Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Inquiry Analyst

🎯 Role Definition

The Inquiry Analyst is responsible for receiving, triaging, investigating and resolving customer and internal inquiries across email, phone, chat and ticketing systems. This role blends customer-facing service with analytical problem solving: you will use CRM and reporting tools to identify root causes, maintain SLA compliance, escalate complex issues to subject-matter experts, and recommend process improvements. The ideal candidate balances rapid, high-quality inquiry resolution with data-driven insights that reduce rework and recurring incidents.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Customer Service Representative with strong analytical aptitude
Junior Data Analyst / Reporting Analyst in an operations team
Technical Support Specialist or Helpdesk Analyst

Advancement To:

Senior Inquiry Analyst / Lead Inquiry Analyst
Customer Experience Analyst / CX Insights Analyst
Operations Manager or Escalations Manager

Lateral Moves:

Business Analyst (operations or product)
Process Improvement / Continuous Improvement Specialist
Compliance or Risk Analyst focused on customer processes

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Triage and prioritize inbound inquiries across multiple channels (email, chat, phone, ticketing system), ensuring each case is logged with accurate metadata and routed according to severity and SLA requirements.
Perform end-to-end investigation of complex customer issues by combining CRM records, transaction logs, system traces and third-party data sources to determine root cause and required remediation.
Resolve routine inquiries directly and complete detailed case notes, remediation actions, and follow-up steps in the CRM to maintain clear audit trails and handoffs.
Manage and meet SLA targets for first response and resolution times; proactively flag and escalate tickets that risk breaching SLA to appropriate teams or supervisors.
Coordinate cross-functional escalations with engineering, product, billing, fraud, legal and compliance teams; own communication to stakeholders until the inquiry is fully resolved.
Prepare and present weekly and monthly KPI dashboards that summarize ticket volume, resolution times, backlog trends, root cause categories and SLA performance using Power BI, Tableau or Excel.
Conduct root cause analysis for recurring inquiry patterns, produce corrective action recommendations, and drive implementation with process owners to reduce repeat incidents.
Create and maintain knowledge base articles, standard operating procedures and troubleshooting guides to enable faster resolution and scale knowledge across support teams.
Run regular data quality and consistency checks on CRM and ticketing data, identify gaps or misclassifications, and collaborate with data engineering to remediate underlying issues.
Design and execute ad hoc analyses to quantify the impact of product changes, outages or policy updates on inquiry volumes and customer experience metrics.
Use SQL, Excel (pivot tables, VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP) and scripting (Python, R or similar where applicable) to extract, cleanse and analyze datasets to support root cause investigations and reporting needs.
Implement tagging, categorization and root-cause taxonomies within the ticketing system to improve analytics accuracy and reporting fidelity.
Lead post-incident reviews and post-mortem documentation after major outages or incidents, including timeline reconstruction, impact assessment and follow-up action plans.
Train and mentor junior analysts and frontline agents on case handling best practices, escalation protocols and correct use of CRM/ticketing tools.
Monitor and analyze customer sentiment from inquiries and survey feedback to recommend service improvements or escalation criteria modifications.
Build and maintain automated workflows and macros (e.g., templated responses, automated assignments) to reduce manual work and increase throughput.
Partner with product and policy teams to translate customer pain points into prioritized change requests and provide data-backed business cases.
Ensure all inquiry handling and communications meet regulatory, privacy and compliance requirements (e.g., data retention, confidentiality, KYC/AML where applicable).
Conduct regular audits of closed cases to ensure quality, accuracy of resolution reasons and adherence to process; provide feedback loops to agents and managers.
Forecast short-term and seasonal inquiry volume to help workforce planning, scheduling and resource allocation for peak periods.
Participate in cross-functional projects (product launches, system migrations, billing changes) to define support readiness plans, playbooks and customer communication strategies.
Maintain clear, empathetic customer communication during escalations and be the single point of contact for complex, multi-team issue resolution until closure.
Monitor third-party vendor performance where external services are used for inquiry handling and coordinate remediation or escalations when vendor SLAs are breached.
Drive continuous improvement initiatives by analyzing operational bottlenecks, presenting data-driven recommendations and tracking the impact of implemented process changes.
Act as a feedback conduit between customers, frontline teams and leadership to influence product roadmap decisions based on inquiry trends and quantified impact.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

CRM systems (Salesforce Service Cloud, Zendesk, Freshdesk, Microsoft Dynamics): ticket logging, SLA configuration, and case management.
Ticketing and incident management tools: experience with Jira Service Desk, ServiceNow, or equivalent for issue tracking and escalation workflows.
SQL: ability to write queries for data extraction, joins, aggregations and basic performance tuning to support investigations.
Advanced Excel: pivot tables, advanced formulas, XLOOKUP/VLOOKUP, data validation and conditional formatting for rapid analysis.
Data visualization: Power BI or Tableau experience to build dashboards and operational reports for stakeholders.
Scripting / automation basics (Python, R, or VBA): automate repetitive tasks, clean data and generate repeatable reports.
Data quality and ETL awareness: familiarity with data pipelines, source-of-truth concepts and common data integrity checks.
Root cause analysis frameworks: fishbone diagrams, 5 Whys, incident retrospectives and RCA documentation.
Reporting & KPI design: defining meaningful metrics (MTTR, first contact resolution, backlog, NPS impact) and building actionable reports.
Knowledge management platforms: creation and maintenance of knowledge base content to reduce handle time and improve first contact resolution.
Compliance & security awareness: familiarity with privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA) and secure handling of sensitive customer information.
API and integration basics: understanding how to interpret logs and integrate third-party data where relevant.

Soft Skills

Strong written and verbal communication: convey complex technical findings in clear, non-technical language to customers and stakeholders.
Customer empathy and service orientation: maintain calm, professional interactions while resolving sensitive or escalated issues.
Analytical and problem-solving mindset: comfortable synthesizing disparate data sources to pinpoint causes and propose solutions.
Attention to detail: accurately document case notes and follow processes to enable repeatable, auditable resolution paths.
Time management and prioritization: balance incoming volume with SLA commitments and strategic project work.
Stakeholder management: influence cross-functional teams and coordinate multi-team responses under time pressure.
Adaptability and learning agility: quickly learn new products, tools and processes as the business evolves.
Collaboration and team leadership: mentor junior staff, share knowledge and contribute to continuous improvement initiatives.
Critical thinking and judgment: escalate appropriately and make trade-offs under uncertainty while maintaining quality.
Resilience and stress tolerance: handle high-volume or emotionally charged inquiries without degradation in service quality.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in a related field (Business, Communications, Information Systems, Computer Science, Data Analytics).

Preferred Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Business Analytics, Data Science, Information Systems, Computer Science, or a related discipline; certifications in customer service, data analytics or CRM systems are a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Business Administration
Data Analytics / Data Science
Information Systems / Computer Science
Communications or Customer Experience
Finance or Accounting (for billing-heavy environments)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

1–5 years of hands-on experience in customer support, operational analysis, technical support or inquiry resolution roles.

Preferred:

3+ years working as an Inquiry Analyst, Escalations Analyst, Customer Success / Support Analyst, or similar role with demonstrated experience using CRM/ticketing systems, SQL and dashboarding tools; experience in regulated industries (finance, healthcare, telecom) is beneficial.