Director, Customer Service IT

Job Description

Zendesk is seeking a dynamic and experienced Director of IT Customer Service and Support to lead and develop a high-performing team dedicated to supporting critical customer-facing processes, specifically focusing on the Onboard to Renew (OTR) value stream. The ideal candidate will possess a strong background in customer service technology, have extensive experience delivering business impacting technology, experience deploying and designing AI solutions, and foster collaboration across diverse teams and geographies. This role will also own the technological implementation of Zendesk, our flagship product, for internal use.

What You’ll Be Doing:

• Team Leadership: Lead, mentor, and develop IT teams that support customer service and support applications and processes related to Onboard to Renew. Foster a collaborative culture to encourage high performance across geographically distributed teams. Support and build team cohesiveness, career growth, and experimentation.

• Business Partnership: Serve as a strategic advisor to business leaders worldwide, ensuring that technology solutions align closely with company objectives. Provide insights and data-driven recommendations to support key company initiatives, enhancing decision-making processes. Business partner engagement and management is a critical strength area for this role.

• System Oversight: Ensure seamless operation, integration, and enhancement of customer service and support applications to meet changing business needs. Oversee compliance and best practices in customer service systems management for OTR streams.

• AI Integration & Value Stream Enhancement: Assist our business partners to design and implement scalable, efficient customer service and support processes, with a strong focus on leveraging AI solutions. This includes continuous improvement initiatives that enhance operational efficiency within OTR areas to align with Zendesk's growth strategy.

Key Values We Uphold

In this role, you will be guided by our core values:

• Lead with Exceptional Service: Continuously strive to exceed the expectations of our stakeholders, ensuring that our solutions and interactions reflect a commitment to exceptional service.

• Deliver the Simplest Solution: Focus on simplicity and effectiveness, prioritizing straightforward and efficient approaches that yield optimal results.

• Take Pride in Our Work: Exhibit ownership of your deliverables, ensuring that all requirements and documentation reflect high standards of quality and excellence.

• Care for Each Other: Foster an inclusive team environment where collaboration and mutual respect thrive, understanding that we achieve more when we support one another.

What You Bring to the Role:

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Business, Information Technology, or a related field; an MBA or relevant certification is preferred.

• Experience: 10+ years of experience in IT managing customer service platforms, including at least 5 years in a leadership capacity.

• Technical Expertise: Proven experience and knowledge of customer service and support applications supporting OTR processes (e.g., CRM systems, ticketing systems, knowledge base software). Familiarity with key customer service platforms such as Zendesk software is a significant plus.

• AI Acumen: Demonstrated ability to meaningfully apply AI to creatively solve business and technical problems.

• Team Development: Demonstrable experience in building and developing globally distributed technical teams.

• Problem-Solving Skills: Excellent problem-solving, organizational, and project management skills, with an ability to prioritize and drive projects towards successful completion.

• Interpersonal Skills: Strong interpersonal and communication skills, with a talent for effective collaboration across functions and geographies.

• Agility: Experience driving scalability in fast-paced, high-growth environments, along with a solid understanding of Agile frameworks with the ability to develop and maintain frameworks and processes that provide clear visibility and transparency of the IT-customer service roadmap and priorities to stakeholders.

• Change Management: Proven ability to drive change and manage complex proje