Customer Service Manager — Shopify Stores (Long-Term, Full-Time)

We're a fast-growing e-commerce group operating 30–50 Shopify stores. We work with a dedicated fulfillment partner (DayOne) and an external advertising agency running Google Shopping at scale. Our volume sits at 100+ disputes per week across Whop and PayPal. We communicate with our team via Slack and Sheets. We're not a side hustle. This is a serious operation, and we're building it like one. What we're hiring for: We're looking for a Customer Service Manager — a true A-player who doesn't run customer service by hand, but steers the system behind it. Our AI runs the actual customer service: answering customer emails and handling disputes. Your job is to make that AI smarter over time. You continuously build, maintain, and improve the SOPs, workflows, flows, funnels, and templates we feed into the AI. Every opened dispute and chargeback is a signal to you: where does the AI's communication fall short, which flow creates friction, and which SOP needs to be sharper? This is a thinking and building role, not only an execution role. You don't answer customer emails or handle disputes yourself — you make sure the system does that better and better, so customer satisfaction goes up and disputes and chargebacks structurally go down. What you'll own: Customer service SOPs & workflows for our AI (~50% of the role) - Build, document, and maintain the SOPs and workflows our AI uses to run customer service - Ensure the AI applies the right tone, empathy, arguments, and resolution per situation, per store, and per channel - Translate insights from customer contact, disputes, and chargebacks into concrete improvements to the instructions, templates, and decision rules the AI uses - Keep the template and SOP library structured, version-controlled, and up to date in Sheets - Test changes and measure whether they actually increase customer satisfaction and reduce disputes Customer journey, flows & funnels (~25%) - Analyze where friction arises in the customer journey that leads to dissatisfaction, complaints, disputes, and chargebacks - Translate those insights into improvements to customer communication flows and funnels - Make sure customers receive the right communication at the right moment, so issues get resolved before they escalate Pattern analysis as a learning source (~25%) - Analyze 100+ disputes per week across Whop and PayPal, plus broader customer contact, to surface recurring root causes - Identify patterns (recurring complaints, chargeback reasons, confusing communication, journey friction) and tie them back to concrete SOP, flow, and template changes - Track per processor, per store, and per reason code which causes most often drive dissatisfaction and disputes - Close the feedback loop: show that your changes structurally shrink the problem Who you are: This is a management and systems role — not a VA role, and not a frontline CS role. We're looking for someone who: - Has led or optimized customer service operations for multi-store Shopify or DTC businesses (not just one store) - Thinks in systems: you see a single complaint or dispute not as an incident but as a symptom of an SOP or flow that can be better - Has experience building and documenting CS SOPs, workflows, and customer communication templates - Understands how good customer service structurally prevents dissatisfaction, disputes, and chargebacks - Is comfortable steering AI tools and understands how to write instructions and templates an AI can execute well - Senses what customers need and can translate that into the right tone and resolution in the AI's communication - Communicates in clear, professional English — written and spoken - Lives comfortably in Slack and Sheets and can set up and maintain structured processes - Is proactive — you don't wait to be told what to do, you spot problems and propose fixes - Is calm under volume — 100+ disputes a week doesn't faze you - Owns outcomes, not tasks Must-haves: - 3+ years managing or optimizing customer service for an e-commerce business (Shopify preferred) - Demonstrable experience writing and improving CS SOPs, workflows, and templates - Insight into how complaints, disputes, and chargebacks arise and how to prevent them through better service - Comfortable working across multiple stores and multiple payment processors (Whop and PayPal) - Excellent written English - Self-managed — full-time available, reliable internet, professional setup - Available full-time (50 hrs/week), long-term commitment Nice-to-haves: - Experience with Whop disputes - Experience steering or training AI tools for customer service - Experience analyzing customer data to spot patterns - Background in fashion / branded DTC - Comfort working with AI tools (we're heavily AI-augmented and will give you serious AI leverage) What we offer: - Long-term, full-time role — we're hiring for years, not weeks - Competitive rate based on experience (range: $5–10/hr, open to higher for the right person) - Real ownership — you'll make the system behind our customer service measurably better - AI leverage — our AI does the repetitive work so you can focus on judgment and design calls - Growth path — as we scale to 50+ stores and a $100M brand portfolio, this role grows with us - Direct access to the founder — no middle layers, no politics, no nonsense How to apply: We get a lot of templated applications. Here's how to make sure we read yours: Start your cover letter with the word "EMPIRE" so we know you actually read this post. Then, briefly tell us: - How many Shopify stores have you managed or optimized simultaneously, and which payment processors did they use? - Tell us about a time you turned a recurring customer or dispute problem into a concrete improvement in an SOP, flow, funnel, or template. What was the impact on customer satisfaction or disputes? - How do you go about figuring out which part of the customer journey — or which SOP — is driving dissatisfaction or disputes? - Do you have experience steering AI tools for customer service? If so, how? - What's your timezone, and what hours can you commit to overlapping with CET (Netherlands)? - Why this role specifically — what about it fits where you want to go in the next 2–3 years? Applications without these answers will not be reviewed.