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What is a customer operations director and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025
4 min read

The customer operations director is at the forefront of customer engagement in any organization. Where the position exists, the director is responsible for maximizing customer activation and driving education. Customer operations directors often have to work with various teams, including marketing, product design, and engineering.

The job is designed to identify customer pain points and then moving swiftly to resolve them. Whether it's issues with the design of a product, packaging, or delivery, it's important to have excellent relationships with the relevant departments so that you can act accordingly.

Customer operations directors develop customer success strategies, lead the customer care team, and manage new customer-centric features and products. In this role, you might also relate directly to customers to receive quality feedback and respond as needed.

Customer operations directors need a minimum of a bachelor's degree in business administration or related fields. They also need extensive experience in customer relations. Finally, they need a combination of skills like communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and proactivity.

ScoreCustomer Operations DirectorUS Average
Salary
8.6

Avg. Salary $138,432

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level
9.6

Growth rate 6%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity
3.5
Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.47%

Asian 6.41%

Black or African American 6.23%

Hispanic or Latino 15.35%

Unknown 4.34%

White 67.20%

Gender

female 41.85%

male 58.15%

Age - 44
Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 44
Stress level
9.6

Stress level is very high

7.1 - high

Complexity level
9.2

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance
3.6

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Customer operations director career paths

Key steps to become a customer operations director

  1. Explore customer operations director education requirements

    Most common customer operations director degrees

    Bachelor's

    70.1 %

    Master's

    16.4 %

    Associate

    7.1 %
  2. Start to develop specific customer operations director skills

    SkillsPercentages
    Customer Satisfaction7.24%
    Account Management5.99%
    Project Management5.80%
    KPIs5.64%
    QA5.36%
  3. Complete relevant customer operations director training and internships

    Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New customer operations directors learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a customer operations director based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real customer operations director resumes.
  4. Research customer operations director duties and responsibilities

    • Manage, develop and deploy 3rd party and custom in house tools for care operations and call center KPIs.
    • Manage annual budget/forecast, including event marketing, customer communication and CRM.
    • Finance and billing accountability across Medicaid, manage care commercial insurance, insurance verification, contract management, and benefits administration.
    • Conduct data analysis to disprove hypothesis of spare parts logistics performance issues and re-prioritize investments to improve customer experience.
  5. Get customer operations director experience

    Generally, it takes 4-6 years to become a customer operations director. The most common roles before becoming a customer operations director include manager, director team lead and project manager.
  6. Prepare your customer operations director resume

    When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your customer operations director resume.

    You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a customer operations director resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

    Choose from 10+ customizable customer operations director resume templates

    Build a professional customer operations director resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your customer operations director resume.
    Customer Operations Director Resume
    Customer Operations Director Resume
    Customer Operations Director Resume
    Customer Operations Director Resume
    Customer Operations Director Resume
    Customer Operations Director Resume
    Customer Operations Director Resume
    Customer Operations Director Resume
    Customer Operations Director Resume
  7. Apply for customer operations director jobs

    Now it's time to start searching for a customer operations director job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

    1. Browse job boards for relevant postings
    2. Consult your professional network
    3. Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
    4. Watch out for job scams

How did you land your first customer operations director job

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Average customer operations director salary

The average customer operations director salary in the United States is $138,432 per year or $67 per hour. Customer operations director salaries range between $100,000 and $190,000 per year.

Average customer operations director salary
$138,432 Yearly
$66.55 hourly

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Customer operations director reviews

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A zippia user wrote a review on Dec 2019
Pros

Positions cares such important function as a customer advocacy and customer servant

Cons

Operations never stops, its always up and running and you have to be available at any time


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A zippia user wrote a review on Sep 2019
Cons

Long hours and calls outside of regular business hours are the norm!


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Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Research Team
Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

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