Customer Service Manager (Head of CS) - Build Our Support Function From Scratch

ABOUT US We're Velur, a European online jewelry brand — engagement rings, wedding bands, lab-grown diamonds and moissanite. We sell primarily to German-speaking Europe and internationally in English, we run on WooCommerce, and we ship worldwide: everything from standard orders to fully custom, made-to-order pieces. Every order we take is emotional and high-stakes for the customer. An engagement. A wedding. An anniversary. Order values are high, timelines are unforgiving, and one mishandled case costs us a customer for life — plus the review that comes with it. WHY THIS ROLE EXISTS We get 5-10 tickets a day. So this job is not about volume. It's about the fact that nothing behind those tickets is systemized. We have a support agent who handles tickets, and handles them well. What we don't have is a function. No documented processes. No SLAs. No escalation path. No macro library worth the name. No quality standard. No reporting. Knowledge lives in people's heads and in Slack threads. Custom orders, returns, refunds, shipping issues and warranty cases each get solved case-by-case instead of by a repeatable playbook. We're looking for someone to own customer service as a function: design it, document it, measure it, and run it. This is a builder role first and a manager role second. If what you want is a queue to work through, this isn't it. WHAT YOU'LL DO First 30-60 days - audit and structure: - Audit the current setup end to end: channels, tools, ticket history, response and resolution times, recurring issue types, refund and return reasons. - Map every customer-facing process we have today and every one we should have: order changes, delays, custom-order communication, returns, refunds, warranty and repairs, sizing exchanges, escalations, VIP handling. - Build the SOP and playbook library. Written, versioned, and usable by a new hire on day one. - Define SLAs, tone of voice and a quality standard, plus a macro and template library that matches our brand voice. - Set up reporting: what we review every week (first response time, resolution time, CSAT, contact rate per order, refund and return rate by reason). Ongoing - run it and improve it: - Manage and coach our support agent; own hiring and onboarding as the team grows. - Run weekly QA on real tickets against the quality standard, with feedback that actually changes behaviour. - Own the escalation path. You're the person who takes the case nobody else should have to. - Close the loop with the rest of the business: feed recurring complaints back into product, logistics and the website instead of letting them repeat. - Reduce contact volume at the source: better order communication, clearer policies, proactive shipping updates, self-service. - Report to the founder weekly with numbers, not vibes. WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR Must-haves: - 3+ years running or building customer service for a B2C e-commerce brand, including at least one case where you BUILT the function rather than inherited it. Be ready to walk us through exactly what you built. - Excellent written English, and a genuinely good instinct for tone with upset, emotionally invested customers. - Hands-on with a real helpdesk (Gorgias, Zendesk, Freshdesk, Front, Intercom or similar): macros, rules, automations, tagging taxonomies, reporting. You've administered one, not just replied in one. - You write documentation that people actually follow. Send us proof. - Based in Europe, or working European hours. Our customers and our team sit in Central European Time and you need real daily overlap with them. - Comfortable working directly with a founder: you decide things yourself and bring solutions instead of questions. Nice to have, not required: - German. Our German tickets are handled by a German-speaking agent, so you don't need it to do this job. But if you can read and QA German replies yourself, that's a significant plus. - Jewelry, watches, luxury, or another high-value considered-purchase category. - Experience with made-to-order or custom-production workflows. - WooCommerce, Slack, Klaviyo, WhatsApp Business, shipping platforms (SendCloud, UPS, DHL). - You've worked with AI or automation in support (auto-tagging, AI-drafted replies, deflection) and know where it helps and where it hurts. - EU consumer law basics: right of withdrawal, warranty obligations. THE SETUP - 20 hours per week to start, long-term. We want this person for years, not for a project, and there is room for the scope to grow. - Remote, with meaningful daily overlap with Central European Time. - We start with a paid trial: the audit plus the first playbooks. You get paid for it either way, and it tells both of us whether this works before anyone commits long-term. HOW TO APPLY Please skip the generic cover letter. We read every application, and generic ones get archived immediately. Send us: 1. Start your reply with the word SAPPHIRE so we know you read this. 2. A short description of a customer service function you BUILT: what existed before, what you put in place, and what measurably changed. Numbers please. 3. One example of an SOP, playbook, macro library or QA scorecard you wrote. Redacted is fine. If you can't share one, describe how you structured it. 4. Based on what you know about a high-value, made-to-order jewelry brand: what would you expect our top 3 contact drivers to be, and what would you do about each? 5. Your availability, time zone and hourly rate. We reply to every application that follows these five steps.