Director, Customer Success - Onboarding & Adoption

Job Description

Overview:

We are seeking a strategic leader to establish and expand two critical global functions: Customer Onboarding and Targeted Adoption. This role is pivotal in ensuring our high-volume customer segments experience immediate value and achieve long-term success through a blend of both human-led and digital onboarding strategies. Additionally, this leader will ensure that established customers extract maximum value from their investments, particularly in complex use cases and product adoption scenarios. You will oversee the development, implementation, scaling, and management of both teams, focusing on hiring, operational excellence, and execution.

Responsibilities:

Customer Onboarding

• Build, expand, and lead teams based in Mexico City and Lisbon, focused on engaging with customers with annual recurring revenue (ARR) under $25K during their initial 90 days. The aim is to enhance key metrics such as Go-Live rates, Time to Value, and Time to Adoption.

• Develop strategies for low-touch, scalable engagements that leverage expert process management, automation solutions, and cross-functional collaboration.

Targeted Adoption

• Lead a team of senior Customer Success Managers (CSMs) situated across key global regions to enhance customer engagement in complex product adoption scenarios.

• Ensure this team operates with the depth needed to help key customers accelerate their adoption process and deliver optimal value outcomes.

Qualifications & Skills: 

• Proven experience managing high-volume, at-scale customer operations for cohorts in the thousands to tens of thousands

• Expertise throughout the customer lifecycle, particularly with lower-spend customers (ARR < $100K)

• Experience in enterprise-level customer success is beneficial, but proficiency in handling large-scale, low-touch operations is essential

• Strong leadership and team-building abilities

• Proficiency in process management and automation solutions.

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills

• Strategic thinker with a focus on results and delivering value

• Demonstrated capability in cross-functional collaboration and partnership across departments such as Sales, Product, Marketing, and Digital

What You’ll Do:

• Build and lead a global onboarding team focused on lower ARR cohorts, delivering high-volume, structured engagements that drive early value and ensure successful go-lives.

• Establish a targeted adoption team composed of experienced Customer Success Managers (CSMs) to operate across regional accounts, addressing complex product adoption scenarios that require deeper engagement.

• Develop onboarding experiences tailored by segment, incorporating webinar and digital-led models, 1:1 onboarding sessions, and robust handoff and integration processes.

• Align onboarding and adoption initiatives with customer objectives, subscription plans, and lifecycle stages.

• Collaborate with Sales, Product, Marketing, Digital, and Analytics teams to position resources effectively and integrate them with existing onboarding flows and content.

• Lead the decision-making process for tools and workflows concerning team assignment, scheduling, and engagement tracking.

• Ensure both teams are measurable, scalable, and outcomes-driven, establishing clear KPIs linked to customer activation and adoption.

What You Bring:

• Proven success in building and scaling Customer Success, Onboarding, or Implementation teams, preferably in a SaaS environment with high-volume operations (1,000+ customer engagements per quarter).

• 12+ years of professional experience in go-to-market (GTM) and/or Success functions.

• 5+ years of experience in people leadership, ideally as a second-line or senior leader (experience leading a global team is ideal).

• Strong data fluency and technical aptitude.

• Operational strength with a demonstrated ability to drive execution in fast-paced environments.

• Experience with tools such as Zendesk, Salesforce, Gainsight, Gong, and similar platforms.

• Strong collaboration and stakeholder management skills across GTM and Product organizations.

• Spanish fluency is a plus, but not required.

• Willingness to travel quarterly to global sites.

The US annualized OTE (On Target Earnings) range for this position is $209,000.00-$313,000.00 with a pay mix of 70/30 (base/commission). This position may also be eligible for bonus, benefits, or related incentives. While this range reflects the minimum and maximum value for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations, the offer for the successful candidate for this position will be based on job related capabilities, applicable experience, and other factors such as work location. Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only (or OTE for commissions based roles), and do not include bonus, benefits, or related incentives.

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.

Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re 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 [email protected] with your specific accommodation request.