Operational Support Associate (Remote)

Are you an experienced customer support professional with a strong background in ServiceNow? Are you known for professional, efficient, and proactive resolution of customer concerns and inquiries? Do you thrive in fast-paced, high-volume, team-oriented environments? Montage Marketing Group wants you! Montage is looking for part-time Operational Support Desk Associates to support a federal government contract. These support roles ensure timely, professional, and participant-focused responses to grant research fellowship stakeholders in a ticketing system environment. This is a part-time, remote position for those residing in: Virginia, Maryland, Washington D.C., Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Texas, or West Virginia. The anticipated hourly rate for this role is $26.00.About Montage Marketing Group Montage Marketing Group is an award-winning marketing firm focused on making connections—and making a difference. Our people are innovators and co-creators, visionaries, and hard-working change makers. Our purpose is to make connections with people, to get them to stop and think, to feel and act. Proven experts in engagement, outreach, communication, event planning, and experiential design, we're a third party-certified woman business enterprise, and a member of the US Small Business Administration's 8(a) program.

Summary

The Operational Support Desk Associate is the first point of contact grant applicants, reviewers, and other parties engage with to resolve any application questions or concerns. This role is responsible for facilitating efficient evaluation of customer inquiries, resolving any knowledge-related questions, and referring grant applicants to the IT service desk for any technical issues. Adhering to prescribed scripts, templates, and approved communication copy, Operational Support Desk Associates deliver consistent, efficient responses in a production volume environment.

Responsibilities

Service Delivery

• Serve as the first-line support for all public grant application and review process inquiries.
• Demonstrate professional, respectful, and empathetic communication in evaluating and resolving customer inquiries.
• Record and track all interactions and resolutions in ServiceNow for transparency, continuity, and reporting purposes.
• Identify and escalate tickets that require specialized support to the appropriate Lead or internal IT team member, in alignment with established processes and policies.
• Follow and comply with processing standard operating procedures.
• Closely assesses ticket inquiries, paying close attention to specific details to ensure the proper canned response is provided, or necessary escalation workflow is followed.

Time Management

• Demonstrates strong commitment to program SLAs by ensuring timely, high-quality resolution of tickets upon first contact.
• Proactively communicates with Lead and Manager when ticketing volume challenges arise; takes personal ownership of efficient ticket resolution.
• Knowledge Management
• Continually builds knowledge and understanding of grant program and application process, leveraging all available resources to prioritize first contact resolution.
• Identifies opportunities to improve existing knowledge base resources, operational workflows, and communicates suggestions to Lead and Manager.
• Stays informed about changes to grant programs, application portals, or policies to ensure accurate and up-to-date support.

Team Orientation

• Remains open and responsive to feedback and coaching from peers, Lead, Manager, and client team.
• Exercises a team-orientation to workload, proactively seeking out additional ticketing assignments to balance volume and ensure team achievement of SLAs.
• Coordinates with Lead, Manager, and internal client team to relay feedback and resolve systemic issues.
• Support development of weekly reports outlining topics and types of inquiries information and timeliness of responses to the client.

Required Qualifications:

• 1-3 years of experience in a virtual customer or client support environment.
• Experience utilizing ticketing systems such as ServiceNow, Zendesk, or similar.
• Excellent written communication skills.
• Ability to obtain Public Trust with a federal government agency.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Federal, state, or local government contracting experience.
• Previous experience supporting higher education, educational grants, science, or technology-related fields.