We are seeking an experienced and innovative Senior Manager of Contact Center & Customer Support to build, scale, and operate the support organization behind a global travel and events program spanning 60+ countries. This leader will own the end-to-end contact center operating model, from strategy and technology implementation to daily performance, ensuring all customers including travelers, arrangers, event planners, and internal stakeholders receive fast, consistent, high-quality support across every channel, time zone, and language.

This is a builder role for a leader who has stood up or transformed a contact center function, designing the operating model, building the organization, and setting the standards that a global operation runs on. The right candidate brings the discipline of SLAs, KPIs, case management, and technology-enabled automation that a 24/7 travel and events program spanning 60+ countries demands. Deep familiarity with the travel, hospitality, and events industry (bookings, intake, changes, disruptions, traveler safety, vendor/supplier coordination) is essential to earning credibility with the business and designing support workflows that fit how travel and events programs must operate.

This role oversees the development of front line customer care and contact center automation and is accountable for setting the strategic direction across the functions automation, AI, and self-service goals.

Key job responsibilities

Strategy & Operating Model

- Design, build, and continuously improve a structured contact center operating model including workflows, service standards, escalation paths, quality expectations, performance metrics, and reporting cadence fit for a global, multi-country, multi-language travel and events program.

- Define the channel strategy (phone, chat, messaging, email, social, self-service, in-app) and the customer journey across planning, booking, pre-trip/event, in-trip/event disruption/emergency support, and post-trip/event resolution.

- Partner with regional and global stakeholders to ensure the support model reflects local regulatory, language, and cultural requirements across all 60+ countries while maintaining a globally consistent standard of service.

- Act as a strategic partner to senior leadership, bringing data-driven recommendations on staffing, technology investment, and process design to executive planning and business reviews; drive automation and reduce operating costs.

- Influence cross-organizational priorities aligning technology, product, procurement, and regional operations teams around a shared support vision without direct reporting authority over those teams

Technology, Automation & AI

- Own the cross-channel automation strategy (based on the data and customer insight that frames the problem to solve) panning voice, chat, messaging, email, and social, other. Sets the customer experience using automation capabilities and systems that understand and respond to customer requests and automates repetitive back office workflows.

- Partner with internal technology teams including product managers to drive the contact center technology roadmap leveraging world-class solutions including the telephony platform, case/ticket management systems, workforce management tools, and AI-enabled support.

- Drive the agent-assist technology roadmap including AI-generated summaries, real-time suggestions, knowledge retrieval, and speech/interaction analytics to improve agent efficiency and customer outcomes.

- Identify and implement automation opportunities that reduce cost-to-serve while improving speed and consistency of resolution, with clear governance around accuracy, data privacy, security, and human oversight for AI-assisted support.

- Set the vision for personalization and proactive support experiences across channels, leveraging customer journey data, sentiment analysis, and behavioral analytics.

- Build the requirements for new tools and solutions; manage third-party vendor relationships, contracts, and performance against SLAs.

- Drive adoption of self-service and containment strategies appropriate to travel and events support to free agents for complex, high-touch, or time-sensitive cases (disruptions, emergencies).

Process & Case Management

- Establish and enforce superior case/ticket management practices: intake, triage, prioritization, ownership, escalation, and closure, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks in a high-volume, always-on environment.

- Develop and maintain Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and playbooks for common and edge-case travel and events scenarios (cancellations, rebookings, disruptions, emergencies, VIP handling, vendor escalations).

- Lead root-cause analysis on recurring issues, automation failures, and escalation patterns turning support data into upstream fixes with product, policy, technology and supplier/vendor teams.

- Build scalable processes that flex with seasonality, program growth, and new market/country launches without degrading service.

- Drive a culture of continuous process improvement leveraging structured methodologies (Lean, Six Sigma) to systematically eliminate waste and improve quality.

Performance Management: SLAs & KPIs

- Own and continuously refine the performance dashboard: response time, resolution time, first-contact resolution, abandonment rate, service level (SL%), CSAT/CES/NPS, quality scores, schedule adherence, cost-to-serve, deflection rate, average handling time impact, and automation containment rate.

- Leverage journey analytics, speech analytics, and real-time interaction analytics to identify optimization opportunities across channels and automation touchpoints.

- Set clear SLAs and KPIs by channel, region, and case type, and hold the organization accountable through regular operating cadences (daily/weekly/monthly/quarterly reviews).

- Build forecasting, staffing, and capacity models that account for global time zones, seasonality (peak travel periods), and event-driven volume spikes.

- Translate performance data into action plans that close gaps in service levels, quality, or efficiency.

Workforce & Leadership

- Lead the contact center function through managers, supervisors, and specialized leads setting strategy, priorities, budgets, and performance expectations, and developing bench strength for succession.

- Ensure automation strategy is tightly integrated with workforce planning as self-service and AI capabilities mature, proactively realign agent roles, training, skill requirements, and capacity models.

- Build a culture of accountability, customer focus, continuous improvement, and data-driven decision-making across a globally distributed team (in-house and/or outsourced/BPO).

- Own recruiting, training curricula, coaching frameworks, and quality assurance programs that scale across regions and languages including agent readiness for new automation tools and workflows.

- Manage relationships with outsourced partners where applicable, including performance management and program economics.

Financial & Vendor Stewardship

- Own the contact center budget: staffing, technology, and vendor costs balancing service quality with cost-to-serve discipline.

- Manage strategic vendor and supplier relationships (technology platforms, business partners, travel suppliers) including contract performance and renewal strategy.

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS

- 10+ years of progressive experience in contact center, customer support, or customer experience operations, including experience building or transforming a support function at scale.

- Direct experience implementing and migrating contact center technology, workforce management, and AI/automation tools.

- Track record of building and managing SLAs and KPIs in a high-volume, multi-channel environment.

- Experience operating a support function across multiple countries, languages, and time zones global or regional (EMEA/APAC/Americas) scope strongly preferred.

- Strong analytical skills; comfortable building and interpreting dashboards, forecasts, and business cases.

- Excellent executive communication skills and experience influencing senior stakeholders.

- Bachelor's degree required; MBA or related advanced degree a plus.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

- Experience in the travel, hospitality, or events industry (corporate travel, travel management, hospitality, airlines, or events) understanding of booking and event systems, itinerary management, travel disruption response, and traveler duty-of-care.

- Experience managing in-house or outsourced contact center partners.

- Familiarity with 24/7 or "follow-the-sun" support models and after-hours/emergency travel assistance programs.

- Change management experience leading an organization through technology or process transformation.

- Experience with contact center automation, conversational AI platforms at scale.

- Familiarity with speech analytics, journey analytics, or real-time interaction analytics.

- Background in Lean, Six Sigma, or structured process improvement methodologies.

The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage), 401(k) matching, paid time off, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.

USA, VA, Arlington - 173,900.00 - 230,000.00 USD annually