Lead, Customer Advocacy

About The Role

Affirm’s Customer Advocacy and Retention (CAR) team houses our customer advocacy experts. When customers share their most challenging experiences with Affirm, the CAR team provides critical insight into the breaking points of our products, processes, and policies. By championing these customers, we use their voices to improve the customer experience, deliver fair outcomes, and repair relationships.

As a Customer Advocacy Lead, you will serve as the Voice of Affirm - leveraging deep service and product expertise to resolve highly complex complaints while leading a team of Customer Advocacy Associates. The team facilitates coordination across cross-functional partners to identify root causes, assess complaint validity, and determine appropriate, compliant resolutions.

Beyond individual case resolution, this role owns key components of Affirm’s complaints and customer advocacy ecosystem, including quality assurance operations, escalation management, and vendor performance. You will act as a critical operational leader across internal and external partners - proactively identifying risks, removing bottlenecks, and driving scalable solutions that improve service levels, reduce complaint rates, and increase customer satisfaction.

This role requires navigating complex, cross-functional challenges and leading initiatives that enhance both customer outcomes and operational effectiveness at scale.

Key Attributes

• Experience as a people manager with a track record of building high-performing teams

• Strong ownership mindset with the ability to lead complex, cross-functional initiatives

• Deep commitment to customer-centric solutions and fair, empathetic outcomes

• Data-driven decision maker with strong analytical and critical thinking skills

• Process improvement mindset with strong operational rigor

• Ability to influence and drive alignment across multiple stakeholders

• Sound judgment and accountability when handling sensitive, high-risk issues

• Experience managing external vendors, BPOs, or third-party partners (or similar)

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to convey complex topics clearly and concisely

What you’ll do

Lead and develop a high-performing team

• Manage, coach, and develop a team of Customer Advocacy Associates

• Drive team performance using key metrics such as productivity, quality, customer outcomes, and service levels

• Foster a high-performing, engaged team environment that operates effectively in a fast-paced, evolving environment

• Partner with recruiting to hire, onboard, and retain top talent

Deliver exceptional customer outcomes

• Resolve complex and highly escalated customer complaints with efficiency, empathy, and sound judgment

• Review and respond to sensitive, high-risk complaints, reinforcing and shaping the “Voice of Affirm”

• Communicate with customers across channels, including email and phone, as appropriate

• Represent and advocate for the complaints function in cross-functional forums to ensure consistent, high-quality customer experiences

Own operational excellence across internal and external partners

• Own QA operations and processes, ensuring consistent, high-quality complaint handling across the team

• Evolve QA frameworks to maintain depth, rigor, and scalability as the organization grows

• Own vendor performance and accountability for third-party complaint handling, ensuring alignment with Affirm standards for quality, compliance, and customer experience

• Establish and monitor service level expectations (SLAs/KPIs), proactively identifying risks and driving corrective actions

• Oversee internal escalation workflows and act as a point of escalation for the most complex and sensitive issues

• Establish scalable support models and coverage strategies to maintain service levels during periods of fluctuating volume or constrained bandwidth

• Own capacity planning and resource allocation across internal teams, vendors, and contractors

• Manage and oversee contractors supporting the CAR team to ensure consistent performance and coverage
  

Drive cross-functional impact

• Lead complex, cross-functional initiatives across teams such as Vendor Partners, Compliance, Legal, Risk, Product, and Communications

• Act as the primary operational interface with partner teams to improve intake quality, routing accuracy, and escalation effectiveness

• Remove operational bottlenecks and drive alignment on processes, tooling, and customer experience standards

• Influence product, policy, and process improvements based on customer insights and complaint trends

Drive continuous improvement at scale

• Analyze complaint data to identify trends, root causes, and opportunities for systemic improvement

• Deliver measurable impact by reducing complaint rates and improving customer satisfaction

• Drive remediation of thematic issues through strong cross-functional collaboration

• Continuously improve the internal complaints management program, tools, and workflows

• Identify emerging risks, operational gaps, and service-level challenges, and drive end-to-end solutions with minimal direction

• Improve customer-facing resources and education to streamline service and reduce friction

Grow your financial services expertise

• Serve as a subject matter expert on Affirm’s products, servicing processes, and applicable regulatory requirements

• Stay informed on evolving consumer finance policies and industry trends

What we look for

• 5+ years of people management experience in a customer operations or service delivery environment with a Bachelor’s degree; OR 3+ years with a Master’s degree; or no experience with a PhD; or equivalent experience

• 3+ years of experience in customer support, service delivery, or complaint resolution

• Experience managing vendors, BPOs, or external partners

• Experience owning multi-domain operational functions (e.g., QA, escalations, service delivery)

• Demonstrated ability to lead complex, cross-functional initiatives and drive measurable outcomes

• Strong operational mindset with experience managing SLAs, KPIs, and service performance

• Ability to operate independently and drive execution with minimal oversight

• Resilience and ability to navigate ambiguity, complexity, and high-pressure situations

• Collaborative mindset with strong stakeholder management skills

• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills with attention to detail, tone, and clarity

• Strong customer empathy and a passion for improving customer outcomes

• Proactive thinker with a continuous improvement mindset

Pay Grade - I
Equity Grade - 4

Employees new to Affirm typically come in at the start of the pay range. Affirm focuses on providing a simple and transparent pay structure which is based on a variety of factors, including location, experience and job-related skills.

Base pay is part of a total compensation package that may include equity rewards, monthly stipends for health, wellness and tech spending, and benefits (including 100% subsidized medical coverage, dental and vision for you and your dependents.)

USA base pay range (CA, WA, NY, NJ, CT) per year: $115,000 - $165,000
USA base pay range (all other U.S. states) per year: $101,000 - $151,000

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