Account Representative

Job Summary

This role is responsible for delivering reliable, responsive, and high-quality customer experience from order initiation through final resolution. The Account Representative serves as a primary point of contact for customers, ensuring their needs are understood, expectations are clearly managed, and issues are addressed quickly and professionally.

This individual will oversee the full order lifecycle, coordinate across internal teams, and make practical decisions that balance customer service, operational efficiency, cost, and risk. Success in this role requires strong communication, attention to detail, sound judgment, and the ability to build trusted relationships with customers, sales partners, and cross-functional teams.

Essential Functions / Problem-Solving Accountabilities

• Collaborate with Sales to strengthen customer relationships, anticipate customer needs, identify potential growth opportunities, and recommend value-added next steps.
• Manage the full customer order process, including quote support, order entry, order changes, tracking, delivery coordination, issue resolution, and follow-up.
• Serve as a trusted customer contact by listening carefully, communicating clearly, and setting realistic expectations throughout the order lifecycle.
• Proactively identify order risks, service issues, or potential delays and take action before they impact the customer experience.
• Meet or exceed team standards for order accuracy, documentation, responsiveness, and cycle time.
• Ensure customer, order, and issue records are accurate, complete, and up to date, including status notes, actions taken, key contacts, decisions, and outcomes.
• Partner closely with Sales, Operations, Logistics, Finance, and other internal teams to remove blockers, resolve customer issues, and prevent repeat problems.
• Escalate complex or high-risk situations appropriately, while maintaining ownership through resolution.
• Protect the customer experience when problems occur by coordinating solutions, communicating updates, and following through on commitments.
• Identify recurring issues and recommend practical improvements to processes, policies, tools, or communication workflows.
• The company reserves the right to add or modify duties as needed.

Job Qualifications

Required

• High school diploma or equivalent required.
• 2+ years in a customer-facing role (customer service, account management, order management) in chemical distribution, manufacturing, logistics, or industrial products.
• Proven ability to take a messy issue (backorders, carrier misses, documentation errors, returns/claims), find the real cause, and drive it to closure with the right internal partners.
• Strong, straightforward communication-able to explain options and trade-offs, set expectations, and keep customers informed.
• High attention to detail and follow-through-gets the order, paperwork, and system notes right the first time.
• Comfort working with standard policies and knowing when to escalate based on customer impact, cost, and compliance risk.

Preferred

• Associate's or Bachelor's degree (Business, Supply Chain, Chemistry, or related) preferred.
• Hands-on experience in ERP/CRM tools-uses order, inventory, and shipment data to troubleshoot fast and document clearly.
• Experience supporting regulated products (SDS/COA, hazmat shipping, compliance-sensitive documentation) and partnering with Quality/EHS when needed.
• Track record of spotting repeat problems and pushing practical fixes (process, training, data cleanup) that stick.

Skills

• Advanced computer skills and demonstrated ability to handle high-volume email correspondence in a fast-paced environment.
• Problem-solving capability: Ability to work effectively with incomplete/conflicting information; ask clarifying questions; assess impact (customer, cost, service level, compliance); and select an appropriate resolution path (standard process vs. escalation).
• Compliance and documentation judgment: Comfort handling regulated products and time-sensitive documentation (e.g., SDS, COA, shipping paperwork, hazmat requirements); able to identify discrepancies, evaluate risk, and coordinate corrections with quality/EHS/compliance as needed.
• Analytical problem-solving: ability to frame issues, identify root cause, and select effective countermeasures in time-sensitive situations
• Decision-making under ambiguity: assesses risk, clarifies assumptions, and escalates appropriately based on impact and compliance exposure
• Customer advocacy and relationship management, including de-escalation and expectation-setting during service disruptions
• Prioritization and workflow management across multiple orders, stakeholders, and deadlines; continuously identifies opportunities to streamline processes

Work Environment

• Indoor/Standard Office Environment.

Physical Demands

• Sitting and/or alternate sitting and standing at will.
• Keyboarding. Entering text or data into a computer by means of a traditional keyboard.
• Speaking. Expressing or exchanging ideas by means of the spoken word to impart oral information to clients or the public and to convey detailed spoken instructions to other workers accurately, loudly, or quickly.
• Hearing Requirements. The ability to hear, understand and distinguish speech and/or other sounds. (i.e., in-person speech, telephone, computer, etc.)
• Near Visual Acuity. Clarity of vision at approximately 20 inches or less (i.e., use of computers.)

*This job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties, or responsibilities that are required of the employee. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change, or new ones may be assigned at any time with or without notice.