Job Description
Why This Role? Why Now?
The world of customer experience isn’t just evolving—it’s being revolutionized. At Zendesk, we don’t watch the future unfold. We build it. As the architects of the AI-powered Resolution Platform, we’re resetting the standard for what customer service—and customer success—can mean on a global stage.
We’re seeking a Manager of Customer Success who isn’t daunted by disruption, but energized by it—an architect who can unlock new value at the intersection of human talent, technology, and relentless reinvention. Come help us make Zendesk a Customer Success career destination of choice!
Mission
Lead a team of up to 10 Customer Success Managers supporting our high and medium touch segments.
Your job: Make Zendesk’s customers so successful they want to buy more, stay longer, and advocate fiercely. Build a team that blends financial acumen, technical product knowledge, and data-driven experimentation into a customer outcomes powerhouse. You are known for leading with a growth mindset and consistently reaching across the aisle to collaborate and drive customer experience improvements internally. People would describe you as a people first leader who creates a rich learning culture-empowering your team to deliver outsized impact daily. You have unrelenting operational discipline and create a space where world class CSM performance is accelerated by experimentation and constant reinvention.
Overarching Objective for the role:
* Drive Strategic Adoption and Integration of AI-Enabled Customer Success Tools
* Maximize Team Performance and Customer Outcomes
* Cultivate Continuous AI Fluency and Enablement within the Team
What Makes You Different
* See ambiguity as an invitation to create, not retreat.
* Natural "builder" with an innate operator’s discipline: you know how to design, run, measure, and continuously improve processes at scale.
* Fluent in the language of data - dashboards, deep technology conversations and API integrations don’t faze you. If you don’t know, you dig in and then teach your teams!
* Thrive on getting close to the work: side-by-side with CSMs on customers, troubleshooting complex customer journeys, and strategizing live with internal partners.
* Obsess over details that drive outcomes: from GRR/NRR metrics, usage & adoption intelligence, analytics, risk flags, to customer value mapping.
* Transform ambiguity into structure—getting buy-in for change, standardizing processes and technology where needed, and evangelizing best practices.
How You’ll Make an Impact
1. Build and Lead a Team of Value Architects
* Hire, coach, and grow a diverse team, fostering a culture of curiosity, candor, and courageous experimentation.
* Accelerate your team's product and overall CX technology proficiency, ensuring deep technology and AI fluency to lead customer conversations.
* Set and communicate crystal-clear goals, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual KPIs, and clear accountability frameworks.
* Attend in-person customer meetings, assist with deep multi-threading, and use Gong consistently to coach the team, identify trends, and stay ahead of the market.
* Empower your teams while driving operational consistency and rigorous execution to exceed financial targets and contribute to complex cross-functional initiatives.
2. Engineer Next-Level Customer Outcomes
* Inspire CSMs to act as “mini-CEOs”—owning portfolio strategies, customer prioritization planning, eliminating blockers and opportunities end-to-end.
* Lead internal monthly/quarterly business reviews (MBRs/QBRs), ensure success plans are built, adopted, and regularly refreshed based on driving customer outcomes that matter- we meet our customers where they are based on what's most important to their business needs.
* Actively manage churn and expansion playbooks, pipeline health and renewal forecasting accuracy, and run the business by the numbers.
3. Lead an AI-First Revolution in Success
* Relentlessly drive adoption and sophistication of AI-powered tools for risk flagging, customer insights, automation, and customer engagement.
* Partner with Product/AI teams, pilot new tools, and aggressively iterate based on real-world feedback.
* Equally skilled at teaching AI best practices to new hires or jumping in as a “player-coach” on troubleshooting sessions.
4. Operational Excellence in the Gray Zone
* Own forecasting, retention and growth strategies (partnering heavily with sales and renewals teams), and portfolio reporting for your team—ensuring accuracy, transparency, and proactive management of risk. Hands down you have financial command of your portfolio.
* Optimize workload distribution and manage capacity with agile, data-driven resource allocation.
