Director Customer Service & Sales Support

LION•Dayton, OH

About The Position

LION is an international company serving the first responder and emergency services, military and civilian agency uniforms, and personal equipment markets. It serves a global customer base—including fire departments, law enforcement, military installations, institutions, corporate organizations, and training companies—from offices around the world. Reporting to the Business Unit SVP, the Director of Customer Service & Sales Support provides strategic and operational leadership for the customer service and sales support organization. The role is accountable for delivering a consistently high-quality experience for customers, internal sales teams, and distribution partners while balancing daily operational excellence with longer-term transformation. The Director will lead the organization through implementation and adoption of new business systems, processes, and ways of working, while maintaining service continuity and developing efficient, scalable, customer-focused processes. Working closely with Sales, Operations, Supply Chain, Finance, IT, and distribution partners, the Director will improve the end-to-end customer experience, strengthen commercial support, establish service standards and performance measures, and foster accountability and continuous improvement.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Operations, Supply Chain, or a related discipline, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
At least 8 years of progressive experience in customer service, sales operations, commercial operations, order management, or related functions.
At least 3 years of significant people leadership experience, preferably leading multifunctional or geographically dispersed teams.
Demonstrated experience improving customer-facing processes and operational performance.
Experience supporting both direct sales organizations and distributor, dealer, or channel partner networks.
Demonstrated ability to lead teams through organizational, process, or technology change.
Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making capabilities.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Nice To Haves

Experience leading multifunctional or geographically dispersed teams.

Responsibilities

Provide strategic leadership and direction for the Customer Service and Sales Support organization, establishing priorities, service standards, roles, and performance expectations.
Ensure timely, accurate, and professional support throughout the customer lifecycle, including inquiries, quotations, order processing, order status, issue resolution, returns, and post-sale activities.
Develop and monitor key performance indicators, service-level expectations, and operating metrics to improve responsiveness, quality, productivity, and customer satisfaction.
Identify service gaps and recurring customer issues and work cross-functionally to implement sustainable corrective actions.
Build scalable processes that support business growth, increased transaction volumes, evolving customer expectations, and changing go-to-market strategies.
Establish effective escalation processes for critical customer, order, delivery, pricing, or service issues.
Partner with internal Sales teams to provide effective support throughout sales and order fulfillment.
Develop a service model for direct customers and distribution partners that addresses the different requirements of each channel.
Strengthen communication and coordination among Customer Service, Sales, distributors, Operations, Supply Chain, and other functions.
Improve processes for quotations, pricing administration, order management, customer information, and commercial documentation.
Partner with Sales leadership to reduce administrative work for sellers and enable greater focus on customer engagement and revenue growth.
Develop consistent processes, tools, and expectations for supporting distributors and other channel partners.
Act as an escalation point for complex or high-priority customer and distributor matters.
Lead implementation and adoption of new ERP, CRM, order management, customer service, and related business systems.
Translate business requirements and customer needs into practical system and process solutions with IT and functional stakeholders.
Assess workflows and use systems transformation to simplify, standardize, and automate processes rather than replicate legacy practices.
Prepare the team for system changes through process documentation, data readiness, user acceptance testing, training, communications, and adoption activities.
Develop plans to maintain customer service and business continuity during system implementation and stabilization.
Monitor post-implementation performance, identify issues, and coordinate resolution across functional and technical teams.
Champion adoption of new tools and processes and help employees navigate organizational change.
Evaluate the end-to-end order-to-cash and customer support experience to reduce complexity, cycle time, errors, and manual work.
Establish standardized operating procedures, workflows, documentation, and service-level agreements.
Use technology, automation, data, and analytics to improve efficiency and decision-making.
Develop reporting and dashboards that show service performance, order activity, backlog, customer issues, and operational risks.
Create a culture of continuous improvement and empower employees to identify problems and recommend solutions.
Partner cross-functionally to address root causes of process deficiencies rather than relying on Customer Service to compensate for them.
Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing Customer Service and Sales Support team.
Establish clear roles, responsibilities, performance expectations, and accountability across the organization.
Assess organizational capabilities and recommend changes to structure, staffing, processes, and skills to meet future business requirements.
Develop team capabilities in customer communication, problem solving, systems proficiency, commercial awareness, and cross-functional collaboration.
Build succession plans and develop future leaders within the function.
Foster a customer-focused, collaborative culture that values responsiveness, ownership, continuous improvement, and results.