Title: Client Advocate II
Duration: 12 months
Location: Columbia, SC (3 days a week onsite)
C2 Clearance Required
In - Person interview required

Job Description:

• Responsible for establishing, building, and maintaining sustainable customer relationships. Ensures appropriate client communication, client focus, and client control of priorities by coordinating with the client organization at strategic, tactical, and operational levels. Works with customer to identify opportunities for innovation, cost reduction, improved efficiencies and business challenges. 
• Acts as a liaison between I/S and customer for assigned business units. Ensures that the design and integration of proposed system, software, and hardware solutions leads to the development and growth of the business through effective use of technology. 
• 40% Steering Support --- Helps the customer define their business needs as specific changes and works with the customer on priority setting. Assists in the definition of I/S work requests and completes the packaging and delivery of I/S work/audit requests estimates and supporting documentation. Negotiates final estimates, authorization, and start/completion dates for each request with customer. Provides tracking of work requests to allow better control of costs for the customer. Monitors work requests to ensure delivery of products and services based on customer’s priorities, estimates, and dates. Updates I/S Product Catalog with product features. 
• 30% Systems/Services Monitoring --- Monitors service levels, reports actual versus agreed to service levels, and reviews service levels with the customer to determine opportunities for improvement. Establishes and reports metrics that measure I/S performance and satisfaction to customer. Reports Service Level Agreement (SLA) performance. Analyzes requested and existing SLAs for reasonableness and takes appropriate action. Reports overall customer status to the I/S Management. 
• 15% Account Management --- Acts as an account manager responsible for the collection, analysis, review, documentation, and communication of client needs and requirements. Ensures I/S solutions are tailored to the customer’s strategies by continually obtaining a complete understanding of the client’s business needs from initial requirements to final implementation. Communicates quickly and accurately. Manages political and interpersonal issues. Fosters relationships between the customer and the I/S organization as well as analyzes problems, settles disputes, and negotiates within current contractual boundaries. Acts as specialists in customer’s business and generalists in I/S products and services. 
• 10% Internal Marketing --- Takes proactive marketing approach when communicating with customer in response to external requests for change or internal I/S product activity. Ensures customer is aware of potential offerings that could add value. Designs products and services with common components that can be leveraged across many customers. Establishes pricing, obtains approval by LOB management, and packages/delivers to customer. Focuses the communication with the customer on features offered in the I/S Product Catalog and works with I/S team to propose and build tailored, customer-focused solutions. 
• 5% Product Improvement --- Researches/discovers opportunities to employ the proper subsets of I/S and its products and services. Identifies the customer’s strategic business strategies and finds the right products and services to fill the customer’s need and uses internal Marketing to sell the solution.

Skills

• Strong communications (verbal and written) skills with assertive yet customer-focused style. Understanding of information systems, business processes, and the key drivers and measures of success for the business unit and the organization. Knowledge of the company’s business practices and direction.
• Understanding/knowledge of technological trends used to bring solutions to business units. Previous business analysis experience.
• Experience to include working closely with I/T in the development/implementation of systems. Demonstrated competency in strategic thinking with strong abilities in client management and relationship building/management along with a service attitude.
• Demonstrated competency in management of resources to meet goals and multiple projects. Participation on multidiscipline, high-performance work teams.
• Ability to negotiate terms and scope of work documents.
• Ability to prepare and present formal presentations.
• Effective problem solving and conflict resolution skills.

Day to day: 

• Primary responsible for supporting internal and external customer business needs 
• Acting as liaison between clients and the I/S organization, providing business direction to systems and programming areas on work efforts 
• Monitoring all I/S costs charged to clients to ensure accuracy and cost effectiveness and facilitating communications with the clients regarding costs 
• Supporting clients through production issues that may be encountered 
• Would not consider candidates who do not have any customer / relationship management experience

Team:
My team of three Client Advocates work closely together to oversee other areas of Information Systems (i.e., Application Development, Project Management, Quality Management, Estimating, etc.) to ensure internal and external customer needs are understood and well documented, as well as customer deliverables being on time and within budget. We also work in tandem with the customers to collect and document business needs to turn into High Level Estimates.

Job Requirement:
Required Education:
Bachelor's Degree or 4 years of job related work experience or 2 years of job related experience plus an associate’s degree in any major.

Required Work Experience:
5 years I/T related experience to include experience in client relationship, I/S marketing, and process/product improvement.

Required Software and Tools:
MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) (Health Insurance knowledge a plus)

  
 
At SPECTRAFORCE, we are committed to maintaining a workplace that ensures fair compensation and wage transparency in adherence with all applicable state and local laws. This position’s starting pay is: $ 40.00/hr.