Senior Manager / Director, Customer Support

Saviynt is a leader in identity security, providing an AI-powered identity platform that manages access to applications and data. The role of Director/Senior Director in Customer Support focuses on leading the strategy for application upgrades and enhancing the customer experience through automation and governance.

Responsibilities:

• Lead a global upgrade program responsible for orchestrating application upgrades across hundreds of enterprise customers
• Own customer upgrade planning and customer communication for Strategic and select customers as designated
• Own the end-to-end strategy for application upgrades, and Hotfixes in all customer environments (Dev, QA, Production and any other), ensuring upgrades are predictable, low-risk, and aligned with product release cycles
• Establish a structured upgrade governance framework including pre-upgrade checklist, schedule communication, upgrade tracking and executive reporting
• Implement a clear, high-touch communication strategy to selected customers that differentiates between Major release version upgrades and hotfix deployments
• Collaborate and document the upgrade process/timelines for internal collaboration and ongoing reporting to Saviynt teams
• Implement context-specific scheduling for customers based on business context, potential risks, customer onboarding roadmaps, and negotiate scheduling based on risk-mitigation
• Responsible for Root Cause Analysis and continuous improvement to the upgrade process
• Drive Early Access and Beta release cycles, systematically capturing user feedback to identify, prioritize, and resolve issues before general availability launch
• Build scalable processes and drive automation/AI to ensure upgrades are executed consistently (on time and per schedule)
• Partner with Product and Engineering teams to develop an AI based framework, to reduce upgrade complexity through automation, standardization, and pre-validation checks
• Assess and implement customer self-service tools to align with industry standards
• Develop upgrade roadmaps and ensure customers remain within supported versions of the platform. Plan for 2-3 version upgrades during the year
• Define and report on monthly Platform Maintenance activities to ensure that customer infrastructure is consistently up to date
• Ensure customers receive clear, proactive communication regarding upcoming releases, feature impacts, and upgrade windows
• Lead customer-facing briefings for strategic enterprise accounts requiring complex upgrades
• Establish rollback procedures, contingency planning, and incident response frameworks for upgrade-related issues
• Define and track KPIs such as:
• Customer NPS and Upgrade satisfaction
• Upgrade success rate- Upgrade cycle time
• Customer upgrade adoption rate
• Customer satisfaction post-upgrade
• Upgrade-related incident rates
• Present executive-level reporting on upgrade readiness, risks, and outcomes
• Lead post-upgrade reviews and implement continuous improvement initiatives
• Manage technical projects as assigned
• Work with cross-organizational teams; build seamless partnerships throughout support, sales, engineering, and other organizations within Saviynt
• Negotiate and influence skillfully with cross-functional groups to resolve key issues

Requirements:

• 10+ years related work experience (e.g., combination of working in an enterprise support management role, customer-facing, project management, business process operations, product management, engineering operations, business or product strategy, technical consulting, data analysis)
• Iterative mentality - start with the 80% solution and improve over time
• Strong Problem/Incident/Recovery management foundations
• Critical thinking skills to derive upstream causes for upgrade issues and iterate improvement suggestions consistently
• Demonstrated ability to remain 'cool, calm, and collected' during a crisis and relentlessly prioritize based on business impact
• Ability to combine negotiation and resource management skills with a solid understanding of support delivery processes
• Flexibility, integrity, and creative problem-solving skills are a prerequisite to be successful in this role
• Must demonstrate outstanding verbal/written communication and interpersonal skills at all levels of the organization to align a range of stakeholders on priorities, timing, and output
• A team player who is influential and builds good working relationships across all functions and across all geographic regions
• Sound judgment and ability to make decisions, with consideration of all alternatives and risks
• Ability to work and coordinate priorities well under pressure
• A track record of meeting complex stakeholder needs under tight timelines and resource constraints
• Technical depth to enable collaboration with our Product and Development teams along with an ability to present complex technology concepts to Senior executives in an understandable way
• Ability to multi-task and meticulously manage competing priorities coming from a diverse group of senior executives
• Ability to think and work independently, solve problems, and develop recommendations
• Ability and flexibility to cover the business and drive customer experience in a variety of shift timings, including some weekends
• Working knowledge of support management processes and tools in a high-tech software company
• Expertise in FreshService reporting and dashboards
• AI-first mentality and experience automating processes
• A results-oriented individual with a background in a technical support, customer service environment
• Manage processes across organizational boundaries, collaborating with functional managers worldwide