Bilingual Customer Advocate, Customer Contact

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National Grid is hiring an Bilingual Customer Advocate in Massachusetts

This is a Hybrid Role - Must live within a commutable distance to our locations

Job Purpose

As a Bilingual Customer Advocate, you’ll work directly with National Grid’s most vulnerable customers and the various external support agencies and advocacy groups that support them. Your mission will be to improve the lives of these customers through driving awareness of, enrollment in, and engagement around the various tools National Grid has in place to help income-eligible customers manage the affordability and volatility of their monthly energy spend. You will also serve as the voice of these customers internally within National Grid, representing their interests, perspectives and needs as the organization continues to develop its strategies and approaches to better serving income-eligible customers and the programs and offers we put in place to do so.

Key Accountabilities

- Work with customers one on one for billing, payments, negotiating payment agreements, LIHEAP, outage preparation, protections certification, energy efficiency support.

- Develop relationships with internal and external stakeholders to obtain and share information on social care opportunities and developments, as well as provide technical advice and build bases of influence.

- Identify and act on new external channels through which to engage income-eligible customers and drive awareness of and participation in relevant Company programs.

- Develop relationships with relevant external agencies and organizations, establishing your role as these external groups’ ‘go to’ resource for all things National Grid, and empowering them to better engage and refer their low-income constituents on our behalf.

- Manage and prioritize referrals from email, vendors, call center, field, and other internal communications in line with policies.

- Develop and manage the approach to special cases (e.g. customers with special needs) ensuring a tailored and effective response in line with expectations.

- Manage the day-to-day relationship with relevant internal parties and external agencies and bodies to understand requirements, deliver appropriate, customized solutions and advice, and build cross-functional working in line with National Grid policies and processes.

- Through collecting and analyzing input from your customer interactions and community engagement, serve as the ‘voice’ of our income-eligible customers in helping to inform and influence the design of National Grid programs and offerings targeted towards the income-eligible community.

- Serve as the public face of National Grid in various community outreach settings likely to be attended by income-eligible customers, including periodic Energy Expositions (“Expos”).

- Ensure processes, practices and procedures are followed are in line with National Grid policies and compliant with legislation and regulations.

- Develop, distribute, and prepare training material, brochures and supporting documentation to relevant customers and internal colleagues.

- Build upon technical/professional skills within customer advocacy to continually grow your personal contribution to the business.

- Develop and utilize peer group network to absorb and apply technical/professional best practice within the customer and social care arena.

- Travel to customer locations and other NGRID facilities is required, and this includes community events that may be hosted in socioeconomically challenged locations.

Qualifications

- Bilingual speaker/Spanish, Portuguese, Creole, or Mandarin is REQUIRED.

- Bachelor's degree preferred and 1+ years of related customer advocacy experience.

- Valid driver’s license required with a safe driving history is required.

- Demonstrated success in a customer service setting, ideally in a position focused on working with low-income customers.

- Knowledge and experience with (or the demonstrated ability to learn quickly about) one or more areas of the Company’s customer information systems including CSS, customer account management, financial structures, energy management, information systems management, document management.

- Knowledge and experience with (or the demonstrated ability to learn quickly about) various forms of social service support programs available to the income-eligible community, and a demonstrated history of communicating complex program offerings to a diverse community of potential participants.

- Knowledge of National Grid's business operations, Company policies and practices.

- Knowledge of relevant industry practice and legislation.

- Proficient in Microsoft Office products (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Access).

- Understanding of fundamental low-income program concepts desirable.

Capability Requirements

- Impact and Influence (1): Uses direct persuasion to influence others, using basic data, logic or a solid business case to help generate the best outcomes for consumers.

- Customer Orientation (2): Takes personal responsibility for correcting problems promptly and communicates customer expectations to monitor delivery and satisfaction for those most in need.

- Attention to Detail (3): Monitors quality of how customers are supported, checks to ensure procedures are followed.

More Information

Salary

$73,000 - $86,000 a year

Salary commensurate with location and experience

This position has a career path which provides for advancement opportunities within and across bands as you develop and evolve in the position; gaining experience, expertise and acquiring and applying technical skills. Candidates will be assessed and provided offers against the minimum qualifications of this role and their individual experience.

National Grid utilizes an assessment that evaluates the job qualifications/characteristics using AI or statistically based scoring. For more information, please view NYC Local Law 144.

National Grid is an equal opportunity employer that values a broad diversity of talent, knowledge, experience and expertise. We foster a culture of inclusion that drives employee engagement to deliver superior performance to the communities we serve. National Grid is proud to be an affirmative action employer. We encourage minorities, women, individuals with disabilities and protected veterans to join the National Grid team.