Manager, Customer Experience & Growth

Summit School Services companies share a strong commitment to provide the highest level of transportation safety, quality transportation, outstanding customer service and positive employee relations. Our corporate headquarters, located in Warrenville, Illinois, houses the administrative and corporate support functions for the organization. Our 250 local customer service centers (CSCs) are supported by regional operations teams located throughout North America.

Position Summary

The Manager, Customer Experience & Growth, plays a critical role in strengthening, stabilizing, and expanding customer relationships across assigned school districts. This role operates at the intersection of Operations and Business Development, partnering closely with field leadership to enhance service delivery, improve customer satisfaction, and drive retention and growth.

This individual will assess the current customer experience, identify service gaps, and implement practical, field-driven solutions that improve operational execution and customer outcomes. Additionally, this role maintains an external-facing presence, actively engaging customers and community stakeholders to build relationships, identify new opportunities, and support revenue growth.

This position is highly field-oriented and requires both operational credibility and strong relationship-building capability, with the ability to influence outcomes across multiple CSCs without direct authority.

Key Responsibilities

• Assess the current customer experience across assigned locations, identifying service gaps, risks, and opportunities
• Partner with GMs and RMs to improve service delivery, customer satisfaction, and overall operational execution
• Develop and implement actionable plans to improve communication, responsiveness, and customer engagement across CSCs
• Build and maintain relationships with key district stakeholders, community partners, and decision-makers
• Serve as a visible external representative of the Company in customer meetings, events, and community engagements
• Proactively identify customer concerns, emerging trends, and potential risks, and partner with Operations to resolve them effectively
• Drive customer retention efforts, including supporting contract renewals, service reviews, and overall relationship management
• Identify and generate new business opportunities, including contract growth, route expansion, and new district partnerships
• Support the development of proposals, presentations, and customer-facing materials in coordination with Business Development
• Leverage customer relationships and field insights to provide intelligence on competitive positioning and market opportunities
• Spend regular time in the field (minimum two days per week) engaging customers, observing operations, and coaching on service delivery
• Influence and drive accountability for consistent execution of customer experience standards across locations
  
  

Salary: $140,000-$160,000

Qualifications

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree preferred or equivalent experience;
• 5–8 years of experience in operations, customer experience, business development, or a related field
• Proven ability to manage and influence customer relationships in a complex, service-driven environment
• Strong understanding of field operations (transportation, logistics, or similar preferred)
• Ability to influence, coach, and drive outcomes across teams without direct authority
• Experience identifying process improvements, resolving service issues, and driving customer-focused outcomes
• Strong communication, presentation, and stakeholder management skills
• Ability to travel up to 50% within the assigned regions
  
  

Preferred Experience

• Experience in school transportation, public sector, or contract-based service environments
• Background spanning both operations and customer-facing or business development roles
• Experience supporting customer growth initiatives
• Exposure to union environments and multi-location operations
• Familiarity with contract management, customer agreements, and performance-driven service models.
  
  

Summit School Services has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with its policies and values, including sexual exploitation and abuse, harassment, abuse of authority, and discrimination. Summit School Services is committed to promoting the protection and safeguarding of all children and passengers.

We offer medical, dental, vision, basic life insurance coverage, holiday pay, and PTO accrual. Additionally, employees are able to enroll in a retirement savings plan.

At Summit School Services our goal is to be a diverse workforce that is representative of the communities we serve. All employment decisions are based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy (including childbirth, lactation and related medical conditions), national origin, age, physical and mental disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information (including characteristics and testing), military and veteran status, and any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

Summit School Services LLC’s independent subsidiaries and affiliates are an equal employment opportunity (EEO) employer

The pay rate range, along with most all of the other terms and conditions of employment, vary between different sites, geographical markets, customer/ contractual terms and positions.