Support Escalation Management

Microsoft•Charlotte, NC

13h•$97,600 - $206,400

About The Position

The Senior Support Escalation Manager, also described as a Service Manager, is the primary contact for managing escalated customer and partner issues. The role supports strategic and mission-critical accounts by coordinating reactive support, critical incident response, customer recovery, and operational health improvements. It builds trusted relationships with customer executive and technical leaders and works across support, engineering, account teams, and other stakeholders to resolve high-impact issues and improve the customer support experience. The position leads complex escalations and incidents from intake and triage through resolution and follow-up. It coordinates crisis communications, technical resources, decision-making, and stakeholder updates; removes barriers to resolution; and helps ensure security, governance, and process requirements are followed. The role also analyzes post-incident findings and customer feedback, identifies risks and recurring issues, and contributes to process improvements, automation, and strategic initiatives. Depending on scope, the work may include regional recovery leadership, technical stabilization, and coordination with outsourced support delivery partners. The role requires a qualifying degree and relevant technology industry, customer service, or related experience, or equivalent experience. A Microsoft Cloud Background Check is required upon hire or transfer and every two years thereafter. Some weekend on-call support may be required. The position is listed at IC4. The typical U.S. base pay range is $97,600–$188,400 per year, with a separate range of $125,000–$206,400 per year for the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City metropolitan area. Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis, and the posting will remain open for a minimum of five days.

Requirements

Master’s degree in technology, business, or a related field and at least 3 years of technology industry, customer service, or related experience; or bachelor’s degree in those fields and at least 4 years of relevant experience; or at least 7 years of relevant experience; or equivalent experience.
Ability to meet Microsoft, customer, and/or government security screening requirements, including passing the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire or transfer and every two years thereafter.

Nice To Haves

Experience working with Microsoft products and services.
CSS/CSAM experience or knowledge.
Knowledge of escalation processes.
Cloud technology certification, such as Azure Fundamentals or Microsoft 365 Fundamentals.
Prior incident and escalation management experience.
Proficiency in C-level stakeholder management.

Responsibilities

Own the reactive support experience and escalation outcomes for assigned strategic or mission-critical accounts, serving as a primary escalation and crisis contact.
Orchestrate internal and external stakeholders, including account teams, engineering, incident managers, legal and public relations, executives, partners, and customers, to resolve high-impact issues.
Assess account risk, maintain and test incident response plans, and run drills or Get to Green plans to prevent recurrence and improve account health.
Build and maintain relationships with customer executive and technical leaders to anticipate escalations and support strategic operational and architectural discussions.
Coordinate with engineering and operations teams to identify the appropriate resources and ensure written protocols are followed, including for issues crossing business-unit boundaries.
Lead moderate to highly complex incidents with minimal guidance, remove blockers, accelerate decision-making, and maintain alignment across support, engineering, and leadership teams.
Mentor Support Escalation team members in complex case handling and structured incident leadership.
Manage customer and internal stakeholder expectations, provide timely and definitive status updates, and communicate escalation risks, resolution progress, and next steps.
Lead or support incident bridges and crisis communications, ensuring accurate and consistent updates and compliance with legal, privacy, security, and communications standards.
Coordinate technical resources, manage escalation pressure, and support customer communications throughout the incident lifecycle.
Identify trends and risks through postmortems, root-cause analysis, customer feedback, and escalation data; route risks through appropriate governance channels and ensure corrective follow-ups are addressed.
Contribute to strategic projects that improve resolution times, customer satisfaction, support experience, and escalation workflows; promote automation and standardization, including use of AI tools.
Create executive summaries and escalation narratives that communicate the issue, business impact, risks, status, and next actions.
Gather customer feedback and sentiment insights, identify emerging escalation risks, and translate findings into actionable recommendations for leadership and long-term experience improvements.
Lead or contribute to regional, vertical, subsidiary, or segment recovery efforts; identify systemic operational risks and drive Get to Green, crisis prevention, and customer trust recovery activities with relevant leaders.
Coordinate technical recovery plans for complex customer situations, support root-cause diagnosis, restore service stability, and share patterns and recommendations with relevant teams.
Coordinate with outsourced CSS delivery partners as part of incident and escalation resolution, without managing or directing partner resources beyond that coordination.
Embody Microsoft’s culture and values.