Director of Customer Success

Just Right Reader•Remote,

About The Position

Just Right Reader is seeking an experienced Director of Customer Success to establish and lead its Customer Success function. This foundational leadership role requires an individual who understands excellent Customer Success and can create a scalable operating model. The Director will manage the entire customer journey, from onboarding to renewal, and build the necessary systems for a superior customer experience. Responsibilities include leading the Customer Success team, developing talent, and implementing metrics to proactively identify customer risks and opportunities. This role involves close collaboration with Sales, Product, Professional Development, and Operations to ensure alignment around customer needs and retention. The ideal candidate possesses significant Customer Success leadership experience, strong people-management skills, and the ability to build a function in a developing environment.

Requirements

8+ years of progressive experience in Customer Success, account management, partnerships, client services, or a related field, including significant experience leading customer-facing teams.
Demonstrated experience building or significantly improving a Customer Success function, including processes, standards, metrics, operating rhythms, and team structures.
Proven experience hiring, coaching, and developing customer-facing professionals.
Strong understanding of Customer Success best practices, including customer health, adoption, implementation, retention, renewal forecasting, and expansion.
Strong commercial and analytical acumen, with the ability to use data to identify trends, predict risk, make decisions, and communicate a clear story.
Demonstrated ability to build trusted relationships with senior leaders and navigate complex stakeholder environments.
Strong organizational and problem-solving skills, with the ability to establish structure and drive execution in an evolving environment.
Excellent communication, judgment, and executive presence, with the ability to influence leaders, customers, and cross-functional teams.

Nice To Haves

Experience in K-12 education (educator, instructional coach, admin role, or district facing role), edtech, educational publishing, or another education-focused org.
Experience with recurring-revenue business models and SaaS products.
Experience building a Customer Success org amid significant company growth.
Experience with HubSpot or another CRM and Customer Success technology stack.

Responsibilities

Own the Customer Success strategy and operating model with a singular focus on retention.
Establish a clear, end-to-end approach to the customer lifecycle - onboarding, implementation, adoption, impact, renewal, and expansion.
Define and implement Customer Success best practices, standards, processes, and operating rhythms.
Establish clear roles, responsibilities, and handoffs across the customer lifecycle.
Build a scalable model that balances high-quality customer relationships with efficient operations.
Establish standards for implementation quality, customer engagement, adoption, impact measurement, and renewal readiness.
Create clear frameworks for account segmentation, customer health, risk identification, and escalation.
Own the approach to retention and renewal forecasting.
Partner with Sales to create strong transitions from new business through implementation and position successful customers for renewal and expansion.
Stay close to important customers and customer patterns to understand needs and continuously improve the customer experience.
Build, recruit, and lead a high-performing Customer Success team.
Hire, onboard, coach, and develop team members.
Establish team goals, performance standards, and operating rhythms for coaching, accountability, and development.
Identify capability gaps and build the training, resources, and development plans needed to strengthen the team.
Build a culture of ownership, accountability, customer empathy, and continuous improvement.
Establish the metrics and reporting needed to understand customer health, adoption, implementation progress, retention, renewal, and expansion.
Build reliable dashboards and forecasting processes.
Use customer and business data to identify trends, risks, and leading indicators.
Ensure Customer Success information is accurately maintained in HubSpot and other relevant systems.
Translate customer and performance data into clear insights and actions.
Partner closely with Sales to improve customer handoffs, implementation readiness, renewal planning, and expansion opportunities.
Collaborate with Product and Professional Development to bring customer needs and outcomes into company priorities and decision-making.
Work with Operations and other teams to establish clear processes for customer-related workflows and escalations.
Represent the voice of the customer in cross-functional and leadership discussions.