Manager, AI Success Strategist, Customer Success

Job Description

Why This Role Why Now

Customer experience is transforming through AI-driven innovation. At Zendesk we dont just embrace this change we lead it. As the Manager AI Success Strategists will scale our AI-driven Resolution Platform by building and leading a team of strategists who deliver predictable measurable AI outcomes for customers. This role blends deep product expertise with people leadership: youll be both the product authority for your team and the coach who develops their skills to deliver at scale.

Mission

You will manage and grow a high-performing team (610 direct reports) that owns endtoend delivery of customers AI roadmaps. Youll translate product capabilities into clear business strategies ensure consistent execution across customers and maintain recurring outcome-driven cadences that secure retention and expansion. Success is measured by customer satisfaction adoption of automated resolutions retention improvements and a team that reliably forecasts and mitigates risk.

Overarching Objective For The Role:

• Own and scale a 610 person AI Success Strategist team to deliver predictable measurable customer AI outcomes e.g. drive doubledigit increases in automated resolution adoption shorten timetovalue for deployments and materially improve account retention and expansion metrics (GRR/NRR)

• Operationalize repeatable playbooks SLAs and accountlevel forecasting so the team detects and mitigates risk earlier improves forecast accuracy and reduces atrisk accounts turning reactive firefights into steady measurable adoption curves

• Hire coach and develop individual contributors to raise team delivery velocity and quality: establish clear career paths lift performance metrics and ensure consistent outcomefocused executive engagement that converts strategic customers into referenceable success stories

• Own accountlevel delivery adoption and forecast accuracy for a defined portfolio; responsible for X% lift in automation adoption Y% reduction in timetovalue and Z decrease in atrisk accounts year over year

How Youll Make an Impact

Strategic Responsibilities

• Org leadership & people strategy: Own hiring onboarding and daytoday development for your AI Success team (610). Coach ICs run performance cycles create clear career paths and track team health and retention metrics.

• Strategic product partnership & roadmap influence: Be the product expert for your teamtranslate portfolio signals from your accounts into clear product feedback and prioritized tasks. Work closely with Product on pilot execution and beta validation to derisk customer deployments.

• Operational ownership & crossfunctional coordination: Run repeatable playbooks KPIs and delivery SLAs for your team. Coordinate handoffs with Sales Professional Services Product Partners and RevOps to remove blockers and enable rapid contextswitching across accounts.

• Executive engagement & external relationships: Own executive relationships at the account level and personally lead Clevel briefings for strategic customers. Coach your team to prepare and run scalable outcomefocused executive interactions.

• Portfoliolevel risk forecasting & business insight: Maintain predictive health scores and accountlevel forecasts for your portfolio. Identify trends and early risks surface prescriptive mitigations to stakeholders and improve forecast accuracy and timetodetection for atrisk accounts.

• Commercial outcomes & growth: Drive adoption and expansion plays within your portfolioown account targets for adoption retention and expansion velocity. Collaborate with Sales and Finance on renewal strategy and tactical expansion motions.

• Responsible AI governance & policy guidance: Advise customers on practical engagementlevel AI guardrails (explainability data handling compliance). Escalate complex governance issues to Product/Legal/Security and ensure your team is trained on responsibleAI best practices.

What Youll Need to Succeed

Strategic Skills & Expertise

• Product partnership track record: Proven ability to translate account signals into validated product asks and run pilots/betas; escalate strategic asks to Director. Translate account signals into validated product asks and run pilots/betas; escalate strategic asks to Director

• Product & technical fluency: Deep familiarity with generative AI integrations and authenticationable to map features to customer journeys and unblock adoption with ProdDev/Engineering.

• Forecasting & risk management outcomes: Built and operated accountlevel predictive health scores and adoption forecasts that improved forecast accuracy and enabled early mitigations.

• Operational delivery: Defined and ran team playbooks KPIs and SLAs; owned tooling or dashboards that provide a single source of truth for adoption and risk.

• Executive presence: Comfortable briefing customer executives (up to VP/CxO) and presenting accountlevel trends and forecasts to internal stakeholders with clear concise materials.

• Commercial impact: Track record owning team targets for adoption retention and expansionwith measurable improvements in GRR/NRR automation adoption or expansion outcomes.

• People leadership: Proven experience managing coaching and developing individual contributors (610) including hiring performance cycles and career development.

• Change & strategic judgment: Demonstrated ability to convert account insights into prioritized product tasks or tactical GTM adjustments and to drive followthrough.

• Mindset: Entrepreneurial ownership bias for action and comfort operating with ambiguity while enforcing disciplined measurement and accountability.

Qualifications

• 7 years in Customer Success / Professional Services / Technical Account Management / Solutions Consulting in enterprise SaaS; 2 years in AI-related roles or working on AI product adoption.

• 2 years of people management experience leading customer-facing teams (610 direct reports).

• Previous experience in go-to-customer/GTM roles in enterprise technology / SaaS either customer success management professional services/consulting technical account management or solutions engineering/pre-sales consulting

• Demonstrated experience in using adoption and health analytics to forecast churn and expansion; surface early risk signals and recommended mitigations to secure retention and growth.

• Bachelors degree in Business Computer Science Engineering or related field; advanced degrees; certifications in AI strategy or project management preferred.

• Demonstrated product expertise: ability to translate generative AI features integrations and technical requirements into business outcomes.

• Proven cross-functional influence with Product and Engineering; experience surfacing product feedback and driving prioritization.

• Track record of building predictive adoption models using analytics to forecast churn/expansion and operationalizing mitigations.

• Excellent communication skills; ability to distill complex AI concepts for executives and technical teams.

Hybrid: In this role our hybrid experience is designed at the team level to give you a rich onsite experience packed with connection collaboration learning and celebration - while also giving you flexibility to work remotely for part of the week. This role must attend our local office for part of the week. The specific in-office schedule is to be determined by the hiring manager.

The intelligent heart of customer experience

Zendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love.

Zendesk believes in offering our people a fulfilling and inclusive experience. Our hybrid way of working enables us to purposefully come together in person at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world to connect collaborate and learn whilst also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.

As part of our commitment to fairness and transparency we inform all applicants that artificial intelligence (AI) or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications for this position in accordance with Company guidelines and applicable law.

Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer and were proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity equity & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race color religion national origin age sex gender gender identity gender expression sexual orientation marital status medical condition ancestry disability military or veteran status or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law please click here.

Zendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application complete any pre-employment testing or otherwise participate in the employee selection process please send an e-mail to with your specific accommodation request.