* Champion rigorous performance results through: regular 1:1s, career development, and actionable feedback that makes Zendesk a CS destination of choice.
Expected Management Duties (What World-Class Orgs Demand)
* Business Ownership & Segment Strategy: Act as the business owner for the assigned segment, taking responsibility for revenue outcomes, resource planning, operational health, and ensuring CS feedback influences the Zendesk product roadmap via proactive cross-functional collaboration.
* Performance Management & Talent Development: Coach for high performance and secure team success through prompt performance management, actionable feedback loops, routine team health checks, skills assessments, and championing promotions for high potential talent.
* Talent Pipeline & Team Growth: Recruit, interview, and onboard new Customer Success Managers, with a focus on building a diverse team in terms of thought and skill.
* High-Impact Escalation Leadership: Personally drive resolution for high-impact or strategic customer situations and document learnings to promote continuous improvement across the team.
What You’ll Need to Succeed
* AI & Automation Adoption: Early adopter and optimizer of workflow automation, generative AI, and digital engagement tooling—able to guide teams through adoption, troubleshoot issues, and help design new use cases.
* Data Mastery: Proficiency with CRM and CS platforms (Zendesk, Gainsight, Salesforce, etc.), analytics platforms (Looker, Tableau, or similar), and hands-on skills with data analysis, reporting, and building dashboards for insight-driven action.
* Financial Acumen: Ability to connect operational levers to revenue outcomes; confident navigating revenue retention, renewal/expansion analysis, forecasting, and ARR/MRR modeling. You’ve built your career partnering deeply with sales, renewals, product and marketing colleagues. You lead by strengthening a united approach-that puts customer success at the heart of all interactions.
* Process Engineering: Design and implement standard operating procedures, success plans, customer health scoring models, and scalable playbooks across segments.
* Risk and Opportunity Management: Ability to conduct root cause analysis for customer escalations, build early warning systems, and mobilize “all hands” to resolve risk. Equally always having an eye on creating a culture of being growth enablers, we think and act like a CEO - you possess extreme ownership and accountability.
* Segment Strategy: Tailor engagement strategies to SMB, Commercial, Enterprise, and Strategic accounts—using structured frameworks that drive repeatable excellence across segments.
Your Background:
* 9+ years in Customer Success, or relevant customer-facing roles in SaaS or technology companies, with at least 5+ years managing teams, commercial or enterprises
* Technical & AI Fluency: Strong expertise in leveraging AI-driven tools, analytics, and automation to positively impact customer success outcomes. Direct experience with AI or next-gen tooling, and the ability to build or manipulate data pipelines and automated reporting, is highly valued.
* Deep Customer Success Leadership: Proven experience leading high-performing Customer Success teams segmented by customer size/complexity (SMB to Strategic). Deep understanding of core CS principles, including retention, engagement models, and performance measurement.
* Cross-Functional Collaboration: Track record of collaborating effectively at a leadership level with product, sales, marketing, and AI/technology teams.
* Data & Financial Acumen: Comfort running QBRs, NRR/GRR analyses, and forecasting with confidence. A data-driven approach is essential for demonstrating impact (outcomes, not just org charts).
* Adaptability & Drive: Insatiable curiosity, high adaptability, and a proven history of upskilling and delivering results in ambiguous, rapid-paced, and dynamic environments.
* Education & Certifications: Bachelor’s degree in Business or Technology preferred, with advanced degrees or certifications in Customer Success or AI Application being a significant plus.
Ready to build the future of Customer Success?
Apply to Zendesk and help invent the new standard for what technology-enabled, rigorously customer-centric leadership can achieve.
#LI-AO1
Hybrid: In this role, our hybrid experience is designed at the team level to give you a rich onsite experience packed with connection, collaboration, learning, and celebration - while also giving you flexibility to work remotely for part of the week. This role must attend our local office for part of the week. The specific in-office schedule is to be determined by the hiring manager.