Escalation Program Lead, Customer Support

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CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND CUSTOMER SUPPORT AT NIELSEN

The Customer Support team is part of the Customer Experience (CX) organization at Nielsen.  Customer support is the front line team that responds to customer requests and resolves issues using internal processes and tools.  The Escalations Program Lead will play a critical role in raising the bar for internal processes and improving the support experience.  A key objective is to empower support associates with the knowledge, tools, and processes needed for fast, high-quality issue resolution. You will view the need for escalations as a defect, recognizing that they result in longer resolution times for clients.  While the term "escalation" can have different meanings depending on the context, within our operational framework, we define an escalation as any case where a customer's inquiry is transferred to another internal party because the individual providing the initial support is unable to achieve a resolution.  

JOB SUMMARY

The Escalation Program Lead will be responsible for developing and implementing strategies to identify and resolve global support escalations, identifying the underlying systemic issues that cause them, and driving prevention actions that measurably improve the customer experience. This critical role within the Customer Experience organization will develop and manage the Escalation Program roadmap, partnering with business stakeholders and CX leadership to drive operational excellence and eliminate the need for escalations. The Lead will meticulously track, document, and analyze the causes of escalations, take ownership of executive escalations with a focus on rapid response and root cause analysis, and work programmatically to equip support associates with the knowledge, tools, and processes needed for autonomous resolution. A key focus will be on reducing the aging of escalated cases through consistent tracking, reporting, and collaboration with internal teams to ensure timely resolution and advocate for a higher standard of customer support.

RESPONSIBILITIES

This role is responsible for:

• Work directly with CX and support leadership to collaborate and align on organizational priorities, drive cross-team project management, alignment against team objectives and goals, and advance opportunities to further scale our operations

• Develop and independently manage a roadmap for the Escalation Program and drive projects that aim to improve the customer experience and team productivity, eliminate defects, improve efficiency and automate processes

• Partner with business stakeholders to develop strong working relationships, serve as an ambassador of CX and the customer support team throughout the organization

• Drive operational excellence:

  • Be customer-obsessed, help set a high bar for the customer experience

  • Maximize autonomous resolution of customer support cases

  • Work with support teams to develop clear policies and procedures for how, when, and to whom cases are escalated

  • Establish a programmatic means to identify when support cases are escalated

  • Track escalation aging and ensure cases get resolved as quickly as possible

  • Diligently monitor and document the causes of case escalations

  • Maintain detailed records of internal escalation paths and parties

  • Partner with BI to develop and deploy comprehensive escalations measurement reporting and metrics

• Take ownership of “executive escalations” for customer support

  • Build and maintain effective, trusted internal relationships to resolve conflict

  • Develop and refine the executive escalation intake process with clear instructions

  • Establish communication protocols and stakeholder identification

  • Lead and coordinate rapid response and resolution

  • Play an active role in managing escalation communications 

  • Conduct in-depth root cause analysis (RCA) to understand key drivers

  • Develop and drive preventative actions that reduce escalations

  • Track, report and analyze executive escalation trends

• Dependency Elimination: programmatically eliminate the need to escalate cases to other teams

  • Meticulously track escalated cases and deep dive into the reasons why

  • Develop and drive containment plans to eliminate the need to escalate cases

  • Equip support associates with the processes, tools and knowledge required to resolve cases without escalating

  • Effectively manage relationships with escalation parties to drive continuous improvement efforts

• Reduce the aging of escalated cases

  • Track and measure the turnaround time for resolving escalated cases for each escalated party

  • Collaborate with escalated teams to define SLAs that guarantee prompt issue resolution

  • Produce regular reporting to drive transparency and accountability of aging, escalated cases

  • Advocate for the needs of the customer, drive continuous improvement

• Working hours and flexibility:  This role primarily follows the U.S. Eastern time zone business hours to align with our New York-based headquarters and stakeholders, while remaining flexible to occasionally join meetings across other time zones as required to support our global customer base.

The ideal candidate for this job will have:

• 5+ years’ experience in a customer service, support, or contact center environment

• 5+ years of program or project management experience

• 2+ years of experience managing customer support escalations

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience

• Exceptional English communication skills, both written and verbal, with the ability to articulate complex information clearly and professionally to a global audience.

• Proven experience in customer support operations, specifically focusing on escalation management and resolution programs.

• Demonstrated ability to identify, track, document, and analyze the root causes of customer support escalations.

• Experience in developing and managing program roadmaps and driving projects focused on operational excellence and customer experience improvement.

• Strong project management and analytical skills with the ability to define metrics, develop reporting (in partnership with BI), and analyze trends related to escalations (causes, aging, resolution time).

• Experience taking ownership of high-priority or executive escalations, including rapid response, communication management, and comprehensive root cause analysis.

• Ability to develop and implement preventative actions and containment plans to reduce the frequency of escalations.

• Experience in process improvement, including developing policies and procedures, streamlining workflows, and implementing automation.

• Proven ability to build and maintain strong working relationships and collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams and internal stakeholders.

• Experience in equipping support teams with the necessary knowledge, tools, and processes to increase autonomous resolution.

• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to effectively communicate with support associates, internal teams, leadership, and potentially clients during escalations.

• Experience advocating for customer needs and driving a culture of continuous improvement within a support organization.

• Ability to track and manage the aging of escalated cases and establish SLAs with internal resolution parties.

• Must have flexibility to mirror a US team working shift and occasionally accommodate meetings with global team members across different time zones.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Six Sigma Certification / defect elimination experience

• Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS) certification / experience in creating standard operating procedures (SOPs)

• Advanced experience and/or certification with Salesforce Service Cloud and Zendesk case management

• Business Intelligence experience with tools like Tableau

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