Role Overview
Clients don’t hire for this role just to “answer questions.” They need someone who protects customer relationships at scale—across both D2C and B2B channels. In a Shopify + Wholesale model, every ticket is a revenue touchpoint, a retention lever, or a risk flag. Your role is to ensure buyers (retail or reseller) walk away informed, satisfied, and confident in the brand. That trust drives repeat orders, long-term accounts, and high-value referrals.
This is not just support—it’s frontline account stewardship. You won’t be scripting basic replies or deflecting complaints. You’ll be managing expectations, flagging operational gaps, and speaking the language of resellers who expect priority service and fast resolutions. If mistakes go unchecked, clients lose deals, damage their reputation, or burn wholesale partners. But when handled right, your work boosts AOV, reduces churn, and strengthens business alignment across customer types.
Standards You Must Meet
• Every customer touchpoint—retail or reseller—must be handled with accuracy, empathy, and urgency; vague updates or missed follow-ups will erode trust fast.
• You’re expected to resolve issues in a way that reflects the brand’s standards, not just close tickets—partial fixes or deflections don’t count.
• Wholesale buyers expect VIP treatment; delays, unclear policies, or weak communication here can cost the client high-volume accounts.
• You should spot patterns across tickets, flag recurring issues, and recommend fixes—clients expect you to think upstream, not just react.
• Response time matters, but quality matters more—each reply must be clear, tone-correct, and matched to the customer type (D2C vs B2B).
• Resellers will test product knowledge; you must respond like an insider, not someone reading off a help doc.
• Escalation is not failure—but silence, sugarcoating, or hiding problems is. Clients need visibility into what’s breaking and why.
• Ultimately, your work should reduce churn, grow account value, and turn support into retention. If it’s not delivering those, it isn’t working.
What You’ll Be Doing
• Respond promptly and precisely to customer tickets across D2C and B2B channels, aligning tone and answers to buyer type.
• Manage wholesale support issues with speed and precision, ensuring resellers feel prioritized and informed at every step.
• Maintain accurate, real-time updates on open issues — no ticket should stall, go dark, or close without resolution clarity.
• Investigate recurring complaints or delays, identify root causes, and flag them with upstream context to ops or leadership.
• Escalate critical issues early with full transparency, no sugarcoating — lay out facts, risks, and next steps.
• Resolve order, product, shipping, or policy questions confidently using Shopify and support tools without defaulting to guesswork.
• Use templating and automation features to streamline repetitive tasks without sacrificing communication quality.
• Review every customer interaction from the buyer’s view and adjust approach to build trust, drive retention, and protect account value.
What You’ll Hand Over
• A clean, fully resolved ticket log with accurate tags, timestamps, and customer communication threads across both D2C and B2B channels.
• A live issues tracker highlighting unresolved patterns, flagged breakpoints, and recommended fixes for upstream review.
• A customer service response library updated with brand-aligned templates, tone variations, and approval workflows.
• Weekly summary of VIP/reseller interactions including escalations, applied policies, and potential churn signals.
• A current support metrics dashboard showing response times, resolution rates, and volume breakdown by channel and customer type.
Tools You’ll Need to Use
• Shopify Admin Panel – Core platform for managing orders, customer accounts, and product-related issues during support interactions.
• Gorgias (or equivalent helpdesk) – Central tool for ticket management, multi-channel communication, and response tracking.
• Google Workspace (Gmail, Sheets, Docs) – Standard suite for internal documentation, email correspondence, and report tracking.
• Slack – Primary tool for team communication, status updates, and real-time coordination with internal teams.
• Zoom – Used for internal syncs, training, and, when needed, client-facing discussions regarding service flow or escalations.
• ShipStation / Easyship (or equivalent) – Key logistics tool for tracking orders, resolving shipping issues, and communicating fulfillment updates.
• QuickBooks / Xero (Read-only familiarity) – Enables basic understanding of invoicing or payment queries that may surface through support channels.
Why Work Smarter
If a Customer Service VA cannot reduce repetitive tasks through automation—or at least recognize where automation should be implemented—the client loses money every week. This is not about coding. It’s about functional awareness: how workflows can be streamlined, how tickets can be auto-tagged, how responses can be templated, how data can move without human friction.
While this skill isn’t strictly required yet, it’s rapidly becoming the baseline expectation. OES sets AI and automation awareness as a core standard, because the best clients already demand it—and they don’t wait for talent to catch up.
Why Your Work Matters
Right now, brands running on Shopify + Wholesale live or die by how well they protect buyer confidence—in both retail and reseller channels. One missed follow-up, one unclear policy message, or one slow response to a high-volume B2B partner can undo months of sales momentum. This role is not about answering questions—it’s about protecting revenue, preserving account value, and actively preventing churn. If you mishandle a ticket, the business feels it in lost orders, broken trust, and damaged brand perception that spreads fast in tightly connected markets.
Clients don’t invest in customer service for coverage—they invest for conversion, retention, and protection. A sharp, reliable Customer Service Expert keeps their accounts stable, their resellers loyal, and their ticket flows cleaned up before they become fire hazards. You are a cross-channel operator with frontline visibility into what’s working and what’s breaking. When done right, your work becomes the edge that holds wholesale deals together, recovers DTC loyalty, and feeds core business insights back to ops. That’s why OES doesn’t treat this role as optional—it’s mission-critical from day one.
What We Expect From You
As a Specialist in Customer Service for Shopify + Wholesale at OES, you are expected to operate with a high degree of judgment and tactical discipline. You understand that wholesale setups are often fast-paced, margin-sensitive, and client-reputation critical. You’re not just responding to tickets — you’re protecting relationships, maintaining compliance with brand and platform policies, and ensuring buyers feel supported at every stage of the pipeline. You know when to escalate, when to hold the line, and when speed is non-negotiable. You work with strategic awareness of how service impacts profitability, from order flow to disputes to B2B expectations.
We’re looking for someone who takes full ownership of the role — someone who doesn’t just wait for a playbook, but knows how to operate when things are ambiguous yet urgent. You make decisions grounded in data, not mood. You hold accurate records, respond with clarity, and enforce account boundaries without losing humanity. This is a Specialist role — which means risk, accountability, and autonomy are part of the job. If you’re not ready to lead with sound judgment and deliver reliable execution in wholesale operations, this seat is not for you.
Login to Get Matched
To view salary standard, expectation based on experience level, or even request a customize or personalize version of this role, please log in.
$525 – $1,400
OES salary standards reflect real market benchmarks, tier and experience level, ensuring fair pay for VAs and realistic expectations for clients.
Can't find a client that fits?
You can get it here, we will match you based on your preferences - salary, set up, schedule and more. Just say the word, we got you covered!