Director of Support
Customer Service
Phoenix, AZ, USA · Remote
Position Summary
We're hiring a Director of Support to own a 23-person global support organization across three manager led teams aligned directly to our core Product and Engineering functions. You'll scale and refine the tooling, operational processes, and performance metrics as the team enters its next phase of growth.
This is also an AI-forward mandate. You'll own Swift CX, our AI chatbot, and shape how AI-assisted triage and first response keep evolving across the team. We think AI should expand what the team can do, not replace headcount before capacity catches up.
How You Work
Everyone acts like a founder. You own the SLA gap for the whole team, not just the parts assigned to you, and you run toward it
Speed is a feature. You ship fixes and process changes quickly. You don't let a perfect process design hold up a near-term win
Customer value above all else. Every metric change gets judged by whether it actually makes a nonprofit feel heard, not by whether the dashboard looks better
One company, one team, one customer experience. You partner for real with CX Ops, Customer Success, Professional Services, and Enablement so support isn't operating in its own silo
AI as a value accelerator. You use Swift CX and AI triage to take low-leverage work off the team's plate, so people spend more time on judgment calls and the human parts of the job
What You'll Own
TEAM & OPERATIONS
Lead, develop, and scale a 23-person support organization by leading three team managers and driving operational excellence.
Drive first reply time from today's baseline toward a sustained SLA of 2 to 72 hours, based on ticket priority
Own Requester Wait Time: any time a customer re-engages on an open ticket, we reply within 24 hours, for as long as the ticket stays open.
Build and defend the capacity plan: translate ticket volume, complexity, and team performance into a clear, data-backed staffing narrative for leadership
Look across escalations for the pattern, individual contributors and managers already flag urgent tickets and patterns but you job is making sure those flags turn into action and escalation to Product Management
Own and evolve the team development through a documented & clear process
Evolve our coaching strategy to support ongoing career growth and performance for managers and individual contributors.
Foster a collaborative, high engagement culture grounded in active mentorship, two way feedback, and sustainable pacing across all support tiers.
METRICS & REPORTING
Own the core metrics here: first reply time (FRT) and the Tier 2 hand-off SLA are the headline numbers, tracked and reported on consistently
Track and report on Requester Wait Time (24 hours on any re-engaged open ticket), ticket pickup time, tickets resolved, and CSAT
Own Zendesk as the platform of record: administration, configuration, and all reporting through Zendesk Explore
Bring outside perspective on support metrics best practices. Recommend what Virtuous should add or retire based on what actually predicts customer health, not just what's easy to pull from Zendesk today
AI & PROCESS
Own Swift CX, Virtuous's AI chatbot: its continued configuration, escalation logic, and roadmap for deflection
Identify and prioritize the highest-leverage places to expand AI further: triage, first replies, and deflection on repetitive ticket categories
Partner with Product and Engineering on the integrations and tooling an AI-augmented support operation needs
Enhance the quality and process discipline already in place: SLA tiering, escalation paths, bug reproduction and hand-off to EPD
REPORTING & INFLUENCE
Report directly to the CCO and serve as the executive-level owner of the team's performance, roadmap, and resourcing conversation
Partner closely with CX Ops, Customer Success, Professional Services, and CX Enablement to keep support connected to the rest of the customer experience
Take a step back to truly understand the customer's pain from the customer's perspective, then share that across teams: the customer impact and desired outcomes, not just what the software can or can't do.
Engage directly with customers when it matters: a high-visibility escalation, a strategic account conversation, whatever the moment calls for
You Must Have
7+ years leading technical or customer support functions in B2B SaaS, with direct experience managing managers (not just individual contributors) across a team of 20+
A track record of scaling a support org through a period of fast growth
Deep, hands-on Zendesk experience: administration and Explore reporting, not just using it as an agent
A track record of building or maturing a support metrics framework. You can look at what a team tracks today and tell them what's missing
Strong pattern recognition with ticket and escalation data. You find the systemic issue behind a cluster of hard cases, and you can teach that instinct to your managers
Comfortable working directly with customers, not just managing through others
Real, hands-on comfort with AI tooling. You've used it to build or improve a workflow yourself, not just bought a feature
Excellent written and verbal communication. You can coach a manager, brief an executive, and talk through a hard problem with a customer, all with the same clarity
Comfort with ambiguity and the resourcefulness to build structure and process where it doesn't yet exist
Nice To Have
Experience with nonprofit, higher-ed, or other mission-driven customer bases
Experience designing or scaling a Tier 2 or escalation model
Familiarity with Jira, Linear, Lattice, and BI tooling (Sigma or similar)
What Success Looks Like
A path to Next Reply Time at 24 hours or better across the board. No open ticket goes quiet once a customer re-engages, and nobody feels like their ticket disappeared
First reply time and the Tier 2 hand-off SLA are both hit consistently, with FRT landing in the 2 to 72 hour range based on ticket priority
Virtuous's support metrics reflect real best practice, not just what Zendesk shows by default, because this person pushed for it
Swift CX and the AI triage process are measurably deflecting or speeding up repetitive ticket categories, and the team's time is shifting toward higher-value, higher-complexity work
Every manager, and their individual contributors, has a real coaching relationship and a framework for growth
Leadership has a clear, current view of team capacity and what it takes to sustain performance as volume grows
The team feels resourced and set up to win, not asked to do more with less
About Us
Virtuous software is powering the world’s leading nonprofits and inspiring a new generation of generosity.
At Virtuous, we believe generosity has the power to transform the world - and so we are on a mission to create $10B in net new generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their donors.
Our talented team is hungry, humble, and committed to delivering best-in-class software solutions, customer success interactions, and sales experiences to the nonprofit community.
Our values are more than just a poster on the wall. Instead, our mission and values are precisely why candidates choose Virtuous. Our core values are:
Build Better: We build audacious ideas to accelerate philanthropy and dismantle the status quo.
Display Radical Generosity: We are generous with our time & talent as we serve our team and the nonprofit community.
Stay Humble & Enjoy the Journey: We take our work seriously, but we don't take ourselves too seriously.
Virtuous should act as a career accelerator for everyone on our team. Team members should look back at their time at Virtuous as one of the most productive and stretching seasons in their professional lives. This means that working at Virtuous isn't for everybody. It is for the select few who are ready to do hard things and build something truly great.
If this sounds like you, we’d love for you to apply!
What We Offer
Market competitive pay leveraging Carta data
Employee recognition through Bonusly (birthdays, anniversaries, achievements, etc.)
401(k) retirement plan with company matching- 50% match up to 6% of compensation after 90 days
We value our employee’s work-life balance and encourage taking advantage of Unlimited PTO
Supportive time off including paid volunteer days and company holidays
Employer-contributed healthcare benefits, encompassing medical, dental, and vision coverage, with plans available for dependents and choices for Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA).
12 weeks primary parent leave, 4 weeks secondary parent leave - full pay (adoption as well)
We pride ourselves on Community and host exciting company outings and events.
We’ve recently noticed an increase in recruitment scams where individuals are impersonating recruiters to obtain personal or financial information through fraudulent interviews and job offers.
Please note that all legitimate communication from Virtuous will only come from the @virtuous.org domain. If you receive a message from other domains, even if they look similar (e.g., virtuouscareers.org or virtuousjobs.com), they are not legitimate and we recommend disregarding it immediately.