Product Manager – Support Agent Experience

Difference You Will Make:

• Championing the Mission: Advocate for both the Community Support Platform team’s mission and the Global Operations team’s provisioning needs, ensuring alignment with Airbnb’s overarching goals.
• Streamlining Provisioning: You’ll be responsible for evolving the technology that underpins our provisioning processes, addressing the inherent complexities of managing a global workforce. Your focus will be on enhancing the tools and systems used for onboarding, offboarding, and account updates for tens of thousands of employees annually. This includes refining the technology that manages roles, ensuring that permissions are granted appropriately based on job function and seniority. Recognizing the challenges of overlapping roles, multi-tiered access requirements, and diverse operational needs, you’ll drive the development of a more intuitive and efficient system. Your leadership will ensure that Airbnb’s provisioning technology is cutting-edge, secure, and adeptly addresses the complexities of a dynamic workforce.
• Driving Innovation: Introduce new features and functionalities that elevate the support and provisioning experiences.
• Empowering Teams: Equip support agents with optimized tools, enabling them to provide exceptional service to the Airbnb community. By deeply understanding the needs and challenges of support agents, you’ll ensure their voice is central in the product development process. Actively soliciting their feedback, you’ll identify gaps and opportunities in the current toolset, ensuring that enhancements address their pain points and empower them to excel in their roles. Your commitment to their success will not only elevate the support experience for our community but also foster a culture where every agent feels valued and heard.

Typical Day:

In the fast-paced and dynamic environment of Airbnb, no two days are the same. While the landscape is ever-evolving, here are some of the activities you’ll engage in on a typical day:

• Morning Sync with Engineering: Begin your day with a review of ongoing projects, ensuring alignment on priorities and addressing any immediate blockers. Actively participate in product backlog grooming sessions. Collaborate closely with the engineering team to clarify requirements, refine user stories, and ensure that the team is set up for success in the upcoming sprints.
• Deep Dive with Global Operations: Understand the challenges and needs related to employee provisioning, gathering insights to inform product decisions.
• Vendor Meeting: Engage with potential technology vendors as part of a build vs. buy evaluation, assessing the feasibility and advantages of external solutions to meet our needs.
• Idea Generation Sessions with Engineering: Dedicate time to sit with engineers, brainstorming and discussing innovative solutions. Together, explore alternative approaches, and pinpoint opportunities for product and process enhancements, ensuring the technology we build effectively meets our users needs.
• Shadowing Support Agents: Observe support agent interactions and meet with site leads and operational managers to identify tooling improvements and gather first hand feedback.
• Collaboration with Design and Research: Partner with the design team to mock up potential new features or improvements. Engage with research to gain deeper insights into user behavior and needs, ensuring a user-centric approach in all product decisions.
• Data Analysis: Analyze data to measure tool impact, identify usage patterns, and spot areas for optimization.
• Stakeholder Meetings: Engage with internal stakeholders from various departments to gather feedback, manage expectations, and communicate upcoming changes.
• Feedback Loop: Establish regular feedback sessions with both support agents and the Global Operations team, ensuring their insights and concerns are at the forefront of product development.
• Product Roadmap Review: Dedicate time to review and adjust the product roadmap, ensuring alignment with business goals, team needs, and user feedback
• Close Collaboration and office presence: Please note that this role will require working closely with cross-functional teams, and in-office presence, as applicable, is necessary to enhance collaboration in alignment with business needs.

Responsibilities:

1. User-Centric Design: Dive deep into the daily workflows of our global support agents to truly understand their challenges and needs. Recognize that the tools they use are not just utilities, but key products that can significantly drive their efficiency and effectiveness. Prioritize the development and enhancement of agent tools that streamline tasks, automate repetitive processes, and provide intelligent insights, enabling agents to focus on more complex issues and deliver exceptional service.
2. Subject Matter Expertise: Position yourself as the subject matter expert in the domain of provisioning and agent tools. Collaborate closely with business leaders and engineers to ensure that our solutions remain state of the art and address the evolving needs of the organization.
3. Visionary Product Leadership: Formulate a longer-term product vision and roadmap that not only addresses immediate needs but also anticipates future challenges. Introduce innovations that enhance efficiency and ensure consistent experiences for our agents and the Airbnb community.
4. Research-Driven Decision Making: Regularly conduct industry research to stay informed on emerging trends and best practices in provisioning and agent tools. Complement this with user feedback sessions, ensuring that improvements to core features are grounded in both industry insights and the real-world experiences of our agents.
5. Iterative Improvement: Regularly review and optimize the tools used for support and provisioning, ensuring they are tailored to meet customer needs and are effective.
6. Collaboration: Work closely with engineering, design, and operations teams to deliver seamless tooling solutions that are responsive to customer expectations.
7. Data-Driven Decision Making: Utilize data analytics to prioritize product enhancements, ensuring alignment with Airbnb’s strategic goals.
8. Stakeholder Management: Engage with internal teams to gather requirements, manage expectations, and communicate product roadmaps, ensuring all teams are aligned for upcoming initiatives.

Qualifications:

• Minimum of 5 years of experience in customer support tools and technology, with a proven track record of delivering impact in that environment.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal abilities.
• Familiarity with agile methodologies and ability to adapt in a fast-paced environment.
• Passion for Airbnb’s mission and value