| | As a UW employee, you have a unique opportunity to change lives on our campuses, in our state and around the world. UW employees offer their boundless energy, creative problem solving skills and dedication to build stronger minds and a healthier world.
UW faculty and staff also enjoy outstanding benefits, professional growth opportunities and unique resources in an environment noted for diversity, intellectual excitement, artistic pursuits and natural beauty. All of which has allowed the UW to be nationally recognized as a “Great College to Work For” for six consecutive years.
Procurement Services has an outstanding opportunity for a Customer Services Specialist. The Customer Service Specialist position supports efficient and compliant use of UW procurement and financial systems and delivers a range of customer services for UW academic and central departments on all UW campuses.
Duties & Responsibilities:
Provide Customer Service and System Expertise :
• Perform front-line customer support services, serving as first point of contact for procurement, financial and reporting systems.
• Act as a subject matter expert in various UW financial and procurement systems, including new functionality or enhancements and compliance or regulatory changes
• Maintain expertise in the procure-to-pay cycle and act as a subject matter expert for supplier onboarding through procurement, payment and budget and data reporting, including all procedures and policies at federal, state and university levels
• Communicate effectively with both internal and external customers via direct contact by telephone and standard forms of written communication such as email, and using a variety of communication skills as appropriate including conflict resolution, active listening skills, etc.
• Provide clear, courteous responses to customer inquiries.
• Communicate effectively with a broad customer base and develop high-quality responses for full issue resolution.
• Develop deep knowledge in order to consult and advise staff and faculty regarding the full spectrum of procure-to-pay options, policies, procedures and software functionality.
• Identify, research and resolve customer inquiries regarding procurement software, acting as first level technical response to items including, but not limited to, user access, expense account coding, purchase taxability, supplier availability and payment status.
• Develop proficiency in and utilize multiple software systems to describe and troubleshoot issues related to UW supplier status, payment enrollment processes, procurement software account status and university invoicing procedures.
• Demonstrate ability to recognize complex issues for escalation, identify proper escalation path and effectively communicate issue complexity and urgency.
• Lead the design and implementation of processes to improve Customer Service response time, including intake, escalation and response mechanisms
Compliance and Analysis :
• Independently advise, interpret and inform departmental customers and suppliers regarding policies, procedures and activities ensuring compliance with University, state and federal policies, rules and regulations regarding proper procurement and payments.
• Conduct independent research, complete analysis and develop recommendations in collaboration with direct team members and Procurement Services process partners as needed to initiate corrective action and resolve issues.
• Analyze and resolve procurement discrepancies for reconciliation of supplier statements and University accounts. Make recommendations to campus administrators and fiscal staff to recognize and resolve budgetary commitments and supplier liabilities, as well as report and data utilization and interpretation to support departmental financial activities.
• Utilize a proficient understanding of financial organization and accounting principles to research and resolve complex financial interface issues, understanding budgetary impacts and making recommendations for correction based on deep understanding of university system integrations.
Collaborate on Project Teams :
• Act as a key intermediary for select supplier relationships and actively collaborate with contract management personnel.
• Collaborate with project managers, business analysts, software developers, campus user test groups and teammates in recommending new business process or system functionality, defining new business rules and participating in system implementation planning.
• Contribute input and recommendations based on feedback obtained from campus system users. Make recommendations for process and/or system improvements or corrections to supervisor, project management teams to resolve departmental challenges to adoption of new systems, policies or procedures.
• Plan, communicate and provide change management support for procedure, policy or system changes to include presenting demos, forum materials, website updates.
• Participate in follow-up outreach to assess change management effectiveness. Utilize customer inquiries and feedback data to assist with departmental outreach opportunities.
• Determine training needs for groups and/or individuals and work with Training Team to advertise, support and implement training plans to address campus needs.
Documentation, Metrics Reporting & Process Improvement:
• Develop communication materials such as email template responses, FAQs, webforms and website content in response to campus feedback and needs.
• Design and implement processes to improve Customer Service response time, including intake, escalation and response mechanisms and team procedural documentation.
• Utilize departmental and team unit strategies to develop meaningful reporting metrics and report metrics on defined daily, weekly or monthly time frames.
• Maintain Customer Service procedure documentation on department intranet.
• Assist with departmental and team cross training as well as onboarding and training for new team members.
• Maintain departmental internal and external FAQ repository (currently utilizing Drupal).
• Actively participate in strategic project teams.
• Actively participate in continuous process improvements using Lean methodology, reviewing and analyzing data from work processes, communicating ideas for improvement and reporting progress.
As a UW employee, you will enjoy generous benefits and work/life programs. For detailed information on Benefits for this position, click here.
Required Qualifications:
• Bachelor's Degree and three to four years of experience working with financial and procurement systems which demonstrate success in:
o Providing customer support for financial, procurement and/or supplier management systems
o Communicating effectively through oral and written means
o Participating on project teams using data-driven decision-making and reporting success metrics
• Proficiency in the entire Microsoft Suite of programs (Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, OneDrive) and intermediate to advanced skills for Excel
Equivalent education/experience will substitute for all minimum qualifications except where there are legal requirements such as license/certification/registration.
Desired Qualifications:
• Experience using content management systems such as Drupal.
• Experience working with state university or other state institution systems.
• Experience leading project teams
• Preference will be given to candidate with UW systems experience.
Application Process:
The application process for UW positions may include completion of a variety of online assessments to obtain additional information that will be used in the evaluation process. These assessments may include Workforce Authorization, Cover Letter and/or others. Any assessments that you need to complete will appear on your screen as soon as you select “Apply to this position”. Once you begin an assessment, it must be completed at that time; if you do not complete the assessment you will be prompted to do so the next time you access your “My Jobs” page. If you select to take it later, it will appear on your "My Jobs" page to take when you are ready. Please note that your application will not be reviewed, and you will not be considered for this position until all required assessments have been completed. |
