Customer Care and Technical Support

About Encoura: Encoura is a premier, internationally recognized higher education technology provider, enrollment data strategist, and mission-driven solutions pioneer operating on an absolute mission to protect, automate, and revolutionize how students and academic institutions establish meaningful connections. Since 1972, the company has evolved its robust product suites and tech-enabled services to maximize student outcomes, optimize college enrollment pathways, and empower individuals to make highly informed educational decisions. Spanning critical sectors across institutional enrollment management, predictive market research, targeted marketing, and student advancement analytics, Encoura hosts Encourage®—the nation’s largest completely free college and career planning network leveraged by millions of high school pupils and educators across North America. Driven by a supportive, mission-focused corporate philosophy centered around equity, empathetic delivery, and high communication fidelity, the company equips support professionals with an uncompromised remote canvas to leverage state-of-the-art helpdesk tools, manipulate multi-tier ticketing flows, and deploy educational success solutions nationwide.

Position Overview

We are seeking a highly analytical, connection-obsessed, and systems-minded Customer Care and Technical Support specialist to join our core centralized Customer Service team under a seasonal, full-time remote engagement framework open to qualified support providers residing within our approved domestic regions in the United States. Operating as the primary frontline contact node for student families, parents, and secondary educators utilizing our online learning platforms and equipment, you will step up to claim true individual operational accountability over inbound ticket remediation, equipment onboarding, and customer satisfaction metrics. Shifting completely away from routine administrative form logging, unhelpful automated robocalls, passive document filing, or minor disconnected script reading loops, you will run an active software troubleshooting, hardware diagnostics, and high-empathy user support laboratory—resolving multi-tier customer calls and emails within a virtual contact center environment. This position requires an energetic communicator with a high school diploma and verifiable equipment maintenance history who resolves end-user system issues fluidly natively using Customer Support methodologies, diagnoses peripheral hardware bottlenecks cleanly natively leveraging Technical Support frameworks, and handles high-volume ticketing queues confidently under a 40-hour per week schedule.

Key Responsibilities

• Frontline Virtual Support Engagement: Act as the initial technical touchpoint for student families and institutional users, managing inbound calls and emails to deliver delightful, empathetic, and efficient problem resolutions cleanly natively utilizing Customer Support systems.
• End-User Onboarding & Software Guidance: Provide clear, introductory procedural walkthroughs to new and existing users regarding software application parameters, enrollment policies, and product functionalities.
• Hardware and Peripheral Diagnostics: Remotely troubleshoot, configure, and resolve computer, printer, phone, and peripheral hardware installation issues to guarantee stable home learning environments natively leveraging Technical Support principles.
• Rigorous Helpdesk Ticket Administration: Open, maintain, update, and properly document user interaction trails, software bugs, and technical metadata within a web-based helpdesk ticketing platform.
• Knowledge Base Auditing and Escalation: Utilize extensive corporate knowledge bases to drive first-call resolutions, while actively identifying and escalating unique technical edge cases or information inaccuracies to your immediate supervisor.
• Cross-Product Advisory Mapping: Translate complex educational options—such as the differences between public schools, private charter systems, and home schooling models—into easily scannable recommendations matching parent scenarios.
• Security and Authentication Compliance: Complete and pass specialized CLEAR™ identity validation and maintain active enrollment within Okta multi-factor authentication (MFA) protocols to protect enterprise system endpoints.

Required Skills & Qualifications

• Core Age and Education Prerequisite: Possession of a High School Diploma or verified equivalent certification, coupled with a minimum age requirement of 18 years old at the date of onboarding.
• Advanced Communication Fluency: Exceptional English verbal and written presentation properties, matching or exceeding verified CEF C1 capability benchmarks to handle delicate parent dynamics.
• Expert-tier capability managing user communication loops, clarifying enrollment rules, and driving customer loyalty metrics natively utilizing Customer Support systems.
• Practical operational familiarity auditing computer device installations, configuring operating system files, and rectifying hardware driver failures natively using Technical Support tools across diverse home environments.
• Home Network System Compliance: A reliable, permanent home internet workspace delivering a minimum of 30 Mbps download speeds, 15 Mbps upload capacity, and less than 100ms ping metrics via stable Cable, Fiber, or DSL lines (strictly excluding cellular hotspots, mobile broadband, or satellite setups).
• Demonstrated multi-tasking competency, with deep computer literacy and fluid web browser navigation mechanics under real-time phone call conditions.
• Schedule Commit Alignment: Full availability and dedication to execute a seasonal full-time schedule encompassing 40 hours per week, including active participation in a paid 2-week training program.
• Location Context: Position open strictly to qualified customer care operators located and resident within approved states within the United States to operate under a home-based virtual center framework.

Preferred Strategic Indicators (Nice to Have)

• Prior professional experience of 1 or more years working inside an active call center, virtual helpdesk center, B2C customer service engine, or tech-enabled ed-tech framework.
• Completion of a college degree or ongoing higher education enrollment within an accredited institution.
• Direct familiarity working with enterprise identity management software (Okta), authenticator systems, or web-based ticketing infrastructure (Zendesk, Jira Service Desk).

What We Offer

• Vetted, Hourly Educational Support Blueprint: A stable, competitive seasonal hourly pay scale set uniformly at $13.00 USD per hour, formulated transparently through rigorous national market benchmarks and internal organizational equity guidelines.
• Comprehensive, fully paid 2-week technical and product training program to fully arm you with the data, systems knowledge, and policy understanding needed to succeed.
• The exceptional opportunity to stack real-world, hands-on experience across the customer experience (CX) sector, enhancing your communication and systems multi-tasking attributes.
• Profound work-from-home remote parameters allowing a 100% remote layout within approved regions, eliminating expensive vehicle transit costs and physical office commuting friction.
• Integration into an uncommonly collaborative, empathetic, and mission-driven team infrastructure that actively transforms the future of higher education navigation across America.