Blackboard Careers

Senior Customer Success Manager – Business & Government

Remote - United States

About the Role

Our Senior Customer Success Manager (CSM) ensures that customers see value throughout their entire Blackboard journey. With a focus on success and retention, the CSM engages with customers to understand their goals and to create and execute plans that achieve partnership objectives, meeting the business needs of customers and Blackboard. The CSM works collaboratively with other Blackboard teams to ensure customers receive appropriate support, resources, and services, and assists account team members in identifying expansion (sales and services) opportunities.

Other responsibilities include supporting, demonstrating, and proving the value of our technologies for our customers. We listen and engage to understand our customers’ educational strategies and key initiatives so that we can identify critical capabilities where our solutions can deliver value. You will work alongside our sales teams, channel partners, and services professionals to design the right solution set for each customer so that they can realize the maximum value and alignment to their goals.

The ideal candidate for this role embraces a customer-first mindset, excels at building relationships and creating raving fans, can confidently solve adoption challenges, and is adept at driving activities that deliver exceptional value to customers in all phases of the lifecycle.   

Responsibilities

• Maintaining expert-level knowledge and domain proficiency in a range of products including their functionality, application, administration, and deployment methodologies
• Maintaining familiarity with our partner solutions and knowing when to propose them as part of a customer solution set
• Participating in customer discovery calls, listening to customer needs, and creating account value proposals that relate Blackboard solutions to customers’ strategic goals and initiatives
• Managing and delivering high quality technical validation events (demonstrations, evaluations, pilots, pre-sales workshops) to include tailoring the solution, configuration, and data to support customer requirements
• Working with all members of the regional sales teams to articulate product strategic value, develop customer-focused solutions, and document solutions in proposals
• Building and maintaining Blackboard champions in our customer/user community to include participation in trade shows, conferences, user groups, virtual events, etc.
• Providing rapid, accurate responses to questions from sales teams and channel partners
• Providing insight, feedback, and recommendations to improve Blackboard's ability to respond to customer challenges
• Support developing and delivering responses to RFPs/RFIs
• Building and maintaining relationships across the customer's organization, including with C-suite institutional leadership on ensuring their success and business goals achieved
• Developing and implementing account engagement and execution plans to ensure business objectives are met and customer sentiment is positive
• Managing the customer partnership proactively, including monitoring customer health, identifying and managing risk, and escalating customer support or account issues as needed
• Developing an understanding of and responding to customer questions on the full Blackboard portfolio of products and services, including their value proposition, the challenges they solve, and how they are supported
• Conducting regular partnership reviews with customers to ensure progress on shared business objectives
• Acting on customer sentiment information, such as survey, solicited and unsolicited customer feedback
• Connecting customers to best practice resources and/or recommendations; assisting customers in solving point-in-time challenges; connecting customers with opportunities for engagement in feedback sessions and with research projects as applicable; partnering with the customer to support the overall goal of increased satisfaction and adoption of Blackboard solutions 
• Promoting customer engagement in the online Blackboard Community, as well as Blackboard-hosted virtual and in-person events to facilitate customer opportunities to network, share, and learn from their peers
• