Manager, Customer Support

About Minoan:

Minoan is a company at the frontier of a new way to shop — one we call “Native Retail.” 

Have you ever stayed at a hotel and fallen in love with the soaps or shampoos? Maybe you had the best sleep of your life and wanted to know where you could get the mattress. Or maybe you were at your friend’s house and LOVED their speaker system, their coffee maker, or even their plants. 

This is “Native Retail.” It’s about discovering products you love “in the wild” in environments where products are being used for what they are designed to do. In Native Retail, products aren’t boxed up in a display case like they are in stores, and they're not hiding behind clever merchandising on a phone screen like they are in e-commerce. There’s no salesperson over your shoulder or chat popup at the bottom of your screen — it’s just you and the product in a moment of real use. We believe these special moments are the future of retail. 

At Minoan, we’re building a platform that’s connecting spaces, brands, and consumers to bring these moments to life. Tens of thousands of design-oriented hospitality partners use Minoan to manage their procurement across hundreds of incredible brands (think West Elm, Casper, Parachute, Ursa Major, Boll & Branch, Article, etc.) and also use Minoan to turn their spaces into immersive, shoppable showrooms. It’s a big, bold idea and it will take an army of intelligent, tough, ambitious, optimistic, and curious people to get there.

About the Role:

We are looking for a customer support expert who is ready for a new challenge and will enjoy the impact that comes with joining a fast-growing startup. As our first hire in customer support leadership, you will be responsible for overseeing our customer support team, for setting the standard for support by handling the most sensitive client issues, and for bringing our customer support to a level that ensures our clients come back to us, refer us to others, and feel that we make the experience of working with Minoan a valuable one. 

This role will report directly to our Head of Operations, Strategy, and Finance and will be based in NYC, remote optional, with a preference that this individual could easily get to NYC when needed, where most of our team will be located.

What You’ll Do:

• Take responsibility for the performance and growth of Minoan’s Customer Support team, including the quality and speed of our communication

• Serve as the point of escalation for Customer Support, continuously managing the conversations and issues with the highest priority and sensitivity

• Own our internal customer support technology platform, optimizing settings, making internal improvements based on platform upgrades, and building automations and triaging to ensure our response times to clients are compliant with SLAs

• Collaborate with leadership to define Customer Support SLAs, then implement and track performance against these SLAs

• Develop, refine, and implement processes with the Customer Support team to meet predefined SLAs

• Develop and deliver training materials to the Customer Support team at regular intervals (i.e. monthly)

• Monitor team performance and capacity to enable quick and informed team expansion decisions

• Manage the Customer Support team at a granular level, highlighting response time SLA risks, and guiding teammates in their communication and problem-solving approaches

• Collaborate with other functions, such as Marketing, to define the voice of Minoan Customer Support, then implement this voice with the Customer Support team, and continually manage the team to ensure this voice is used consistently

• Expand and implement playbooks and processes for the most common issues that we address

• Develop and implement standardized escalation processes with our Brand Partners to ensure that issues are being resolved as quickly as possible, negative trends with Brand Partners are being corrected as quickly as possible, and relationships revolving around continuous improvement are the norm with all of our Brand Partners

• Define internally all of our Brand Partners’ policies and processes across the issues our clients face, and work to improve these policies in a way that benefits our clients

  • Where improvements cannot be made, collaborate with other functions to present the clearest information possible to our clients to allow them to make informed purchasing decisions

What We’re Looking For:

• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited, four-year college or university preferred, or equivalent work experience

• Minimum of 5 years of customer support and customer support leadership experience within early-stage high-growth startups, ideally in the retail space

• Experience in managing and scaling Customer Support teams with email, chat, and phone support

• Experience working with logistics, or supply chain partners

• Experience with Intercom, ZenDesk, FreshDesk, or similar customer support platforms

• Experience analyzing data in Google Sheets / Microsoft Excel

What We Offer:

• An opportunity to help shape the future of retail.

• A challenging and fast-paced environment to grow and learn faster than you would elsewhere.

• A fun, transparent, and collaborative company culture that truly feels like a tight-knit group.

• Regular team offsites to meet up in person (recent trips include Austin, Scottsdale, and NYC).

• Competitive compensation and benefits package including unlimited vacation, health/vision/dental coverage, 401(k), paid parental leave, and generous equity.