Director, Customer Service

The Guitar Center Company•Kansas City, MO

About The Position

The Director, CSC Customer Excellence is the senior service leader responsible for building and leading a unified organization across CSC customer service teams. The role turns customer contacts into resolution, trust, and long-term loyalty, and owns performance across a four-tier service organization from Senior Managers through Care Advisors. It translates enterprise customer experience goals into daily coaching, processes, quality, and culture, with accountability for service strategy, customer satisfaction, quality, escalation management, operational excellence, and consistent execution. Reporting to the VP, CSC & Sales and partnering closely with the Director, CSC Sales, the Director aligns service and sales as one organization. The role protects customer trust while building AI-enabled, data-driven capabilities to strengthen loyalty and improve the CSC. The Director leads service strategy and operating plans; manages customer experience and operational performance; standardizes service execution, quality, and customer recovery; advances analytics, technology, and AI; develops service leaders and talent; and collaborates across business functions to address customer and operational barriers. Other duties and special projects may be assigned.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Business, Communications, Operations, or a related field.
10+ years of progressive customer service leadership experience in a contact center or similar high-volume environment, including 5+ years leading managers or multi-team organizations.
Proven track record improving customer satisfaction, FCR, quality, loyalty, and productivity while reducing customer effort, repeat contacts, and escalations.
Experience designing and scaling service operating models, quality and coaching systems, escalation frameworks, scorecards, and leadership accountability practices.
Strong financial and business acumen, including annual planning, budgeting, capacity planning, and resource allocation.
Deep understanding of contact center service operations, including omnichannel support, workforce management, quality assurance, knowledge management, case management, and customer recovery.
Strong experience with CRM systems, contact center platforms, digital communication tools, knowledge management systems, and self-service technology.
Hands-on experience using analytics, automation, and AI tools to improve service performance, productivity, and personalization.
Exceptional executive communication, presentation, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence senior leaders and cross-functional partners.
Demonstrated ability to lead through change, build organizational alignment, and drive adoption of new processes and technology.
Personal experience with musical instruments, the music industry, or a related field, with a passion for developing people and serving musicians and creators.

Nice To Haves

MBA or advanced degree.

Responsibilities

Establish and lead customer service strategy across teams, channels, and programs to achieve satisfaction, loyalty, resolution, quality, and productivity targets.
Translate enterprise goals into annual and quarterly service plans, priorities, targets, and operating rhythms.
Lead and develop Senior Managers, Customer Service Managers, and other service leaders, with clear accountability for customer and operational performance.
Create consistent service standards, decision rights, escalation authority, processes, and leadership expectations across the organization.
Advise the Vice President and senior partners on performance, risks, customer trends, and recommended actions.
Own service performance across CSAT, NPS, repeat contacts, escalations, case aging, productivity, and schedule adherence.
Partner with Finance, Workforce Management, and Analytics on volume forecasts, capacity planning, staffing, scheduling, and resource allocation.
Establish scorecards, dashboards, and review cadences to identify performance variances and drive corrective action.
Hold service leaders accountable through goals, coaching, performance plans, and follow-through.
Improve channel strategy, workflows, routing, and case management to reduce customer effort, backlogs, transfers, and repeat contacts.
Develop, execute, and standardize service playbooks, quality expectations, escalation procedures, documentation standards, coaching routines, and performance management practices.
Own the customer escalation and recovery framework, ensuring complex, executive-level, VIP, regulatory, and reputational cases receive timely resolution and root-cause follow-up.
Build coaching systems that turn quality data, customer feedback, interaction insights, and observed behaviors into actions that improve empathy, resolution, and loyalty.
Ensure service leaders engage with associates and customers to understand pain points and translate frontline insights into operational improvements.
Use analytics, voice-of-customer data, root-cause analysis, and journey insights to identify trends and prioritize improvements.
Champion CRM, knowledge management, omnichannel, self-service, agent-assist, sentiment analytics, and AI tools that improve resolution, consistency, and leader effectiveness.
Promote a data-informed culture in which leaders use dashboards, quality insights, customer feedback, and interaction analytics to guide decisions.
Sponsor pilots and experimentation, establishing governance, adoption plans, and success measures before scaling proven capabilities.
Build a high-performing leadership team through selection, onboarding, coaching, talent calibration, succession planning, and structured development.
Define success profiles and leadership competencies for customer service roles and ensure consistent recruiting, onboarding, and development standards.
Build bench strength for critical leadership roles and address performance or capability gaps in a timely manner.
Foster accountability, recognition, inclusion, continuous improvement, collaboration, and customer obsession.
Partner with the Director, CSC Sales to align service and sales priorities, customer handoffs, escalation ownership, operating standards, and customer journeys.
Collaborate with eCommerce, Retail, Merchandising, Supply Chain, Finance, HR, Technology, Training, Quality, and Workforce Management to remove customer and operational barriers.
Represent the voice of the customer in enterprise planning and provide insights influencing policies, inventory, fulfillment, returns, repairs, promotions, and loyalty programs.
Build stakeholder alignment on priorities, investments, resource needs, execution commitments, and responses to systemic customer issues.
Perform other duties and special projects as assigned.

Benefits

Gig leave for employee-musicians to take time off to share their music and return to work after a tour.
Medical benefits.
Dental insurance.
Vision insurance.
401(k) with company match.
Mental health support.
Paid sick time.
Paid holiday time.
Paid vacation time.
Employee discount program.
Tuition reimbursement options.