product or service related concerns.
Leverages data analytics to identify obstacles and continually improve operations and the field/client experience.
Strong understanding of our business priorities and ability to identify technology that will improve or enhance our network office, home office and client experience.
Serves as a liaison between the home office and network offices to facilitate the implementation and adoption of new information and/or technology.
Serves as a leader, coach, mentor and role model to front-line employees, peers and internal/external business partners.
Drives for results and goal attainment; ensures team members provide appropriate solutions to meet the needs of both our clients and field force.
Negotiates cases elevated through the field to amicable resolution with field members.
Travel to Network Offices to build trust and present to the field, and speak on behalf of the home office.
Provides proactive support to the Network Office, by reviewing data regarding Network Office trends and behavior.
Utilizes this data to determine the best course of action for presentation and driving results from the Network Office.
Without authority influences field behavior to obtain a desired home office outcome, such as Self Service Adoption.