Customer Service Lead

APEC Water Systems; Rosemont (IL); On-site; USD 110,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

401(k) plan

Paid time off

Job summary

APEC Water Systems in Rosemont, IL, is seeking a Customer Service Lead to drive day-to-day operations across phone, email, chat, and other channels. You will coach a team, monitor performance, and partner with cross-functional teams to resolve escalations and improve customer outcomes.

The role emphasizes a customer-first mindset, process improvements, and hands-on leadership to strengthen loyalty and trust. Bachelor's degree preferred or equivalent experience, with a target salary range noted.

Qualifications

• 4-6+ years of customer service, customer experience, ecommerce, or contact center experience.
• Previous experience serving as a team lead, supervisor, or informal people leader preferred.
• Strong experience with CRM and customer service platforms.
• Demonstrated ability to manage escalations, prioritize competing demands, and drive issue resolution.
• Strong communication, coaching, problem-solving, and organizational skills.
• Bachelor's degree preferred or equivalent work experience.

Responsibilities

• Support day-to-day execution of customer service operations across phone, email, chat, marketplace, social, and digital channels.
• Provide day-to-day guidance, coaching, and support to customer service representatives; assist with onboarding and knowledge sharing.
• Monitor service queues, response times, resolutions, backlogs, and escalations; support QA and SLA performance.
• Identify workflow inefficiencies; advocate for process improvements and platform optimizations.
• Collaborate with Operations, Supply Chain, Marketing, Sales, Product, and IT to resolve customer-impacting issues.

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

CRM platforms

Job description

Description: The Customer Service Lead is responsible for supporting the day-to-day execution of customer service operations across phone, email, chat, marketplace, social, and digital channels. This role helps ensure a consistent, high-quality customer experience while driving operational excellence, team performance, issue resolution, and continuous improvement. The Lead serves as a hands-on partner to the service team, helping identify customer trends, address escalations, improve workflows, and deliver service outcomes that strengthen customer loyalty and trust.

Responsibilities

Customer Experience & Service Execution

• Support execution of customer service standards across all customer touchpoints.
• Monitor customer feedback, complaints, and service trends and escale recurring issues.
• Help identify opportunities to reduce customer friction and improve satisfaction and retention.
• Promote a customer-first mindset across daily operations.

Operations & Performance

• Monitor service queues, response times, resolution times, backlog, and escalations.
• Support quality assurance efforts and service-level performance.
• Analyze service metrics and trends to identify opportunities for improved performance.
• Assist in resolving complex customer issues and escalations.

Team Coaching & Development

• Provide day-to-day guidance, coaching, and support to customer service representatives.
• Assist with onboarding, training, and knowledge-sharing activities.
• Reinforce performance expectations, accountability, and service excellence.
• Foster a positive, collaborative, and customer-focused team culture.

Process Improvement & Systems Support

• Identify workflow inefficiencies and recommend process improvements.
• Support adoption and optimization of customer service platforms, CRM tools, and knowledge management systems.
• Partner with leadership to improve reporting, documentation, and operational visibility.
• Help drive initiatives that improve productivity, consistency, and customer outcomes

Cross-Functional Partnership

• Collaborate with Operations, Supply Chain, Marketing, Sales, Product, and IT teams to resolve customer-impacting issues.
• Share customer insights and service trends to support business improvement efforts.
• Support implementation of initiatives that enhance the overall customer experience.

Qualifications

• 4-6+ years of customer service, customer experience, ecommerce, or contact center experience.
• Previous experience serving as a team lead, senior representative, supervisor, or informal people leader preferred.
• Strong experience with CRM and customer service platforms.
• Demonstrated ability to manage escalations, prioritize competing demands, and drive issue resolution.
• Strong communication, coaching, problem-solving, and organizational skills.
• Bachelor's degree preferred or equivalent work experience.

About Us

The PurePlay business is a growing portfolio of purpose-driven water filtration brands and part of Culligan International, a private-equity held company based in Rosemont, Illinois.

Our PurePlay brands serve a shared mission: to make clean, great-tasting, and contaminant-free water accessible in every household.

• APEC Water is our flagship brand, widely trusted by professionals and discerning consumers alike for its uncompromising performance, rigorous engineering, and industry-leading reverse osmosis systems.
• Express Water brings bold design and modern simplicity to everyday households, delivering powerful water filtration in sleek, user-friendly formats- designed for DIY installers and first-time buyers alike.
• CuZn extends our professional-grade portfolio with performance-focused specialty filters, while
• Pure Blue delivers reliable, accessible solutions tailored for value-seeking families looking for high-quality hydration with minimal complexity.

Across the portfolio, we combine technical credibility with consumer-first thinking- creating products that are engineered to perform, built to last, and positioned to win in every channel.

Target Salary Range: $110,000 - $130,000 per year plus bonus. Exact pay will be based on factors including, but not limited to relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, level, geographic location, and business and organizational needs. Full-time positions are eligible for competitive benefits, including paid time off, health, dental, vision, life, disability benefits and 401(k).