Director, Customer Service at ANOVA

ANOVA; Coimbra; Híbrido; EUR 90 000 - 130 000; Tempo integral

Resumo da oferta

ANOVA in Coimbra, Portugal, is seeking a Director of Customer Service to own post-sale support across LPG, Fuel & Lubricants, Industrial Gas, and Chemicals. The role drives automation and AI transformation, ensuring unified service standards while respecting vertical nuances.

The position is on-site with hybrid flexibility, reporting to the VP, Customer Engagement. You will lead a globally distributed team, scale operations from Portugal, and partner across regions to improve response and

Qualificações

• 8+ years in customer support or service leadership within industrial IoT, energy, or technology-enabled services.
• Experience leading automation/AI adoption with measurable reductions in cost-to-serve.
• Proven ability to manage globally distributed operations across regions and verticals.

Responsabilidades

• Oversee end-to-end global customer support and technical operations across four verticals.
• Lead automation and AI-driven transformation of service delivery.
• Manage a tiered leadership structure and develop career pathways for frontline teams.
• Partner with CSM and Platform/AI teams to align hand-offs and improvements.

Conhecimentos

Global leadership

Automation

AI adoption

SLA management

Customer service

Ferramentas

Salesforce

Databricks

SQL

Descrição da oferta de emprego

Apply for Director, Customer Service at ANOVA in Coimbra, P06, PT. This Full time on site position offers great opportunities for career growth. Join us as the Director, Customer Service, and own the reactive half of Anova’s post-sale customer experience — the technical support, service, and RMA execution that keeps every monitored asset healthy, reporting, and trusted by the customer who depends on it. The Director, Customer Service is accountable for executing global Customer Service operations across all four of Anova’s markets — LPG, Fuel & Lubricants, Industrial Gas, and Chemicals — and for the productivity, resolution quality, and automation maturity of an organization led from Portugal (APT), home to both the leadership team and the largest single concentration of Customer Service reps, with additional reps based in the US, Germany, and Malaysia. Reporting to the Vice President, Customer Engagement (Global), this leader is the reactive counterpart to the Director, Customer Engagement (Europe): where that role owns proactive adoption and account growth, this role owns what happens the moment a customer has a problem — and how fast, and how intelligently, Anova solves it. Success in this role depends on being an exceptional change agent. Customer Service today, and the automation and AI transformation this role is chartered to lead, must work identically well for Commercial Fuels (LPG, Fuel & Lubricants) and Industrial (Industrial Gas, Chemical) customers — two segments with different products, different customer bases, and, historically, different ways of working. The Director is accountable for building one collaborative Customer Service operating standard that both segments trust, while respecting the product and customer nuances that make each vertical distinct.

Where You’ll Work:

This is a remote-friendly role — most of your work in practice can be done remotely, with occasional in-person collaboration at our Porto office. Our engineers tell us that flexibility is one of the things they value most about working here.

Job Duties and Responsibilities

Global Customer Service & Technical Support Execution

Own end-to-end global customer support, service, and technical support operations — from first contact through resolution — across all four verticals (LPG, Fuel & Lubricants, Industrial Gas, and Chemicals). Set and hold the organization accountable to support SLAs, technical escalation paths, First Contact Resolution, Technical Win Rate, and service-quality standards that are consistent across every region and vertical. Ensure Engage/CSM (proactive) and Customer Service (reactive) operate as one unified post-sale experience — the customer should never feel a seam between “success” and “support.” Manage RMAs, deployment escalations, and technical-issue resolution end to end, in partnership with Installation Operations and the CSM organization.

Automation & AI-Driven Service Transformation

Champion and lead the transformation of Customer Service from a linear, headcount-driven ticket-resolution model to an automation- and AI-first support organization. Direct the Customer Service RepIII team’s mandate to evaluate, pilot, and implement automation and AI improvements — intelligent ticket triage and routing, AI-assisted diagnostics, self‑service and knowledge tooling, and automated resolution of repeatable issues — as its primary responsibility, not a side project. Partner with the CDAO’s AI, Data & Analytics function to apply Aperture and applied AI in customer products to the support workflow; act as a primary internal customer of that roadmap for customer‑service use cases. Establish and track automation/AI‑adoption metrics — % of tickets auto‑resolved or deflected, AI‑assisted resolution time, self‑service adoption — alongside traditional SLAs, and report progress as a distinct line of the Customer Service scorecard.

Customer Service Organization Leadership

Lead the global Customer Service organization through a two‑tier structure: three Customer Service Team Leaders, each aligned to a vertical and region (Commercial FuelsUS, IndustrialUS/RestofWorld, and CommercialFuelsRestofWorld), who manage Customer Service RepI and RepII support, and RepIII resources who report directly to the Director. Hold each Customer Service Team Leader accountable for their team’s productivity, queue health, first‑contact resolution, and the day‑to‑day operating rhythm of frontline support — while ensuring consistent standards across all three. Direct the Customer Service RepIII organization personally given its outsized strategic importance — RepIII owns the most complex technical escalations and is the team accountable for evaluating and implementing the automation and AI improvements that reshape the whole support motion. Build career pathways from Customer Service RepI through RepIII, and hire, ramp, and retain the Customer Service team — anchored in Portugal, with reps also based in the US, Germany, and Malaysia — so it scales with installed‑base growth without proportional headcount growth.

CSM / Engage Partnership & Service Hand‑Off

Partner with the Director, Customer Engagement (Europe) and the global CSM organization to define and continuously refine the hand‑off point between proactive Engage/CSM activity and reactive Customer Service. Own clean intake of repeatable service requests, RMAs, and technical support issues handed off from CSMs, so CSMs stay focused on adoption, expansion, and account health rather than ticket resolution. Feed technical‑issue and escalation intelligence — recurring failure modes, product gaps, ERP‑integration friction — back to CSMs, the vertical Directors, and the Platform/AI partnership below.

Platform, Data & Escalation Partnership

Act as the escalation owner for technical issues that require platform or engineering intervention, partnering with the CTO organization to resolve systemic problems surfaced through the support channel. Report support and service health — ticket volume, resolution time, First Contact Resolution, Technical Win Rate, technical‑escalation rate, automation/AI deflection rate, and CSAT — as part of the Vice President’s integrated post‑sale scorecard. Partner with the CDAO on the applied‑AI and Aperture roadmap for customer‑facing and internal support tooling, shaping priorities by what actually reduces customer effort and cost‑to‑serve. Represent Anova’s support organization at relevant industry forums, sharing automation and AI proof points that strengthen Anova’s commercial story.

Change Leadership Across Commercial Fuels and Industrial

Serve as a change agent for the shift to an automation‑ and AI‑enabled service model, building buy‑in across a globally distributed, multi‑vertical support organization. Reinforce one collaborative Customer Service operating standard across both the Commercial Fuels (LPG, Fuel & Lubricants) and Industrial (Industrial Gas, Chemical) segments — the same standard the three vertical/region‑aligned Team Leaders (Commercial FuelsUS, IndustrialUS/RoW, CommercialFuelsRoW) are jointly accountable for — while respecting each vertical’s product and customer nuances. Represent the Customer Service perspective in vertical‑level planning with the Director, CommercialFuels and the Director, Industrial, ensuring support capacity and automation investment keep pace with each vertical’s growth.

What You’ll Need to Succeed:

Minimum Requirements

• 8+ years of progressive experience in customer support, technical support, service operations, or customer service leadership within industrial IoT, energy, fuel, or technology-enabled service businesses, including direct leadership of multi‑tier (Customer Service RepI‑III or equivalent) support teams.
• Demonstrated experience leading a support or service organization through automation and AI adoption — e.g., AI-assisted triage and routing, self‑service tooling, chat/agent assist, workflow automation — with measurable reduction in cost‑to‑serve or improvement in resolution time.
• Proven track record managing globally distributed technical support operations across multiple regions, time zones, and product lines.
• Demonstrated ability to lead a tiered support organization (Team Leader plus Customer Service RepI/II/III structure) and to build career pathways from frontline support into senior technical and automation-focused roles.
• Strong analytical orientation — fluency with ticketing/support platforms, Salesforce, Databricks, SQL, and the data infrastructure that supports SLA, CSAT, and automation-adoption tracking.
• Hands‑on experience with RMA management and technical escalation processes in a hardware-plus-software or IIoT environment.
• Exceptional customer orientation and outstanding communication skills; able to operate credibly with global support teams, cross‑functional partners, and Anova’s leadership team.
• Background in B2B SaaS, HaaS, IIoT, or technology-enabled service businesses where support quality and cost‑to‑serve define success.
• Advanced English proficiency (oral and written).
• Ability to lead and support a distributed team through three vertical/region-aligned Team Leaders, with reps split across Portugal (the largest Customer Service population), the US, Germany, and Malaysia — effectively covering multiple time zones and customer regions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Direct experience in LPG, Fuel & Lubricants, Industrial Gas, Chemical, or related industrial/IIoT markets.
• Experience deploying AI-driven customer service tooling — intelligent ticket routing, AI chat/agent assist, or knowledge‑base automation — at scale.
• Experience partnering with or leading engineering or data‑science resources embedded within a support organization.
• Multilingual capability (Portuguese, Spanish, French, or German) is an asset.

Travel Requirements

25-35% annual travel expectation, dictated by business need. Regular travel to the US support hub and other Anova support hubs, customer sites, and internal leadership meetings. Valid driver’s license and passport requirements. Ability to manage a variable, demand-driven travel schedule independently.

ABOUT ANOVA

We are very proudly “one” Anova — built by integrating the best in IIoT technology and expertise. Anova monitors more than 1,250,000 assets across nearly 80 countries for over 2,000 clients, from family businesses to the largest LPG, Industrial Gases, and chemicals companies in the world. Our scale is global. Our service is local. We partner directly with customers, taking a holistic approach and delivering tailored solutions that drive innovation and improvement and make our world safer, more efficient, and reliable. We believe that rewarding work should reward you. As part of Anova, your work, integrity, and commitment are rewarded through competitive compensation and reward strategies, through sincere appreciation and through opportunities for growth and advancement. We put people first by providing benefits that support your life and well‑being, from health and finance to recognition and reward, and so much more — we’ve got you covered.