Highlights:
- RingCentral’s Global Service and Support team leads the post-sale experience for our customers—making sure they’re able to use our products effectively and easily.
- Implementation Managers help customers plan and develop new Contact Centers assisting with designs, builds, implementation and training.
A particular set of skills
At RingCentral, relationships don’t end with a sale. We’re with our clients for as long as it takes to get their products and services up and running in ways that allow them to achieve their goals. That means we need experts who not only know our products and services inside and out, but have the “soft skills” to share that knowledge with clients in ways that help them get up and running, fast. It’s a critical role, and one that can’t be filled by just anyone. It takes technical savvy, interpersonal skills, and a true desire to see clients succeed. For Senior Recruiter Richard Steinberg, that critical need is turning into a major opportunity.
“In many cases, a new sale requires post-sales service, and it has to be the best. In a typical post-sales scenario, a professional services engagement can require a team of anywhere from two to ten Contact Center Engineers, who handle the day to day issues of implementation and use. Those people have to be really good, and we didn’t want to be constantly in “react mode” in terms of hiring them. I helped to recruit a team for a “training academy” along very similar lines for the Global Solutions Engineering team which proved to be very successful. This program solved many staffing issues for us upstream in the organization because we had a solid bench of capable individuals who were ready to step up when the need arose. Leadership realized that the Professional Services organization could greatly benefit from a similar program as well and Contact Center Academy was born.”
Good problems
In regards to the success we had with the Global Solutions Engineering organization, a funny thing happened on the way to graduation. Steinberg and his team began to notice – the students were getting almost too good, too fast.
“The original thought was that our training program for new talent would be about 18 months but many of our recruits were capable of being promoted well before that. In some cases, we’d promote new hires from SMB to Mid-Market in less than a year. As Mid-Market proved consistently tougher to recruit for than senior level Majors or Enterprise level SE’s, this program solved a persistent and critical problem for us. We were able to have folks at the ready on a rolling basis to be promoted into Mid-Market, which was the next logical step on the career path we laid out for them at the inception of the program. The way we see it, we’ve now filled two pipelines – we’ve got the new graduates managing mid-market and SMB clients, and if an opening pops up in Majors or Enterprise, they’re often well qualified to step in.”
Even more good problems
Contact Center Academy not only addresses the problem it was designed for (developing and training Associate PS Contact Center Engineers) , but is making a real difference in terms of diversity.
“When you’re hiring senior level people, you can’t necessarily go back in time,” said Steinberg. “You want experienced people, but you can’t hire what doesn’t exist. If diverse candidates weren’t doing this job 15 years ago, how are you going to (hire them) today? Well, it turns out, when you are hiring recent grads, you have the ability to access a much more diverse pool of talent. If a candidate has the basic technical aptitude – or willingness and ability to learn it – and the listening and interpersonal skills to really work with people, Contact Center Academy will put them in a position to move up, fast. I think this will address longer-term diversity challenges as Academy grads continue to gain experience and build their careers in this industry.”
Sharing the opportunity
Contact Center Academy is giving our clients our best – highly trained experts with the interpersonal skills it takes to get major projects implemented. It’s giving enrollees a chance to make huge career advancements, at lightning speed. And it’s vaulting diverse candidates into leadership roles that will open doors for years to come. We can’t wait to see what’s next – for the enrollees, our clients, and our company. To apply, or refer someone you know, get in touch with Richard Steinberg, Senior Recruiter, at: [email protected]
#HelloToOpportunity
Originally published Jan 21, 2022
