Support Escalation Management IC4

Account Escalation Partner Owns the reactive support experience for a defined set of strategic or mission critical accounts, often funded directly by the customer. Acts as the primary escalation and crisis contact for those accounts, orchestrating internal and external stakeholders (Customer Success Account Managers [CSAMs], engineering, incident managers, legal/PR, executives) to resolve high impact issues while representing the customer's business impact. Proactively assesses account risk, maintains and tests incident response plans (e.g., Major Incident Response Plans [MIRPs]), and run drills or “Get to Green” plans to prevent recurrence and improve overall account health. Maintains a deep, ongoing relationship with designated customers' executive and technical leaders, enabling them to anticipate escalations, influence architecture and operations, and shift conversations from reactive to strategic. Collaboration Owns escalated issues and manages account-aligned customer incidents to identify and remove barriers. Ensures existing processes are not a blocker to customer issue resolution and acts as a key player during process improvement efforts. Mentors other Support Escalation team members on how to handle moderate to highly complex cases. Leads moderate to highly complex incidents (and customers) with minimal guidance, navigating ambiguity, incomplete information, and high-stress environment (customer, account team, leadership, etc.) Acts as the single point of accountability for complex, high?impact escalations, removing blockers, accelerating decision?making, and ensuring alignment across engineering, support, and leadership teams. Works with partners to ensure operational rhythm during incidents, including checkpoints, ownership, and escalation updates. Mentors others in structured incident leadership, beyond only case handling. Collaborates with engineering teams and/or operations teams to identify the right resource. Acts as a subject matter expert on the written protocol to ensure the right groups are engaged to resolve customer issues. Builds and enhances technical contacts, SME's and leaders who can assist in identifying proper resources to assist with issues that cross-Strategic Business Unit (SBU) responsibility. Communication Manages customer and field expectations around issue response and represents the company independently, prioritizing security as a key component of customer satisfaction. Ensures customer and MSFT internal stakeholders stay informed on the response and resolution status of customer issues. Communicates and influences internally to drive faster issue resolution, incorporating effective security practices to mitigate risks. Provides definitive updates to teams involved as required (e.g., account, Customer Success Account Manager [CSAM], Technology Managers, Leadership, and Executive Leadership). Takes ownership of and nurtures relationships with internal teams and partners and proactively communicates with senior leadership on issues complex in scope and provides solutions to resolve them. Establishes long-term partnerships with other Strategic Business Units (SBU)s, and builds bridges to keep consistent, uniform engagement from account teams to SBU(s). Critical Event Response Manager Manages incidents and escalations as discrete transactions, focusing on rapid stabilization and resolution rather than ongoing account ownership, with engagement spanning varying levels of technical depth. Works directly with the customer or through support teams to ensure customers are informed, expectations are set, and escalation pressure is effectively managed throughout the incident lifecycle. Leads or supports bridge operations and crisis communications for escalated incidents or critical situations, ensuring consistent, accurate, and timely updates across customers, executives, and engineering, while maintaining compliance with legal, privacy, and communications standards. Drives coordination of technical resources, enforces adherence to processes, and de?escalates distressed customers, often operating across queues spanning multiple customers or specific incident types. Owns incident communications, customer, governance, and post?incident insights. Customer Resolution Provides status updates to customers and internal stakeholders through various channels of communication regarding issues, following the documented process. Utilizes AI-driven communication tools streamline interactions with stakeholders. Coordinates and communicates the escalation narrative, ensuring stakeholder alignment and driving Confidence Calls to either retain customers, solidify renewals, or take direct feedback on the product or support. Drives consistent, executive-ready escalation narrative, aligning all stakeholders on problem statement, impact, risks, and next actions. Acts on or plays a key role in strategic projects designed to improve resolution times, customer satisfaction, and support experience. Implements AI tools to monitor, evaluate, and automate routine tasks, proposing enhancements to boost efficiency and satisfaction. Identifies systemic breakdowns across escalation workflows, handoffs, and decision points, and drives cross?team improvements to increase speed, accountability, and consistency. Champions automation and standardization of escalation workflows to improve scale and consistency. Creates home-grown solutions for intake, tracking and reporting for customer businesses. Acts as a primary contact to understand issues and improve the experiences of customers independently. Maintains and develops relationships with various internal and external teams to resolve customer issues. Mentors others on the Support Escalation Management team. Acts as a key member of projects to drive key strategic initiatives. Manages incidents, which are customer-impacting issues that require coordination, communication, and stakeholder/resource management to drive timely resolution. Owns the end-to-end escalation lifecycle, where escalations are incidents that require elevated visibility or intervention that involve direct engagement with customers or senior stakeholders, including intake, triage, prioritization, resolution, and follow-up. Supports the lifecycle of incidents, which is the coordination, communication, and stakeholder/resource management. Exercises independent judgment to prioritize escalations based on customer impact, business risk, and urgency. Acts as a key player when supporting initiatives by gathering feedback and identifying resources to improve the customer support experience for a group of customers or a specific region/area. Leverage AI-driven sentiment analysis tools to gather real-time feedback, identify common customer pain points, and suggest proactive measures for enhancing customer service. Proactively identifies escalation risk signals by reviewing sentiment analysis results, historical escalation data, and customer feedback. Translates customer feedback, escalation themes, and sentiment data into actionable insights that inform leadership decisions and long?term experience improvements. Identifies trends across internal postmortems and suggests resources to drive opportunities within the team and across stakeholder groups in post-incident review discussions to remediate future issues. Identifies risks surfaced during escalations and ensures they are routed to proper governance channels within or outside of their Strategic Business Unit (SBU). Ensures remediation includes thorough root cause analysis and any corrective follow-ups required. Process Improvement Creates an executive summary detailing the customer issue, impact on the business, and status of the resolution. Identifies patterns in customer issues and supports the delivery of strategies to resolve them. Joins and shares best practices to improve delivery and improve team performance. Identifies systematic issues and process breakdown and participates in a project or workgroup to improve systematic issues and internal processes. Actively shares new or potential changes to processes that could impact escalation delivery. Supports and contributes to the diagnosis of root causes, orchestration of cross-functional technical resources, and restoration of service stability and customer confidence. Support Escalation Management IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $97,600 - $188,400 per year. Master's Degree in technology, business, or related field AND 3+ years technology industry, customer service, or related experience OR Bachelor's Degree in technology, business, or related field AND 4+ years technology industry, customer service, or related experience OR 7+ years technology industry, customer service, or related experience years of technology industry, customer service, or related experience OR equivalent experience This position requires verification of citizenship due to citizenship-based legal restrictions. Specifically, this position supports United States federal, state, and/or local government agency customers and is subject to certain citizenship-based restrictions where required or permitted by applicable law. To meet this legal requirement, and as a condition of employment, the successful candidate's citizenship will be verified with a valid passport. Cloud Technology Certification (Azure Fundamentals. M365 Fundamentals) Prior Incident and escalation management experience Proficient in C-level stakeholder management