Customer Service Manager

PURPOSE AND ROLE

The Customer Service Manager provides strategic and operational leadership for a customer support department. The position leads the Customer Service Supervisor and assigned customer support representatives, ensuring timely and accurate order fulfillment while strengthening employee capability, customer satisfaction, and process effectiveness. The Manager partners with Sales, Pricing, Plant Operations, Credit, Supply Chain, and other order-to-cash (OTC) functions and serves as the primary leadership escalation point for complex customer, employee, and business issues. This role is accountable for department performance, workforce planning, leadership development, continuous improvement, and alignment with the Customer Support Director's priorities.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Lead the assigned customer support department, including the Customer Service Supervisor and any designated direct-report employees.

Align departmental goals, operating plans, staffing strategies, and measurable performance expectations with the Customer Support Director’s priorities.

Coach and develop the Customer Service Supervisor, establish clear decision rights, and hold the Supervisor accountable for daily team execution, coaching cadence, service levels, and follow-through.

Own departmental workforce planning, workload and account alignment, coverage strategy, succession planning, and recommendations for staffing or organizational changes.

Review customer support KPIs and operating trends; identify performance gaps, assign corrective actions, and report progress, risks, and recommendations to the Customer Service Director.

Lead complex customer escalations and cross-functional issues that cannot be resolved at the Supervisor level, balancing customer needs, commercial commitments, and operational constraints.

Oversee employee performance management, development planning, annual reviews, and formal corrective-action processes in partnership with Human Resources and the Supervisor.

Ensure consistent onboarding, training, cross-training, and knowledge transfer; approve training priorities and confirm team readiness for process, policy, portfolio, and system changes.

Sponsor process improvement and root-cause analysis involving order fulfillment, contract administration, complaints, disputes, customer portals, training, or system enhancements.

Ensure Customer Service work instructions and SOPs remain current, controlled, and aligned with business-owner requirements.

Promote effective use and adoption of SAP and other customer support systems; coordinate change management for system or process enhancements.

Identify and lead responsible use of AI, automation, and digital tools to improve customer responsiveness, reduce manual work, strengthen data quality, and support employee decision-making.

Promote adoption of approved AI-enabled tools while ensuring appropriate human review, data privacy, accuracy, and compliance with company policies.

Build collaborative relationships with Sales, Pricing, Plant Operations, Credit, Supply Chain, and OTC partners to improve order accuracy, on-time delivery, and customer satisfaction.

Ensure complaints and disputes assigned to Customer Service are documented, routed, investigated, and supported with corrective actions as required.

Provide leadership coverage for the Customer Service Director and collaborate with peer managers to maintain consistent standards across departments.

Complete other duties and business initiatives as assigned.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

Bachelor's degree in Business, Supply Chain, Management, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience.

5+ years of customer service, account management, order fulfillment, or related experience, including at least three years leading people.

Demonstrated experience managing service-level commitments, employee performance, customer escalations, and cross-functional business processes.

EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

Strong leadership judgment, coaching capability, and ability to lead through organizational or process change.

Advanced analytical, problem-solving, prioritization, and organizational skills.

Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to present risks, results, and recommendations to leadership and business partners.

Advanced proficiency with Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook; proficiency with ERP and customer support systems, with SAP experience preferred.

Experience using AI-enabled productivity, analytics, or customer-support tools to summarize information, identify trends, improve workflows, and support business decisions is preferred.

Ability to evaluate AI-generated content for accuracy, business context, confidentiality, and appropriate use.

Working knowledge of order-to-cash processes, customer onboarding, order management, complaint resolution, and continuous-improvement methods.

MEASURES OF SUCCESS

Department meets defined service, quality, order-fulfillment, and customer-experience targets.

Supervisor effectiveness is demonstrated through consistent coaching, accountability, coverage, and issue resolution.

Escalations are resolved at the appropriate level with clear ownership, communication, and corrective action.

Staffing, training, succession, and cross-training plans reduce operational risk and support business continuity.

Improvement actions produce sustainable gains in process consistency, employee capability, system adoption, and customer satisfaction.

Digital, automation, and AI-enabled improvements produce measurable gains in response time, process efficiency, consistency, data quality, or customer experience.