Overview

Alibaba Travels is seeking an experienced Customer Support Director to lead and scale its customer support and contact-center operations. This role is responsible for the end-to-end performance of a large, multi-channel support organization serving millions of travelers across the customer journey.

Reporting to CEO, the Customer Support Director will define the operational strategy for support, drive service excellence across all channels, and ensure the organization delivers consistent, efficient, and high-quality service at scale. This role works closely with Product, Operations, Technology, and Commercial teams to align support operations with business objectives and to continuously improve the customer experience.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end operations of the customer support and contact-center function across all channels (phone, chat, ticketing, email, and social).
• Lead, structure, and develop a large support organization, including team leads, workforce management, quality assurance, and training functions.
• Manage day-to-day contact-center operations, ensuring service levels, queue management, and response times are consistently met.
• Own workforce planning, forecasting, shift scheduling, and capacity management to balance service levels with operational efficiency across peak and off-peak demand.
• Define, monitor, and deliver on operational KPIs and SLAs such as service level, first-response time, resolution time, occupancy, and CSAT.
• Design, document, and continuously improve support processes, escalation paths, and quality frameworks to ensure consistent service delivery at scale.
• Lead the selection, implementation, and optimization of contact-center technology, CRM, and support tools.
• Drive automation, self-service, and AI-based solutions to improve efficiency, capacity, and cost-to-serve.
• Build operational dashboards and reporting, and turn performance data into actionable improvements for management.
• Manage the support budget, vendors, and outsourcing/BPO partners, ensuring performance standards and cost control.
• Partner cross-functionally with Product, Operations, Technology, and Commercial teams to resolve root causes and prevent recurring issues.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in customer support or contact-center operations, with several years leading large teams at a manager/director level.
• Proven track record of managing and scaling contact-center operations, ideally in e-commerce, marketplace, travel, fintech, or another high-volume environment.
• Strong expertise in contact-center operations, including workforce management, forecasting, scheduling, and capacity planning.
• Deep command of operational metrics and the ability to drive performance through data (service level, AHT, resolution time, occupancy, CSAT, cost-to-serve).
• Hands-on experience with contact-center platforms, CRM, and support tooling, including automation and AI-based solutions.
• Excellent leadership, coaching, and people-development skills, with the ability to lead and grow large operational teams.
• Strong operational, analytical, and budgeting capabilities, with experience managing vendors and outsourcing partners.
• Outstanding communication and stakeholder-management skills, able to report at the executive level and collaborate cross-functionally.
• Good command of English for reading, reporting, and working with international tools and partners.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in a relevant field.