Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Mobile and Smart Living Advisor

🎯 Role Definition

The Mobile and Smart Living Advisor is a customer-facing technical consultant responsible for recommending, designing, coordinating and supporting mobile connectivity and smart home/IoT solutions for residential and small business clients. This role combines presales advisory, field or virtual assessments, solution configuration, partner/vendor coordination, installation oversight, training, and aftercare. The advisor acts as the customer advocate across product, engineering and operations teams to ensure secure, usable and commercially viable smart-living deployments that meet KPIs for adoption, retention and satisfaction.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Retail Mobile Sales Advisor or In‑Store Consultant
Field Technician / Smart Home Installer / Cabling Technician
Technical Support or Customer Success Representative for IoT/smart devices

Advancement To:

Senior Mobile & Smart Living Advisor / Team Lead
Solutions Architect (IoT / Smart Home)
Product Manager — Smart Living / Connected Services
Business Development Manager — IoT & Smart Home

Lateral Moves:

Project Manager — Field Services
Customer Success Manager — Connected Devices
Retail Operations Manager with IoT focus

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Conduct detailed needs assessments for residential and small-business customers, including site surveys (physical or virtual), usage profiling, and constraints analysis to design tailored mobile + smart living solutions that balance cost, connectivity and privacy.
Create and present end-to-end proposals and technical quotations that combine mobile plans, home connectivity (Wi‑Fi mesh, extenders), smart devices (sensors, cameras, locks, thermostats), cloud integrations and subscription services.
Lead technical consultations explaining trade-offs between connectivity options (DSL, fiber, LTE/5G fallback, Wi‑Fi 6/6E), device compatibility, power/installation constraints and ongoing support implications.
Design solution architectures that ensure interoperability across ecosystems (Matter, Thread, Zigbee, Z‑Wave, Bluetooth LE) and integrate with major voice assistants and smart platforms (Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit).
Coordinate and schedule installation and commissioning activities with field technicians, subcontractors and network operations to ensure smooth activation and minimal disruption to the customer.
Configure and provision devices and gateways, perform on‑site or remote device pairing, mesh network optimization and firmware updates to guarantee stable operation and security baseline.
Troubleshoot complex connectivity, device interoperability and cloud synchronization issues end-to-end, liaising with NOC, vendor support and engineering teams to resolve escalations promptly.
Drive adoption of managed services and subscription offerings by demonstrating value through hands-on demos, in-store or in-home trials, proof‑of‑concepts and clear ROI explanations to customers.
Maintain up-to-date product knowledge and lab/demo setups to showcase feature capabilities, new releases and integration scenarios for both customers and internal sales channels.
Train customers, household members or on‑site staff on device usage, maintenance, privacy settings and safe operation practices; create customized guides and follow-up materials.
Ensure that all smart living deployments comply with company policies and industry regulations for data protection, lawful device use and electrical safety; escalate compliance issues when detected.
Monitor customer usage and device telemetry (with consent), analyze trends for churn risk or upsell opportunities, and recommend actions to the retention and product teams.
Manage the full lifecycle of customer orders from intake through provisioning, installation verification and post‑installation satisfaction checks; own the customer experience until the solution is stable.
Act as the technical escalation point for retail and partner channels, providing guidance, troubleshooting steps and playbooks to resolve complex sales or service issues quickly.
Drive continuous improvement by collecting customer feedback, identifying common pain points and collaborating with product and engineering to deliver firmware, UX or service improvements.
Prepare and maintain accurate technical documentation, installation records, service tickets and configuration baselines in CRM and ticketing systems.
Negotiate and manage relationships with hardware vendors, installation partners and subcontractors to ensure SLAs, warranty handling and spare parts availability.
Support marketing and sales enablement by contributing technical copy, case studies, demo scenarios, and FAQs that help convert leads into smart living customers.
Perform pre‑sales technical validation for complex or commercial customers, including capacity planning, interference analysis and risk assessments for multi‑device households or multi‑tenanted sites.
Lead pilot programs and small-scale rollouts for new smart living features or devices, collecting KPIs, user feedback and success metrics to inform broader deployments.
Implement and promote security best practices: device hardening, secure onboarding, strong password guidance, network segmentation for IoT devices and timely firmware patching strategies.
Coordinate warranty and RMA processes for defective devices, including troubleshooting to validate failures, initiating returns and ensuring replacements are provisioned promptly.
Provide structured handover to account management and support teams with runbooks, acceptance criteria and recommended monitoring thresholds for each deployed solution.
Advocate for accessibility and inclusive design in smart living solutions by recommending device and UI choices that support elderly or mobility‑impaired users.

