Senior Payroll Specialist – Product Support

Position Summary

We are looking for an experienced Senior Payroll Specialist – Product Support with strong hands-on knowledge of Indian Payroll, statutory compliance and payroll processing. The role will provide functional support to customers using a SaaS HRMS & Payroll platform and will act as a senior domain point of contact for complex payroll, compliance and product-related queries.

The ideal candidate should combine strong payroll expertise with excellent customer communication, problem-solving, ownership and customer-handling skills. The candidate must be able to understand a customer's business requirement, analyze the issue, explain the solution in simple business language, coordinate internally when required, and drive the case to closure within SLA.

Role Objective

• Provide accurate, timely and customer-focused functional support for payroll and HRMS-related queries.

• Use strong payroll-domain knowledge to identify the root cause of calculation, configuration, compliance and process issues.

• Handle complex and high-priority customer cases independently and take ownership until resolution.

• Act as a bridge between customers and internal Product, Development, QA and Operations teams.

• Improve customer experience through clear communication, proactive updates, effective troubleshooting and knowledge sharing.

• Contribute to product quality, UAT, knowledge base and continuous improvement initiatives.

Key Responsibilities

A. Payroll & Functional Product Support

• Provide functional support through calls, emails, chat, remote sessions and ticketing channels.

• Understand customer payroll processes, requirements and configurations before recommending a solution.

• Support customers during monthly payroll execution, payroll validation, approval and finalization.

• Troubleshoot salary calculation discrepancies, payroll processing errors, arrears, deductions, reimbursements and other payroll scenarios.

• Analyze payroll inputs, employee master data, salary structures, attendance/leave inputs and statutory deductions to identify the source of an issue.

• Guide customers on correct product processes and best practices without making unauthorized manual data corrections.

• Differentiate between product configuration issues, payroll-domain issues, user/process errors and potential product defects.

• Maintain complete and accurate ticket documentation, including issue summary, analysis, action taken, customer communication and resolution.

B. Payroll Domain & Statutory Compliance

• Demonstrate strong knowledge of Indian payroll processing and salary structures.

Understand CTC, gross salary, earnings, deductions, reimbursements, arrears, bonuses and other payroll components.

• Handle functional queries relating to PF, ESI, PT and LWF.

• Knowledge of Income Tax, TDS, Form 16 and Form 24Q.

C. Customer Communication & Customer Handling

• Communicate confidently and professionally with payroll administrators, HR teams, finance teams and senior customer stakeholders.

• Listen actively and ask relevant probing questions before concluding the cause of an issue.

• Convert complex payroll or product explanations into simple, customer-friendly language.

• Set clear expectations on timelines, dependencies and next steps.

• Handle dissatisfied or escalated customers calmly, professionally and with empathy.

• Take ownership of critical issues and provide proactive status updates until closure.

• Avoid unnecessary technical jargon and ensure the customer understands the recommended resolution.

• Manage difficult conversations without committing to unsupported timelines or product changes.

• Document important customer commitments and follow-ups to maintain accountability.

D. Troubleshooting & Root Cause Analysis

• Perform structured issue analysis instead of relying only on trial-and-error troubleshooting.

• Perform impact analysis for issues affecting multiple employees, payroll runs or statutory outputs.

• Identify recurring issues and recommend permanent corrective actions.

• Escalate technical defects to Development/QA with clear business impact, reproduction steps, expected result and actual result.

E. Escalation & Cross-Functional Coordination

• Take ownership of escalated customer cases and coordinate with internal teams until resolution.

• Work closely with Product, Development, QA and Operations teams for defects, enhancements and complex functional issues.

• Prioritize cases based on business impact, payroll timelines, customer impact and severity.

• Provide meaningful internal escalation notes rather than forwarding incomplete customer queries.

• Follow the defined escalation matrix and keep stakeholders informed of progress.

• Validate fixes before communicating closure to customers wherever applicable.

F. Knowledge Management & Process Improvement

• Create and maintain knowledge base articles, FAQs, user guides, troubleshooting notes and internal SOPs.

• Share product/process learnings with the support team through knowledge-sharing and training sessions.

• Identify repeated customer pain points and recommend process or product improvements.

• Maintain accurate documentation for new product features, statutory changes and support processes.