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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Customer Care Manager

💰 $65,000 - $110,000

Customer ServiceOperationsManagementContact Center

🎯 Role Definition

The Customer Care Manager (also listed in some postings as Customer Service Manager, Customer Support Manager, or Contact Center Manager) leads front-line support teams to deliver exceptional customer experiences across phone, email, chat, social and self‑service channels. This role is responsible for operational performance (SLAs, QA, KPIs), team coaching and development, process optimization, escalation management, and cross-functional collaboration with product, sales, finance and engineering to resolve root-cause issues. The ideal candidate is data-driven, customer-obsessed, experienced with CRM and ticketing systems (e.g., Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud), and proven at scaling high-performing teams while reducing cost-to-serve and increasing satisfaction (CSAT/NPS).

Primary SEO keywords: Customer Care Manager, Customer Service Manager, Contact Center Manager, Customer Support Leader, Customer Experience Manager, CRM, Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud, CSAT, NPS, SLA.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Customer Support Representative / Senior CSR
  • Team Lead / Shift Supervisor (Customer Support)
  • Quality Assurance Analyst (Contact Center)

Advancement To:

  • Director of Customer Experience
  • Head of Customer Support / Customer Operations
  • VP of Customer Success or Chief Customer Officer

Lateral Moves:

  • Operations Manager
  • Account Management Lead
  • Workforce Management or Quality Assurance Lead

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Own day-to-day operations of the customer care team, ensuring timely and accurate handling of customer inquiries across all channels (phone, email, chat, social), and consistently meeting or exceeding SLAs and service level targets.
  • Lead, coach and develop a team of supervisors and front-line agents through regular 1:1s, performance reviews, calibration sessions and individualized development plans to increase productivity and retention.
  • Design, implement and continuously improve quality assurance programs, including call/chat/email scoring, root cause analysis, and feedback loops that drive measurable improvements in CSAT, FCR (first contact resolution) and AHT (average handle time).
  • Create and monitor operational dashboards and KPIs (CSAT, NPS, FCR, AHT, SLA, backlog, ticket volume by channel) using Excel, Looker, Tableau or similar tools, and translate insights into prioritized improvement initiatives.
  • Manage escalations for high-impact customer issues, coordinating cross-functional response with product, engineering, legal and finance teams to ensure timely resolution and minimize churn.
  • Build and maintain comprehensive knowledge base content and customer self-service articles that reduce ticket volume and improve customer time-to-resolution.
  • Implement workforce management best practices: forecasting, scheduling, shift planning, and real-time adherence to ensure adequate coverage during peak periods while controlling labor costs.
  • Own recruitment, onboarding and ramp plans for new hires, working with People/HR to source talent, conduct structured interviews, and guarantee a consistent high-quality candidate experience.
  • Develop and maintain incident response and major escalation playbooks for outages, system incidents or product regressions; lead communication to customers and internal stakeholders during critical events.
  • Drive continuous improvement projects (Lean/Six Sigma, Kaizen) to streamline workflows, reduce manual work, automate repetitive tasks and lower cost-to-serve without sacrificing quality.
  • Establish and enforce service policies, escalation paths and SOPs that align with company objectives and regulatory requirements, ensuring consistent treatment of customers across geographies.
  • Partner with Product and Engineering to triage recurring product issues, prioritize bug fixes by customer impact, and contribute customer insights to the product roadmap.
  • Manage vendor relationships for outsourced support, BPO partners or third-party tools: negotiate SLAs, evaluate performance, and ensure contractual compliance and data security.
  • Prepare and present executive-level reports on customer experience metrics, operational performance, and strategic initiatives to senior leadership on a weekly and monthly cadence.
  • Lead cross-functional projects to launch new channels (e.g., in-app chat, WhatsApp) or expand support coverage (localization, extended hours), including designing intake flows and staffing models.
  • Oversee billing and account-related dispute resolution, liaising with Finance and Sales to expedite refunds, credits or reconciliation and prevent revenue leakage.
  • Champion customer advocacy programs and detractor recovery processes to proactively turn negative experiences into retention opportunities and to influence renewal and upsell.
  • Implement coaching and gamification programs to drive agent engagement, increase knowledge retention and decrease handle times while improving CSAT.
  • Ensure compliance with privacy, security, and industry regulations (e.g., GDPR, PCI where applicable) in all customer interactions and in the handling of PII.
  • Manage departmental budget, headcount planning and expense forecasting; identify cost efficiencies and present business cases for investment in tools or headcount.
  • Analyze customer feedback, surveys and support trends to identify product gaps and systemic issues, and partner with Marketing/Product to shape messaging and UX improvements.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory analysis to answer business questions related to customer behavior, churn drivers and support capacity planning.
  • Contribute to the organization's customer experience strategy and roadmap by recommending tool upgrades, process changes and staffing models aligned with growth goals.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate customer insights and operational metrics into engineering, product and marketing requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning, release reviews and agile ceremonies to ensure support readiness for new feature launches and product updates.
  • Mentor other managers and participate in cross-training programs to build organizational resilience and leadership bench strength.
  • Lead post-mortem analyses after major incidents and implement corrective action plans to prevent recurrence.
  • Evaluate and pilot new technologies (AI triage, chatbots, RPA, sentiment analysis) to augment agent efficiency and enhance self-service capabilities.
  • Coordinate with legal and compliance teams to update customer-facing policies, terms of service and dispute escalation procedures.
  • Drive localization and accessibility initiatives to improve experience for international customers and customers with disabilities.
  • Act as a subject matter expert for CRM and ticketing configuration, ownership of routing rules, macros, SLAs and automation workflows.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Proficiency with CRM and ticketing platforms such as Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud, Freshdesk, Desk.com, or Intercom; experience configuring workflows and automation.
  • Strong data analysis and reporting skills using Excel (pivot tables, vlookups), SQL, Looker, Tableau or Power BI to generate actionable insights and executive dashboards.
  • Familiarity with workforce management and scheduling tools (e.g., NICE, Calabrio, Genesys WFM) and capacity planning methodologies.
  • Experience with quality assurance frameworks and QA tooling to score interactions and drive continuous coaching.
  • Knowledge of omnichannel support technologies (telephony/VoIP, chat platforms, social monitoring, in-app support) and IVR/ACD configuration basics.
  • Understanding of APIs, ticketing integrations, and basic technical troubleshooting to collaborate effectively with engineering teams.
  • Exposure to CX automation tools (chatbots, AI triage, RPA) and the ability to evaluate ROI and implementation impact.
  • Hands-on experience managing SLAs, escalation matrices, billing disputes and compliance-related customer workflows.
  • Budgeting and P&L awareness for managing departmental spend, headcount and outsourcing decisions.
  • Experience with customer feedback systems and survey platforms (e.g., Qualtrics, Medallia) to measure NPS and CSAT.

