Customer Support Associate, full time position

Want to help us build the world’s best childcare service?

We're looking for clever, nice people for a full time role in the customer support team of a friendly startup.

Koru Kids is building the world’s best childcare service. We’re making it easier and more affordable for families to access high quality childcare. We’re growing, are backed by fantastic investors, including top venture capitalists and business angels, and have won a bunch of awards. You can find out a lot more about Koru Kids and our culture on our main careers page.

Job details

As a Customer Support Associate, you’ll be essential to our mission of creating high-quality, lasting childcare matches. You’ll provide exceptional support to both families and nannies via multiple channels, resolve complex issues, and guide customers through important decisions. You’ll also help us continually improve our service systems and processes.

We’ll provide comprehensive training and support to help you excel.

Please note: While the role is primarily remote, you’ll visit our London office around 6 times yearly for team training and social events.

About Koru Kids

At Koru Kids we have a triple mission: to support working parents during the hardest years of their life, to give children the best possible childhood to allow them to flourish as adults, and to create really great jobs for childcarers. We’re a marketplace, which means we have two customers: people who look after children and families. The challenge is massive, but our team is really good.

Our business is growing fast – we doubled in size in 2021 and we’ve delivered over 1M hours of childcare. We’re backed by strong investors and top-class VCs. Our culture is informal, hard-working and kind. The team is an A+ when it comes to talent and our “no dickheads” rule means we’re also a humble and supportive bunch. We’re also really committed to working with integrity, doing the right thing and building a company we are truly proud of.

About the role

You’ll be responsible for matching our families and nannies together. Most of your role will be spent speaking with families and nannies to help them decide if they are a perfect match for each other. The team’s purpose is to support families and nannies to make informed, timely decisions about working together. We care about making high quality matches that last, where the focus is on the longer-term customer experience.

We’ll give you all the training and support you need to do the job really well. In particular, you’ll learn advanced techniques to help customers resolve problems and make decisions. You’ll have the freedom to experiment and improve the way we do things.
This is a really great experience to work in a fast-paced startup.

The role can be generally remote, but there is the opportunity to work from our office in Old Street, London, if you’d prefer. You’ll receive the training and support you need. You’ll be a crucial part of the team, and have our trust that you can do a great job.

Please note that whilst the role is generally remote there is an expectation to visit our office in London around 6 times a year for team training and socials.

About you

You’re a people-person who thrives on communication and problem-solving. You’re warm, empathetic, and can stay calm under pressure – essential qualities when dealing with childcare challenges.

You thrive in environments where not everything is figured out yet and can navigate ambiguity with confidence. We’ll also be looking for evidence of drive, aspiration and enthusiasm in stuff you’ve done outside of work.

You must be eligible to work in the UK.

We want you to love this job, so these are the essential skills and behaviours we're looking for:

• You’ll love communicating with people. You’ll enjoy speaking to people on the phone and get great satisfaction from writing an amazing email.
• You’ll be warm and empathetic. The truth is that childcare can be stressful! You’ll provide a listening ear and reassurance, staying calm and positive when things don’t go to plan.
• You’ll love learning new things, and will know our service and our product inside out. You’ll be a Koru Kids ‘encyclopedia’, ready to answer most customers’ questions that come your way.
• You’ll be a problem solver at heart. You’ll be obsessed with getting to the root of an issue and won’t stop until you’ve found a resolution to your customer’s query. You’ll proactively gather information and liaise with team members in order to provide the answers our customers need.
• You’ll be organised and efficient. You’ll be able to manage your workload and prioritise tasks effectively. You’ll also be happy multitasking, switching easily between different customer queries that come your way.
• You’ll be tech-savvy. You’ll be confident working across multiple platforms to access and update customer data. We’ll give you all the training you need for each programme, but you’ll need to be able to pick things up fairly quickly.
• You’ll be a team player. You’ll recognise that we all have a part to play in the company mission, and you’ll be excited to contribute to improving childcare for working families.

A typical day

9am – You grab a cup of tea and join the company-wide (video) standup to hear what’s been going on across the business. You then jump on another quick call with the Customer Support team to go over the plan for today.

9.30am – You’re in charge of live chat this morning. There’s a few nannies who are asking for updates on their applications. One nanny is confused about who they should provide as a reference. Another nanny is having technical issues with the online training. There’s also a few queries from parents asking about how our pricing works. You know our service inside out, so you’re able to quickly resolve any query that comes your way.

10am – You get a phone call from a stressed mum. She’s just found out she needs to be back in the office in a few weeks, so needs to find some after school childcare ASAP! You reassure her she’s come to the right place and tell her all about the part-time nanny service. She can’t believe how great it sounds, she’s going to sign up straight away.

11am – We’ve just sent out invoices to families, so the phones have got a bit busy. One family is a bit confused about how their invoice has been calculated. You love solving problems and notice their nanny has accidentally submitted the wrong times for some of their shifts. You reassure the family you can amend this for them and they’re relieved they won’t be overcharged. You log a ticket with the payroll team to get this fixed, before your next phone call comes in.

12pm – It’s lunch time. You’re working from home, so maybe you’ll pop to the local cafe for a coffee. Perhaps you’ll do some pilates, or do a crossword in the garden.

1pm – You’re back from lunch and it’s straight back to live chat. A nanny has messaged for some advice. She’s working with a child who is struggling to focus on his homework. You can tell she’s feeling a bit frustrated and doesn’t know what to do. You suggest she speaks with someone from our Nanny Coaching Team and you send her the link for her to book in a call. You also send out some prepared resources straight to the nanny’s inbox. She’s so grateful we can help her and she thanks you for being so supportive.

2pm – There is a booked call that you grab from a family who is about to return to work after their maternity leave. They are overwhelmed with their childcare decision and want to talk about all the paperwork they would need to do if they hired a nanny. You love calls like this as you know that Koru Kids takes away the mental load on all of this stuff. You can’t wait to reassure the family that we take care of it all using our app.

3pm – The general inbox is looking a bit busy so you take a few emails to work on. One family has been in touch as they want to bring their contract to an end. They’re moving out of London next month, so need some advice on how to end their arrangement. You check through their contract and advise them on their notice period. They’re going to speak to their nanny tonight, whilst you start to wrap things up on the system. You pencil a reminder for yourself to check in with them tomorrow to see how their conversation went.

4pm – A nanny calls as she’s starting work with a family next week, but she’s confused about what she needs to do for her DBS check. You can see she hasn’t yet booked an appointment to show us her documents. You pull up the booking system and schedule an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. After the call, you send her a follow-up email with her booking confirmation and information on which documents she’ll need to bring. She replies to your email to let you know you’ve been super helpful!

5.30pm – The phone lines are closed, so you do one last check of your inbox. It’s been a busy day but you feel a huge amount of satisfaction when you send off that last email for the day. You close your laptop and enjoy the rest of your evening.

• A 45 minute remote timed test (at a time that suits you)
• A call with Sam (Customer Support Manager)
• A Zoom chat with Mando (Customer Support Team Lead) and Sam
• Reference checks & a meet the team call

Diversity & Inclusion

We embrace diversity and equality in a serious way. We are committed to building a team with a variety of backgrounds, skills and views. The more inclusive we are, the better our work will be. Creating a culture of Equality isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s also the smart thing.