Senior Director, Customer Experience

Senior Director, Customer Experience  

College Board - Operations  

Location: Remote   

About the Team  

College Board’s Operations division (~130 ppl) aims to be a world class digital assessment delivery and customer engagement organization that supports millions of students and thousands of test centers, annually. Operations is also leading the College Board’s exciting transformation to support delivery of digital assessments. The Customer Engagement & Experience (CEE) department (60 ppl) is a combination of teams that support our key constituents, including students, parents, educators, and our state partners representing approximately 2 million contacts per year. This integrated team serves as the organization’s ‘front line’ and represents the voice of the customer, partnering across the organization to help improve the overall customer experience.    

About the Opportunity  

As the Senior Director of Customer Experience you are the strategic leader, managing a team of Program Partners and Change Management practitioners who are charged with the efficient delivery of support solutions. You will lead this team to be effective SME’s, knowledge partners, and cross-functional collaboration drivers between CEE functional teams and the College Board program stakeholders (e.g., partners on our College Readiness Assessments, Advanced Placement and BigFuture teams). Strong business orientation, analytical skills and focus on customer experience are critical to success in this role. In this leadership role, you will leverage data to support decisions as you define support solutions – focused on delivering a world class customer experience in alignment with program and department goals. You will own strategic initiatives and the method for communicating in all stages of implementation, from inception to delivery. You will develop close partnerships with the Directors of Customer Engagement Delivery, who report into the Senior Director of Vendor Delivery, and the Senior Director of Customer Engagement Delivery to translate business needs into support solutions.  

This is a leadership role with 4-6 direct reports. 

In this role, you will:  

Strategy and Execution (30%) 

• Lead strategic initiatives and partnerships related to supporting College Board programs; leverage an understanding of the CEE operational structure, capabilities, strengths, and limitations to facilitate effective, realistic, expectation setting and performance delivery, while also seeking to enhance service delivery in every way possible to support program initiatives  

• Partner with the Senior Director, Customer Engagement Operations to support the team’s ability to analyze, leverage and report against budgets and vendor performance reports  

• Socialize and deliver results-oriented support proposals and efficiently with all supporting tools and resources necessary in a cost-effective, managed, and monitored fashion 

• Create a systematic approach to project and initiative documentation, change management and the supporting rollout procedures whereby change activities are delivered along a defined process framework 

• Understand program reporting needs and lead the development of critical and timely reporting that would share critical customer experience data, metrics and voice of the customer feedback (e.g., qualitative and quantitative) on a regular basis 

• Lead solutioning and escalation support to effectively solve ad-hoc customer issues, as needed, interacting with Program Partners, Program leaders, and other stakeholders 

Team Management & Results Delivery (30%) 

• Lead and develop the Customer Experience function providing strong, dynamic leadership and mentoring for a team with dynamic responsibilities and program deliverables; develop a robust, knowledgeable, and pro-active team environment in service of College Board customers 

• Conduct regular observations, coaching sessions, and performance reviews, balancing development, recognition, and accountability, for a team of direct reports assigned to support specific programs and manage teams to delivery results to achieve and exceed target performance levels 

• Define roles among direct reports and create opportunities for ownership, role clarity, and independent responsibility for all customer-facing support teams and functions; define goals and expectations for all roles in alignment with the CEE division goals and mission 

• Inspect team deliverables, ensuring delivery to program goals and expectations, timeliness, and accuracy; encourage consistency in delivery methods across programs and monitor stakeholder satisfaction to influence areas of coaching and support 

Collaboration & Stakeholder Management (20%) 

• Build and maintain strategic relationships across programs, departments, divisions, and internal and external partners 

• Proactively communicate results, opportunities, and action plans, including developing regular recurrent Business Review practices, developing partnership meeting cadences and agendas, and facilitating key program partnership communications and initiatives such as future road mapping awareness, requirements gathering, practice development, and process improvement 

• Leverage opportunities to bring qualitative and quantitative customer experience feedback (e.g., from surveys, constituent-based round table meetings, etc.) to systemically seek feedback from key stakeholder groups to inform department initiatives and actions 

• Develop a deep understanding of, program needs, as well as the operational structure, capabilities, strengths, and limitations of the CEE team to facilitate effective, realistic, expectation setting and performance delivery, while also seeking to enhance service delivery in every way possible to support program initiatives 

• Develop cross-functional partnership practices, communications, insight-sharing, understanding program requirements, and communicating those requirements to the CEE department teams for evaluation, plan development, implementation, and performance management 

• Partner with Senior Director Vendor Delivery and ED Customer Engagement Delivery to drive opportunities and partnership between teams to understand and deliver upon program-specific performance  

Analysis (20%) 

• Understand the end-to-end customer experience and analyze customer data and feedback to identify trends and insights that can be used to advise programs and improve products, services, or processes 

• Inform the development of reports and dashboards to share visibility to trends and challenges; and leverage data and metrics to evaluate effectiveness and drive decisions regarding CEE performance along program initiative goals  

• Utilize data to drive intervention methods, analyzing customer support data/metrics, identifying trends, developing action plans and solutions to improve the customer experience  

• Interpret learnings and inputs from a cross-functional team of subject matter experts (SMEs) and business unit leadership to optimize the customer experience with a focus on opportunities that gain efficiencies, improve quality, and/or increase consistency in service delivery 

You have:  

• 5-7 years of experience in a client-facing, customer liaison, or account management role. 

• A customer Experience and Call Center background (a plus)    

• Demonstrated leadership, team building and organizational skills. Strong leadership, interpersonal and motivational skills; and ability to manage relationships to drive business outcomes. 

• Experience leveraging feedback and performance levels to course correct.  

• Experience using innovative thinking and data to inform decisions and actions while adapting to changing conditions.    

• Experience working well at all levels of the organization and adapts working styles to meet audience needs.  

• Comfort working in undefined situations and evidence of creating clarity and path forward.  

• The ability to analyze business and financial strategy, understanding how one area of the business can affect another area of the business, with excellent attention to detail. 

• An ease working in undefined situations and evidence of creating clarity and path forward.  

• Willingness to work non-standard hours, as needed, to support critical test delivery windows. 

• The ability to travel 4-6 times a year to College Board offices and/or vendors. 

• You are authorized to work in the US.  

About Our Benefits and Compensation 

College Board offers a strong compensation and benefits package that attracts top talent looking to make a difference in education. 

• Our robust benefits package includes health, dental, and vision insurance, tuition assistance, paid time off, paid parental leave, retirement benefits with a generous matching program, and more. 

• We reward performance through annual bonuses and provide opportunities for salary growth over time through base compensation increases, merit raises and promotions. 

• We believe in compensating staff members fairly in relation to each other, their qualifications, and their impact. The salary range for a new employee in this position is $108,000 to $165,000. The salary offer of an individual candidate within this range is specific to their location and qualifications. 

• Each salary offer is determined carefully using internal and external benchmarking and adjusting for the candidate’s location. You will have an opportunity to discuss salary in more detail after you begin the application process. 

As a self-sustaining non-profit organization with global impact, College Board offers a job that matters, a team that cares, and a place to learn, innovate and thrive! 

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