Team Manager, CSI (based in Chicago or Dallas)

Team Manager, Customer Satisfaction & Incident (CSI) 

About Agoda 

At Agoda, we bridge the world through travel. Our story began in 2005, when two lifelong friends and entrepreneurs, driven by their passion for travel, launched Agoda to make it easier for everyone to explore the world. 

Today, we are part of Booking Holdings [NASDAQ: BKNG], with a diverse team of over 7,000 people from 90 countries, working together in offices around the globe. Every day, we connect people to destinations and experiences, with our great deals across our millions of hotels and holiday properties, flights, and experiences worldwide. 

No two days are the same at Agoda. Data and technology are at the heart of our culture, fueling our curiosity and innovation. If you're ready to begin your best journey and help build travel for the world, join us. 

About the team 

Our Customer Satisfaction & Incident (CSI) team is Agoda's final line of support part of the larger Agoda Customer Experience Group (CEG). We take on the most complex and high-risk customer issues and see them through to a clear resolution, while protecting the trust people place in Agoda. We support customers around the clock and handle critical escalations linked to regulatory matters, media and public relations, requests from senior leaders, supplier and partner complaints, and technical failures. 

As a Team Manager in CSI, you will lead a team of specialists who work with customers, partners, senior executives, and our Public Relations, Technology, Product and Legal teams. You will build a culture of continuous improvement, where your team digs into root causes, understands that every customer's situation is different, and acts early to prevent the next incident. 

The Opportunity 

You are more than a people leader, you are a proactive owner, comfortable juggling many things at once, being the calm, emotionally intelligent guide for a team that works under pressure every day. You will own your team's day-to-day performance and help deliver the wider Agoda and CSI team's goals, working closely with business partners so we succeed together. Everything you do comes back to one aim: the best possible resolution for our customers, based on the worst escalations or situations. 

 

What you'll do 

• Coach, mentor and manage a team of CSI specialists, building a culture of excellence, accountability and continuous learning. Set clear expectations, give regular feedback, manage performance and development plans; address performance or behaviour gaps directly. 

• Coach beyond the task at hand, so your team builds strong critical thinking and problem-solving skills for complex escalations. 

• Own your goals and projects from start to finish, whether they are assigned to you or ones you start yourself. Turn challenges into clear actions, track progress and report on results. 

• Be the key decision-maker for your team during complex, high-stakes escalations. Give clear direction, manage communication with stakeholders and steer each case to a controlled, effective resolution. Stay calm and prioritise your team's time when several high-stakes events happen at once, and turn complex, high-risk issues into short, clear updates with next steps for senior leadership. 

• Find the root causes of recurring escalations and push for lasting fixes, not just quick workarounds. Suggest improvements, take part in lessons-learned reviews after escalations, or incidents, and share what you learn. 

• Build strong relationships with internal partners such as Legal, Public Relations, Product, Supply and senior leadership, influencing without direct authority to clear blockers, so that work for your market or area runs smoothly. Balance requests from different leaders against your team's capacity and push back on escalations or work that do not belong with the team.  

• Manage your team's escalation queue and backlog. Keep a close eye on incoming case volumes, look beyond the dashboards for unusual patterns in case routing, volumes or team performance, spot issues early and act quickly to make sure service levels are met. 

• Use raw data, dashboards and performance reports to diagnose gaps, suggest improvements and build the case for change. 

• Own an assigned area of our operations: put new and existing processes into practice and keep procedures and documentation current and accurate. 

• Manage team members fairly and consistently, and keep management track above par. Find performance gaps, build action plans to close them, and follow them through. 

• Oversee quality checks and related training, and hold the team to the highest standards of case handling and our customer conduct standards, so customers get consistently great service. 

• Treat team morale as a core part of your job. Use engagement surveys to understand how your team is doing, and keep experienced specialists motivated and growing, even when a promotion is not immediately available. 

• Delegate and share responsibilities so the team does not rely on you for every decision, help grow future leaders, and run team meetings that are engaging, relevant and lead to action. 

• Take part in hiring, including screening and interviewing candidates. Help plan staffing and shift coverage. 

What you'll need to succeed: 

• People management experience leading a team of 8 or more in an a contact centre or customer support environment, escalation or senior specialist is preferred. 

• Excellent spoken and written English, and the ability to explain complex situations clearly and confidently to anyone, from upset customers to senior executives, including short, clear updates for senior leaders; additional languages are a plus. 

• Willingness to work 24/7 rotational shifts, including weekends and public holidays. 

• A strong track record of reviewing, improving and running processes that lift efficiency and team performance. 

• A focus that goes beyond numbers - you care about the quality of each resolution and the customer's whole experience, and you can balance customer needs with business risk and policy. 

• Experience influencing teams such as Legal, Public Relations, Product or Supply without direct authority, managing senior leaders' expectations and pushing back when needed to protect your team's focus. 

• The ability to manage several projects and deadlines at the same time. 

• A calm, professional and respectful approach under pressure, with the ability to prioritise well when several high-stakes issues land at once. 

• Comfort with ambiguity and fast change, and an openness to feedback: you ask your manager, peers and team for it, and act on it. 

• Proven experience in hiring, training, coaching and managing people. 

• Good working knowledge of AI tools, SQL, Tableau or similar data tools, plus Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and the ability to present data clearly in a way that suits your audience. 

Nice to have 

• 2 or more years of people management in a high-stakes setting such as complex escalations, incident management, dispute resolution or a similar support function. 

• Experience managing remote teams. 

• Experience working with complaints raised through government or consumer protection bodies, social media escalations, legal-threat cases, chargeback (card payment dispute) risk, or executive escalations. 

Working hours and location 

• This role works to primarily support USA daylight hours (Central Time) including weekends. In future, the role may be required to support a rotational shift pattern, to give 7-day coverage, including weekends and public holidays. 

• Hybrid working with office 3 days a week. 

• Location:  

• Chicago, Illinois, USA 

• Dallas, Texas USA 

Discover more about working at Agoda 

• Agoda Careers https://careersatagoda.com 

• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/agodacareers/ 

• LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/agoda 

• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/agodalife 

Equal Opportunity Employer  

At Agoda, we pride ourselves on being a company represented by people of all different backgrounds and orientations. We prioritize attracting diverse talent and cultivating an inclusive environment that encourages collaboration and innovation. Employment at Agoda is based solely on a person’s merits and qualifications. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunity regardless of sex, age, race, color, national origin, religion, marital status, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, citizenship, veteran or military status, and other legally protected characteristics. 

We will keep your application on file so that we can consider you for future vacancies, and you can always ask to have your details removed from the file. For more details, please read our privacy policy. 

Disclaimer 

We do not accept any terms or conditions, nor do we recognize any agency’s representation of a candidate, from unsolicited third-party or agency submissions. If we receive unsolicited or speculative CVs, we reserve the right to contact and hire the candidate directly without any obligation to pay a recruitment fee

The annual salary range for the local area is 84,000 - 114,000 USD, determined by a candidate's fit and experience.