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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Customer Operations Analyst

💰 $ - $

🎯 Role Definition

The Customer Operations Analyst is responsible for improving customer experience and operational efficiency by analyzing support workflows, managing CRM and ticketing systems, defining and tracking KPIs (CSAT, NPS, SLA adherence), and partnering with cross-functional teams to implement process improvements and automation. This role blends customer-facing operations knowledge with data analysis, quality assurance, and project execution to reduce friction across onboarding, order management, billing, and escalation workflows.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Customer Support Representative / Customer Success Representative
  • Operations Coordinator / Customer Operations Coordinator
  • Junior Data Analyst or Business Analyst in customer-facing teams

Advancement To:

  • Senior Customer Operations Analyst
  • Customer Operations Manager / Support Operations Manager
  • Program Manager, Revenue Operations, or Head of Customer Operations

Lateral Moves:

  • Product Operations Analyst
  • Revenue Operations / RevOps Analyst
  • Customer Success Manager or Implementation Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Analyze customer support workflows and ticket lifecycles to identify root causes of repeat issues, reduce average handle time (AHT), and improve first contact resolution (FCR) by designing and implementing data-driven process improvements.
  • Own weekly and monthly operational dashboards (CSAT, NPS, SLA compliance, ticket volume, backlog trends) using SQL, Excel, Looker, Tableau or Power BI; translate insights into prioritized action plans with measurable targets.
  • Manage and optimize CRM and ticketing systems (Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud, Freshdesk, Intercom) including queue configurations, routing rules, macros, and escalation paths to ensure consistency and SLA adherence.
  • Lead onboarding and enablement for new agents and cross-functional partners by creating playbooks, SOPs, training materials, and knowledge base articles that reduce ramp time and improve quality.
  • Design and implement quality assurance programs including sampling frameworks, scorecards, and feedback loops to raise support quality, identify coaching opportunities, and improve CSAT.
  • Partner with Product, Engineering, Billing, and Legal to triage product issues, verify reproducibility, prioritize defects or feature requests, and manage stakeholder communications during escalations.
  • Develop and maintain operational runbooks that define escalation matrices, outage procedures, and communication templates for internal teams and customers.
  • Conduct A/B experiments and process pilots (e.g., automated replies, routing changes, self-service flows) and measure impact on KPIs such as resolution rate, cost per contact, and customer satisfaction.
  • Build and maintain complex SQL queries, data models, and ETL pipelines to integrate ticketing, billing, and product telemetry for holistic customer health and operations reporting.
  • Implement automation and workflow improvements using RPA, scripts, or workflow builders (Zapier, Workato, Salesforce Flow) to remove repetitive manual tasks and speed resolution times.
  • Serve as the escalation point for high-severity customer incidents, coordinating cross-functional response, root cause analysis, post-mortems, and preventative action plans.
  • Create executive-level reports and presentations that summarize trends, risks, and recommended investments to improve customer operations and reduce churn.
  • Manage billing inquiries, refunds, chargebacks, and order corrections by coordinating with finance and billing teams to ensure timely and accurate customer outcomes.
  • Maintain and continuously refine the customer knowledge base and self-service articles to reduce ticket volume and improve first-pass resolution by end-users.
  • Conduct voice of the customer (VoC) analysis — synthesize CSAT, NPS, surveys, and qualitative feedback to surface product gaps and operational pain points for product and leadership teams.
  • Implement segmentation and triage strategies to prioritize high-value or at-risk customers and ensure differentiated handling and SLA commitments.
  • Monitor and enforce compliance with company policies and regulatory requirements (GDPR, PCI, industry-specific regulations) in customer interactions and data handling.
  • Lead cross-functional initiatives to scale support operations during product launches, major releases, or seasonal peaks including staffing plans, surge processes, and contingency playbooks.
  • Identify and track cost-to-serve metrics; partner with finance and operations to design sustainable service-level models that balance customer experience with unit economics.
  • Create predictive models and early-warning indicators for churn risk or increased support load using historical ticket, usage, and billing data.
  • Conduct periodic process audits, process mapping, and value-stream analysis to eliminate waste, reduce handoffs, and shorten incident-to-resolution cycles.
  • Facilitate stakeholder meetings (weekly ops reviews, escalation huddles, postmortems) and ensure action items are assigned, tracked, and validated for impact.
  • Standardize SLA definitions and service-level reporting across products and geographies; negotiate meaningful SLAs with internal and external partners and measure performance against targets.
  • Drive continuous improvement by soliciting frontline feedback, running retrospectives, and implementing Kaizen-style changes to increase team productivity and customer satisfaction.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
  • Assist with capacity planning and workforce management inputs, including forecast modeling and shift scheduling recommendations.
  • Support documentation and change management for new operational features or system integrations.
  • Help maintain vendor relationships for third-party support tooling and coordinate vendor escalations when required.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Advanced Excel (pivot tables, Power Query, complex formulas) for operational analysis and modeling.
  • SQL — building joins, window functions, aggregation and subqueries to create operational datasets and ad hoc reports.
  • Experience with ticketing and CRM systems such as Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud, Intercom, Freshdesk, or HubSpot Service Hub.
  • Data visualization and dashboarding (Tableau, Looker, Power BI) to create executive and operational views.
  • Familiarity with scripting or automation tools (Python, R, Google Apps Script, Zapier, Workato, Salesforce Flow) to automate manual tasks.
  • Experience with workforce management and forecasting tools; capacity planning and shrinkage modeling.
  • Knowledge of product telemetry and event-level data to connect usage signals with support patterns.
  • Experience with quality assurance frameworks, call/ticket scoring, and coaching playbooks.
  • Basic understanding of ETL and data pipelines; ability to work with data engineers to operationalize analytics.
  • Strong familiarity with SLA management, escalation workflows, and incident management processes.
  • Competence in project management tools and methodologies (Jira, Asana, Confluence, agile/scrum practices).
  • Understanding of regulatory and security practices relevant to customer data (GDPR, PCI-DSS, SOC 2 basics).

Soft Skills

  • Strong written and verbal communication with the ability to create clear runbooks, executive summaries, and cross-functional briefs.
  • Analytical mindset with bias for action — able to move from insight to implementation and measure impact.
  • Stakeholder management — build credibility with product, engineering, sales, finance and customer success partners.
  • Problem-solving and root-cause analysis with strong attention to detail.
  • Time management and prioritization across competing operational initiatives and urgent escalations.
  • Customer empathy and service orientation with a commitment to improving the customer journey.
  • Coaching and training abilities to uplift agent performance and operational maturity.
  • Change management skills to lead adoption of new processes and tools at scale.
  • Collaboration and influence without direct authority across distributed teams.
  • Adaptability to evolving product features, market conditions, and changing customer expectations.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Business, Economics, Analytics, Information Systems, Computer Science, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor’s or Master’s degree with coursework in data analytics, operations management, or customer experience.
  • Certifications: Zendesk Admin/Explore, Salesforce Admin, SQL/BI certifications, Lean Six Sigma Yellow/Green Belt (helpful).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Business Administration / Operations Management
  • Data Science / Analytics / Statistics
  • Information Systems / Computer Science
  • Communications / Customer Experience Management

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 2–5 years of experience in customer operations, support operations, business operations, or similar analytical roles supporting customer-facing teams.

Preferred:

  • 3+ years in customer support or ops roles with proven impact on operational KPIs (reduced response time, improved CSAT, lowered cost-to-serve).
  • Hands-on experience with CRM/ticketing platforms (Zendesk, Salesforce), SQL-based analysis, and dashboarding tools (Looker, Tableau, Power BI).
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