| Detail | For this role |
|---|---|
| Department | Customer Support |
| Level | Manager |
| Reports to | Head of Customer Support |
| Direct reports | Customer Support Team Leader, Senior Customer Support Executive, Escalation Specialist |
| Experience | 6 to 10 years in customer support with team management |
Customer Support Manager job description template
Copy this job description, replace the text in square brackets and post it on your careers page or a job portal.
Job title: Customer Support Manager
Department: Customer Support
Reports to: Head of Customer Support
Location: [City], [office, branch or site]
About the role
A Customer Support Manager leads a team that resolves customer queries and issues across channels. They own service level, quality and resolution time, manage team leaders and agents, and keep the support desk running to standard. They balance speed, quality and cost on the front line. A good Customer Support Manager keeps service levels and quality on target, drives first-contact resolution, reduces repeat contacts through fixes, coaches agents to resolve well, and keeps the team staffed, skilled and motivated across shifts.
Key responsibilities
- Own service level, quality and resolution time for the support team across channels.
- Lead team leaders and agents and manage staffing and shifts to match volume.
- Set resolution and quality standards and monitor performance against them.
- Drive first-contact resolution and reduce repeat contacts through fixes.
- Handle escalations that agents and team leaders cannot resolve.
- Coach agents individually using quality feedback and their performance data.
- Maintain and improve the knowledge base so agents resolve faster.
- Analyse contact reasons and work with product and operations on fixes.
- Report support performance, backlog and contact reasons to leadership.
- Plan hiring, training and retention for the support team with HR.
Requirements
- Graduate in any discipline
- Experience leading a support team
- Good communication and coaching skills
- 6 to 10 years in customer support with team management
KRAs and KPIs for a Customer Support Manager
Key result areas for the appraisal form, each with a KPI you can measure every month or quarter.
| Key result area | How to measure it |
|---|---|
| Service level | Support service levels met on at least 95 percent of days |
| Resolution time | Average resolution time within the target |
| First-contact resolution | First-contact resolution above the agreed level |
| Quality | Quality scores held above the target |
| Backlog | Ticket backlog kept within the agreed limit |
| Team | Support team staffed with attrition below the agreed level |
Skills and tools
Tools used day to day: Ticketing platform, Telephony and dialer, CRM, Knowledge base, Dashboards.
Reporting line and career path
Next roles: Head of Customer Support, Service Delivery Manager, Contact Centre Manager
Interview questions for a Customer Support Manager
- How do you keep service levels and quality on target across channels?
- How do you improve first-contact resolution on your team?
- How do you manage a growing ticket backlog?
- How do you handle an escalation that reaches you?
- How do you use contact reasons to reduce future contacts?
- How do you keep a support team staffed and motivated across shifts?
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What does a Customer Support Manager do?
A Customer Support Manager leads a team that resolves customer queries and issues across channels. They own service level, quality and resolution time, manage team leaders and agents, and keep the desk running to standard. They drive first-contact resolution, handle escalations, coach agents, maintain the knowledge base, and keep the team staffed and motivated across shifts.
What is the difference between a Customer Support Manager and a Contact Centre Manager?
A Customer Support Manager leads a support team focused on resolving queries and issues, often across ticketing, chat and email as well as calls. A Contact Centre Manager runs a call or omnichannel centre floor with heavy focus on real-time service level, staffing and telephony. The roles overlap, differing mainly in channel focus and scale.
What qualifications does a Customer Support Manager need?
A graduate degree with experience leading a support team is the usual base. Employers value command of service level and ticketing tools, strong coaching and escalation-handling skills, and the ability to drive first-contact resolution and reduce repeat contacts. A record of keeping service levels and quality on target matters most.