Customer and Merchant Advocacy III Agent

About the role

The CMAT III is a senior individual contributor on the Customer & Merchant Advocacy Team responsible for managing the most complex, high-risk, and time-sensitive customer and merchant escalations. This role operates at the intersection of risk management, regulatory compliance, customer experience, and operational execution.

Key Responsibilities

• Daily Operations & Task Management: Own and complete all assigned daily operational tasks within established timeframes, including account closure monitoring, refund processing, charge-off queries, gatekeeper queue management, strategic partner (SP) requests, and Customer Advocate (CA) inbox monitoring.
• Maintain full coverage of all daily responsibilities when a teammate is absent and escalate immediately if coverage is at risk. Must be capable of shifting priorities dynamically in response to complaint volume, escalation spikes, or team coverage needs.
• Strategic Partner & Specialized Case Management: Manage ongoing casework for assigned merchant partners, including daily case review, customer and merchant follow-up, and resolution tracking. Prepare and distribute weekly strategic partner reports on schedule per partner-specific requirements. Route all outbound customer and merchant correspondence exclusively through the CA shared inbox. Monitor and manage SP case agent correspondence requests via the designated Slack channel and established workflow.
• Escalation Handling & Agent Support: Serve as the senior escalation resource for CMAT agents—taking ownership of complex, high-risk, or policy-sensitive situations that exceed standard agent scope and drive them to resolution. Handle leadership-requested outbound contacts, negotiating outcomes that balance the needs of the customer, the merchant, and Koalafi. Assist with escalated inbound calls from CMAT agents and serve as backup coverage for frontline agent Slack channels if/when needs arise. Support ad hoc requests from cross-functional and leadership teams, responding with the same ownership and timeliness expected of all CMAT-level work.
• Support resolution of time-sensitive complaints, regulatory inquiries, and customer or merchant-impacting escalations within defined SLAs.
• Reporting & Communication: Maintain current knowledge of company policies, product offerings, and system updates to ensure accurate, appropriate support is provided at all times; proactively close knowledge gaps as changes occur. Identify and surface process and product improvement opportunities—particularly recurring patterns that drive customer dissatisfaction or preventable escalations—and communicate findings to CMAT leadership and relevant business owners. Provide continuous, structured feedback to business owners and operations leadership to reduce escalation volume, improve agent tools, and increase first-touch resolution rates. Maintain transparent, timely communication in public team channels to support shared visibility, learning, and accountability.
• Case Agent Quality Assurance: Own weekly QA review for CMAT case agents, completing the required number of case reviews per agent each week within the established cadence. Evaluate cases for execution quality, policy adherence, communication standards, and escalation appropriateness across all assigned QA categories; scope will expand over time as CMAT QA coverage grows. Document findings accurately and completely, ensuring QA records are ready for the CMAT Supervisor to incorporate into regular 1:1 discussion with case agents. Surface trends, recurring errors, or systemic gaps identified through QA to CMAT leadership—QA output should inform coaching, process improvements, and risk mitigation, not simply record individual errors.
• Manage CMAT-facing content in Guru alongside CMAT leadership. Manage CMAT-facing Guru cards on their established verification schedules—review cadence varies by card; CMAT III agents are responsible for tracking and meeting each card's scheduled review date.

About You (Qualifications)

• 2+ years of experience in customer advocacy, dispute resolution, complaint handling, or other related operations role.
• Demonstrated ability to manage high volumes of time-sensitive tasks independently and with consistent accuracy.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; ability to communicate clearly in fast-paced, multi-channel environments (Slack, email, Salesforce, and phone).
• High level of accountability and ownership; consistently follows through without requiring escalation or reminders.
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity and making sound decisions when not all information is available.
• Experience working within cross-functional teams with overlapping ownership and escalation paths.
• Proficiency with CRM systems (Salesforce preferred) and collaboration tools (Slack, shared inboxes).

Preferred

• Prior experience in a senior or lead individual contributor role within an advocacy, compliance, or operations team.
• Familiarity with regulatory complaint handling processes (e.g., CFPB, state-level consumer protection).
• Experience managing merchant or strategic partner relationships.
• Background in consumer financial services, fintech, or lease-to-own operations.
• Demonstrated ability to identify systemic issues and surface operational risk signals.

Location Requirement

This position requires regular in-person attendance at our office location (Richmond, VA). Candidates must already be located within a commutable distance to this location, as relocation assistance is not available at this time.