Customer Support Lead

Ascend Consulting; Andover; Hybrid; GBP 42,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

Ascend Consulting is seeking a Customer Support Lead for an Accountancy Software rollout in Andover, Hampshire. The role will oversee support for a portfolio of customers, lead hypercare, and transition to steady-state BAU support, while expanding the team in the future.

You will work hybrid and coordinate with customers and MSPs, using ITIL-aligned processes to ensure SLA/KPI compliance and high CSAT.

Qualifications

• I'veance in customer support or application support leadership.
• Experience delivering hypercare to BAU transitions.
• Knowledge of ITIL/ITSM.
• Experience with SLA/KPI reporting and governance.
• Familiar with financial terminology.
• Experience supporting professional accounts packages.
• Experience with customer end users and MSPs.
• Excellent written and verbal communication.

Responsibilities

• Own hypercare delivery and the handover to steady-state BAU support and Customer Care.
• Act as the escalation point for complex or high-priority issues.
• Provide expert-level support via service desk, email and phone using diagnostic tools.
• Own SLA and KPI compliance monitoring.
• Attend Service Review meetings with customers and MSPs.
• Maintain audit-ready governance records and Service Improvement Plans.
• Plan for future team expansion and supervisory responsibilities.

Skills

Customer support leadership

Hypercare leadership

ITIL / ITSM knowledge

SLA / KPI reporting

Contract governance

Service improvement

Financial terminology

Accounts packages knowledge

Stakeholder collaboration

Communication skills

Tools

FreshDesk

JSM

Zendesk

Job description

Customer Support Lead, Accountancy Software, Andover, Hampshire to £50,000 (Hybrid)

This is a great role for a Customer Support Lead to join an exciting Software company and to be part of their growth journey. They are recruiting an experienced Customer Support Lead to oversee support for an established portfolio of customers while owning the support a large-scale, multi-site financial management software roll out for a major institutional customer. You will initially lead hypercare and the transition to steady-state Business-As-Us-ual (BAU) support for this programme, while also overseeing support delivery across the existing customer portfolio.

Responsibilities

• Own hypercare delivery and the handover to steady-state BAU support and Customer Care, for the current programme and for both existing and future customer support as they arise.
• Act as the escalation point for complex or high-priority issues
• Provide expert-level support and issue resolution to customers via service desk, email and phone, using diagnostic tools and an ITSM toolset to triage, log and prioritise enquiries.
• Own SLA and KPI compliance monitoring (eg First Response Time, CSAT etc
• Attend Service Review meetings with customers and their Managed Service Partners (MSPs
• Maintain audit-ready governance records, including KPI trend data and a Service Improvement Plan, to support contract management reviews.
• We expect to further expand the team and therefore this role to have supervisory/team lead responsibilities in the future.

Skills and Experience

• Proven experience in a customer support or application support leadership role, ideally within the education or software sector.
• Demonstrated experience leading hypercare and BAU support transition for enterprise software implementations.
• Working knowledge of ITIL or an equivalent ITSM framework, including incident, problem and change management.
• Experience with SLA/KPI reporting, contract governance and continuous service improvement, ideally across multiple concurrent customer accounts.
• Basic understanding of financial and accounting terminology is required.
• Experience of supporting professional accounts packages would be a distinct advantage.
• Experience working alongside both Customer end users and Managed Service Partners within a joint support model.
• Excellent communication skills with both technical and non-technical audiences, particularly during major incidents.
• Experience in the use of contemporary support ticket systems – eg FreshDesk, JSM, ZenDesk (advantageous)