Senior Manager - Escalations Management

About the Role:

We're looking for a Senior Manager of Escalations Management to lead the team that handles our most complex, high-risk, and high-visibility customer issues. You'll own the end-to-end escalations process from intake and triage to resolution and root-cause follow-up and build the team, playbooks, and systems that keep escalations from recurring. You'll report to the Director of Customer Service Operations and work closely with Quality, Legal, Trust & Safety, Product, and senior leadership on cases that carry legal, regulatory, PR, or executive-level risk.

What You'll Do:

- Own the end-to-end escalations process - intake, triage, ownership assignment, resolution, and post-resolution follow-up across all channels.

- Build and lead a team of Escalations Managers/Specialists; hire, coach, and develop the team, and set clear ownership and response-time standards.

- Personally own or oversee resolution of the highest-risk cases, including executive escalations, regulatory or legal complaints, PR-sensitive issues, and social media flare-ups.

- Define and monitor escalation SLAs (response time, resolution time, reopen rate) and report performance to leadership.

- Partner with Quality, Training, and frontline Customer Service leadership to reduce escalation volume by identifying and closing root causes.

- Build and maintain escalation playbooks and decision trees for common and emerging issue types, including guidance on when and how to involve Legal, Trust & Safety, or executive stakeholders.

- Serve as the senior point of contact for cross-functional partners (Legal, Trust & Safety, Product, Comms) on escalated cases requiring their input.

- Conduct root-cause analysis and post-mortems on major escalations, and drive corrective action plans with the relevant teams.

- Track escalation trends and emerging risk patterns, and proactively flag systemic issues to leadership before they scale.

- Own escalations reporting and present regular updates on volume, themes, and resolution outcomes to senior leadership.

What You'll Bring:

- 6+ years of experience in customer service, escalations, or complaints management, including 2+ years leading a team.

- A track record of successfully managing high-stakes, high-visibility, or legally/reputationally sensitive customer issues.

- Strong judgment under pressure - able to assess risk, make quick decisions, and know when to escalate further.

- Experience building or improving escalations processes, playbooks, or SLAs.

- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including experience communicating directly with senior leadership or executives on sensitive cases.

- Strong cross-functional collaboration skills, particularly with Legal, Trust & Safety, Quality, and Product.

- Data-driven approach to identifying root causes and trends in escalation volume.

- A calm, solutions-oriented approach to conflict and de-escalation.