Soft Skills

  • Coaching and people leadership: proven track record of developing high-performing teams, conducting effective feedback and driving retention.
  • Exceptional verbal and written communication skills for both customer-facing interactions and executive reporting.
  • Empathy and conflict resolution: ability to de‑escalate challenging situations and create win-win resolutions for customers and company.
  • Strategic thinking and prioritization: can translate operational data into strategic initiatives and prioritize based on impact and effort.
  • Problem-solving and analytical mindset with strong attention to detail and bias for data-informed decisions.
  • Stakeholder management and cross-functional collaboration: influence without authority and build consensus across Product, Sales and Engineering.
  • Adaptability and resilience: thrives in fast-paced, high-change environments and leads teams through ambiguity.
  • Customer-centricity: relentless focus on improving the customer journey and reducing friction across touchpoints.
  • Time management and organizational skills to juggle operational responsibilities and longer-term projects.
  • Coaching for performance and growth mindset: fosters continuous learning and a culture of feedback.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Communications, Marketing, Hospitality Management, Psychology, or related field.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor's plus professional certifications such as CCXP (Certified Customer Experience Professional), ITIL Foundation, or relevant leadership/people management certifications.
  • Advanced degree (MBA) or customer experience specialization is a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Business Administration
  • Communications
  • Information Systems / Technology
  • Hospitality or Service Management
  • Psychology / Organizational Behavior

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–8 years in customer service roles with at least 2–4 years managing teams or contact center operations.

Preferred: 5+ years managing multi-channel support teams in SaaS, e-commerce, fintech or B2B environments, with demonstrable results in improving CSAT/NPS, reducing AHT and driving operational efficiency. Experience with global support, outsourcing partnerships and technical product support is highly desirable.

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