Customer Support Manager

CurbWaste • New York, NY

5d • Hybrid

About The Position

CurbWaste is a venture-backed, early-stage vertical SaaS company on a mission to modernize the waste and recycling industry. They have raised $50M and serve over 150 customers with an all-in-one solution, aiming to become the system of record for the waste industry. The company values trust, ownership, and delivering value, fostering a culture of growth and resourcefulness. They are seeking an experienced Customer Support Manager to lead and scale a high-performing support organization, ensuring a consistent, white-glove customer experience. This role is for a true people manager and operator who has experience building support functions from scratch, including designing tiered models, writing SOPs, and establishing escalation frameworks. The ideal candidate can operate independently, set strategy, and execute, being comfortable with both owning critical escalations and coaching team members. Success is measured by the team's ability to deliver fast, high-quality support with minimal direct manager involvement, while continuously improving processes, tooling, and customer outcomes.

Requirements

• 5–8 years in customer support, with 2–3+ years directly managing a support team
• Proven track record of building or materially scaling a support function; you've designed tiered models, written SOPs, and stood up escalation frameworks from scratch, not inherited and maintained them
• Experience at a B2B SaaS company; vertical SaaS or industry-specific software strongly preferred
• Proven ability to operate independently, you've built and run support systems without a playbook handed to you, and you know how to prioritize and execute when leadership isn't in the weeds with you
• Demonstrated track record of developing support reps into higher-tier contributors with specific examples of reps you've upleveled to grow into leads
• Comfort owning escalations and after-hours critical incidents personally, not just delegating
• Experience designing and managing out-of-service-hours coverage plans; on-call rotations, escalation paths, and after-hours SLAs
• High standards for customer experience with a natural gravitation toward white-glove service
• Analytical mindset with the ability to aggregate trends across large ticket volumes, identify root causes, and communicate findings with business context
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; you can de-escalate a frustrated customer and coach a junior rep in the same afternoon
• Data-driven with comfort in dashboards and using metrics to drive team performance and cross-functional decisions
• Hands-on experience implementing AI or automation in a support context, you can speak to measurable deflection or efficiency gains you've personally driven
• Experience with support platforms like Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk, or similar

Nice To Haves

• Background in waste management, logistics, field service, or municipal services
• Experience with tools like Aircall or Fathom
• Experience writing internal playbooks, SOPs, or help center documentation at scale

Responsibilities

• Manage, coach, and develop a team of support representatives through regular 1:1s, performance reviews, and career development planning
• Set clear team goals and KPIs (CSAT, first response time, resolution time, escalation rate) and hold the team accountable
• Build structured onboarding and ongoing training programs that ramp new hires to full readiness within 30 days and continuously deepen product and industry knowledge
• Develop team members into higher-level contributors, measurable through certification rates and reduced escalation volume over time
• Foster a high-performance, customer-first culture grounded in accountability, ownership, and continuous improvement
• Define and implement a tiered support model (Tier 1 / Tier 2) with clear ownership, responsibilities, and escalation paths
• Build and maintain playbooks and SOPs that enable the team to independently resolve 80%+ of inbound issues at Tier 1
• Establish clear criteria for ticket classification, escalation, and resolution expectations
• Continuously refine workflows to improve efficiency, consistency, and quality
• Set and uphold a white-glove standard for all customer interactions—urgency, clarity, and professionalism
• Own escalations and complex cases, serving as the final point of coordination before involving Head of CX, Product or Engineering
• Establish and enforce a standardized escalation framework including SLAs, communication expectations, and ownership across business hours and after-hours
• Own and manage the out-of-service-hours coverage plan, including rotation design, on-call ownership, escalation paths, and ensuring consistent customer experience outside standard hours
• Partner with customers during critical moments (post go-live issues, billing concerns, operational disruptions) to ensure successful outcomes
• Serve as a front-line point of contact for SMB accounts without a named CXM, partnering with the broader CX team to ensure these customers receive a consistent, high-quality experience
• Stay connected to the customer experience through ticket reviews and trend analysis while minimizing direct ticket ownership as the team scales
• Identify high-volume, repetitive tasks and drive automation through AI and tooling with the goal of measurably reducing manual ticket volume quarter over quarter
• Train and optimize AI agents (e.g., Intercom) to deflect Tier 1 inquiries with clear deflection rate targets and quality thresholds, and build AI-assisted workflows such as auto-triage, suggested responses, and proactive status updates
• Continuously evaluate and implement new tools and technologies to improve support scalability and response speed
• Build and maintain real-time dashboards tracking key metrics (response time, resolution time, escalation rate, deflection rate)
• Enable full visibility into team performance without requiring direct involvement in individual tickets
• Monitor trends and proactively adjust staffing, workflows, and processes to meet demand
• Drive accountability through data—owning weekly and monthly performance reporting against defined SLAs and surfacing corrective actions when targets are missed
• Aggregate and analyze tickets to identify recurring issues, failure patterns, and systemic gaps
• Translate support trends into clear, actionable insights for Product and Engineering with business and operational context
• Drive root-cause resolution by partnering with Product and Engineering through to shipped fixes, tracking reduction in repeat ticket volume for resolved issues
• Build and maintain a self-service knowledge base, continuously updated based on product changes and common support trends
• Collaborate with Implementation, Customer Experience, and Sales to ensure seamless handoffs and lifecycle support

Benefits

• Competitive salary ($115,000 - 125,000 annually)
• Flexible time off
• Ample opportunities for learning and development
• Company-paid medical coverage
• Company-paid dental coverage
• Company-paid vision coverage
• 401k
• Opportunity to make a real impact in a critical industry
• Join a high-performing, mission-driven team
• Be part of a diverse, inclusive, and supportive culture where individuality is celebrated

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Education Level: No Education Listed