Support and Operations Associate

Founded during the pandemic, Lightning Reach is an award-winning tech for good startup that streamlines access to financial support, making a real difference amidst the cost of living crisis. Our one-stop portal enables people in financial need to find and apply for multiple sources of support quickly and easily online, in one place - while using innovative technology (e.g. open banking and ID verification) to streamline administration and outreach for organisations which can help.

We’re impact-driven, revenue generating and work with leading partners such as Lambeth Council, the Royal British Legion and TSB. Since our portal launched 4 years ago, we’ve already reached over 280,000 people and facilitated over £25m in funding to individuals in need. We’ve won awards including the Tech Nation Rising Stars 4.0 Diversity & Inclusion Leading the Way Award, been featured in The Guardian and are backed by Techstars, Innovate UK and Nesta.

About the Role

Lightning Reach is on a mission to be the leading global platform that seamlessly connects people to personalised financial and wellbeing support, empowering them to improve their financial health and thrive. We’re looking for a User Support and Operations Associate to work closely with our Business Operations Manager and play a key role in shaping how the business operates as we scale. This is an exciting opportunity for a strong all rounder to join us and play a hands-on role in delivering excellent customer support, helping users navigate the platform and access the support they need.

You must be a self-starter with excellent written communication skills, motivated by our vision of enabling anyone to access the support they need to build lasting financial resilience. This is an exciting opportunity to make a real difference within a fast-growing early stage startup and continuously improve the customer journey and user experience. This is a fully remote role offering flexibility, autonomy and the chance to do meaningful work in the tech-for-good space. This role is available on a part-time or full-time basis.

Responsibilities

• Provide day-to-day user support: Manage day to day enquiries, providing excellent customer service and care for our vulnerable user base.
• Ownership of user support processes: Take responsibility for handling support queries and maintaining clear, effective processes, flagging issues and suggesting practical improvements where needed.
• Maintain the knowledge base: Create, update, and improve help articles and guidance for individuals and support workers to ensure information is accurate and easy to understand.
• Be the voice of the user: Gather and share user feedback with the wider team, representing user needs and insights in product and business decisions.
• Support communications: Write clear, user-focused copy and help produce content across channels as needed.

Requirements

• High emotional intelligence and empathy: You’re comfortable supporting people in vulnerable situations or experiencing financial hardship. You approach every interaction with sensitivity, respect, and a genuine desire to achieve a meaningful outcome for the user.
• Customer support or client-facing experience: You have experience proactively helping customers solve problems, building trust and communicating clearly across channels.
• Ownership mindset: You don’t wait to be told what to do; you identify problems, communicate them clearly and take responsibility for driving things forward.
• Strong written communication skills: You can write clear, user-focused copy, and think creatively about how to communicate information in a way that’s easy to understand.
• Reliable and detail-oriented: You deliver high quality work on time, pay close attention to detail and take ownership of moving tasks forward.
• Highly organised: You’re able to manage multiple priorities and deadlines at once without losing focus or quality.
• Adaptable and comfortable with ambiguity: You can work effectively in a fast-changing environment, adjusting your approach as the organisation and role evolve.
• Flexible and solutions focused: You’re happy to step in where needed, tackle a wide range of tasks across customer support and operations, and approach new challenges with a practical, problem solving mindset.

Nice to have

• You don’t need to meet all of the criteria below to apply. These are additional skills or experiences that would be helpful in the role, but we’re most interested in someone who is eager to learn, takes ownership and is motivated to grow with us.
• Knowledge of the charitable or public sector: Familiarity with the support available to people experiencing financial hardship.
• Communications experience: Experience planning and delivering content across multiple channels (such as email, web, or social), with a user-focused approach.
• Service operations or ownership experience: Experience taking ownership beyond day to day customer support (for example, improving processes, documentation or workflows) and familiarity with helpdesk or ticketing systems such as Freshdesk.
• Motivation to grow in the tech-for-good space: A strong interest in developing new skills and building a long-term career within a tech-for-good or social enterprise organisation.
• Lived experience: Applicants with personal experience of financial hardship, or have received support from charitable organisations are strongly encouraged to apply.
• Diversity: We believe that diversity brings strength and fosters innovation, and are seeking candidates from a range of backgrounds, including gender identity, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexuality, disability.