Chief Customer Service Officer

About the role

Location: Irvine, CA

Department: Executive

Compensation

$220,000-$250,000 base + performance bonus

About the Role

The Chief Customer Service Officer (CCSO) is the executive owner of the client experience after engagement. This leader designs and runs the operating system that turns a signed client into a well-served, retained, and referring client-across phone, digital, and in-person touchpoints.

This is not a call-center manager title. The CCSO sits at the executive table as the voice of the client, is accountable for service quality and client outcomes, and partners with Sales, Operations, Compliance, and Finance so the experience is consistent, compliant, and commercially sound.

Client experience strategy and service standards

• Define the service promise, journey standards, SLAs, and escalation paths from onboarding through case resolution and post-resolution support.
• Translate client needs, regulatory requirements, and commercial priorities into a clear annual service plan, budget, and staffing model.
• Advise the CEO and leadership team on service risk, capacity, complaint trends, and investments that protect reputation and retention.

Service operations and team leadership

• Lead customer service, client relations, quality, training, and related post-sale teams; set structure, capacity, and playbooks for high-, mid-, and tech-touch service.
• Build managers who coach to quality, not just speed; own hiring standards, career paths, and performance management for the function.
• Own service recovery for high-risk and high-visibility cases; ensure root-cause fixes, not only case-by-case firefighting.

Quality, compliance, and voice of the client

• Establish quality programs, call/interaction monitoring, knowledge management, and closed-loop complaint handling.
• Partner with Legal and Compliance so scripts, disclosures, documentation, and handling of sensitive client information meet regulatory and firm standards.
• Build a practical voice-of-client system (CSAT/NPS/CES, complaint themes, churn and cancellation reasons) and bring that data into product, process, and leadership decisions.

Retention, efficiency, and technology

• Drive retention and client lifetime value through clearer communication, fewer handoffs, faster resolution, and proactive outreach on at-risk accounts.
• Reduce cost-to-serve through better first-contact resolution, self-service, workforce management, and intelligent automation-without lowering the standard of care.
• Own or co-own the service tech stack (phone/CCaaS, CRM/ticketing, QA, knowledge base, workforce tools) and the roadmap for AI-assisted service.

Cross-functional leadership

• Align the Sales-to-Service handoff so clients hear one story from the first promise through delivery.
• Work with Operations and case-production teams so service commitments match operational reality.
• Represent the client in executive discussions on policy, pricing, capacity, and process change.

What Success Looks Like

• Measurable improvement in client satisfaction, first-contact resolution, and time-to-resolution.
• Lower avoidable churn, cancellations, and complaint volume; clearer root-cause action on remaining issues.
• Service levels held during volume spikes without sacrificing quality or compliance.
• A leadership bench and operating cadence the CEO can trust without daily intervention.
• A documented, scalable service model that new sites, channels, or products can plug into.

Qualifications

Required

• 15+ years in customer service, client experience, or contact-center leadership, including executive or VP-level ownership of multi-site or multi-channel operations.
• Proven record of building or transforming a service organization: standards, quality, workforce planning, and manager capability.
• Comfort owning both the client outcome and the P&L/operating metrics of the function (service levels, cost-to-serve, retention).
• Experience in a regulated or high-stakes consumer environment (financial services, tax, healthcare, insurance, utilities, or similar) where documentation, disclosures, and complaint handling matter.
• Strong executive presence: can brief a CEO, de-escalate a high-profile client issue, and partner across Sales, Ops, Legal, and Finance.
• Data fluency: uses CSAT/NPS, quality scores, AHT/FCR, occupancy, and retention data to set priorities.

Preferred

• Background in tax resolution, debt relief, consumer finance, or professional services with high-emotion client conversations.
• Experience standing up or modernizing CCaaS, CRM, QA, and knowledge platforms; practical use of AI in service.
• MBA or equivalent operating experience a plus.

Leadership Profile

• Calm under volume and under scrutiny.
• Direct, fair, and specific with managers; coaches to evidence.
• Protects the client and the firm at the same time. Service quality and compliance are not a trade-off.

Compensation & Logistics

• Competitive executive base, bonus tied to service quality and operating performance.
• On-site presence in Irvine, CA.