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.
Maintain a demo lab of integrated devices and connectivity options for training and validation.
Assist in creating standard operating procedures (SOPs) and training modules for new advisors and installation partners.
Help define KPIs and SLAs for smart living services and report on performance to regional managers.
Participate in trade shows, community events and in‑store activations to demonstrate smart living scenarios and drive interest.
Support pilot partnerships with utilities, insurers or health providers by aligning connected device capabilities with partner requirements.
Act as a subject matter expert for legal and procurement teams when evaluating new device contracts or data processing agreements.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Deep understanding of home and small‑business networking: Wi‑Fi architectures (mesh, access points, Wi‑Fi 6/6E), Ethernet, NAT, DHCP, VLANs and QoS tuning for streaming and real‑time devices.
Practical experience with cellular technologies and integration: LTE, NB‑IoT, CAT‑M, 5G fallback models and SIM/eSIM provisioning for connected devices.
Proficiency with common smart home and IoT protocols: Matter, Thread, Zigbee, Z‑Wave, Bluetooth LE, MQTT, CoAP and RESTful APIs.
Familiarity with cloud IoT platforms and provisioning tools (AWS IoT, Azure IoT Hub, Google Cloud IoT) and basic cloud service configuration for device telemetry and OTA updates.
Hands‑on device provisioning, firmware upgrade procedures and troubleshooting workflows for consumer IoT devices (cameras, hubs, thermostats, sensors).
Knowledge of home automation platforms and integration points: Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, and manufacturer SDKs.
Strong command of cybersecurity best practices for IoT: secure onboarding, encryption, certificate management, network segmentation and vulnerability management.
Competence using CRM, ticketing and field workforce management tools (Salesforce, Zendesk, ServiceNow, field service scheduling).
Basic scripting or automation skills (Python, Bash) to automate diagnostics, parse logs and create repeatable test procedures.
Experience with analytics and telemetry interpretation (Grafana, Kibana, basic SQL) to analyze device health, usage and incident trends.
Familiarity with interoperability testing and device qualification procedures, as well as certification programs (Wi‑Fi Alliance, Zigbee Alliance/Matter).
Knowledge of electrical safety, low‑voltage wiring and installation best practices relevant to smart home hardware.

Soft Skills

Consultative selling and customer needs discovery — able to translate technical constraints into clear customer benefits and commercial outcomes.
Excellent verbal and written communication, capable of explaining technical concepts in plain language to non‑technical customers.
Strong problem solving and critical thinking — diagnostic approach to isolate issues across device, network and cloud layers.
Project coordination and time management — juggle multiple orders, installations and escalations while meeting SLAs.
Empathy and active listening — understand unique customer contexts (seniors, families, small businesses) and adjust recommendations.
Collaboration and stakeholder management — work cross‑functionally with product, engineering, ops and vendor partners.
Attention to detail — maintain accurate configuration records and follow security and compliance checklists.
Resilience and adaptability — comfortable in a fast‑moving product environment with frequent hardware and firmware changes.
Training and mentoring skills — onboard new advisors or retail staff and share best practices.
Sales orientation and commercial acumen — identify upsell/cross‑sell opportunities while preserving customer trust.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

High school diploma or equivalent with demonstrable technical experience, or
Associate degree in a technical discipline.

Preferred Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Telecommunications, Information Technology, or Business with technical specialization.
Certifications in networking (CompTIA Network+, CCNA), cloud/IoT (AWS IoT, Azure IoT), or smart home ecosystems are a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Electrical / Electronics Engineering
Computer Science or Software Engineering
Telecommunications / Network Engineering
Information Systems / IoT Engineering
Product Management / Business Technology

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 2–6 years in customer-facing technical roles (retail/field/technical support) with at least 1–2 years focused on smart home, IoT or connected services.

Preferred:

3–5+ years delivering or supporting smart home or IoT solutions, field installations, or network provisioning.
Proven track record of consultative sales or upsell in a telecom, retail or managed services environment.
Experience working with cross-functional teams (product, engineering, ops) to deliver production‑grade connected services.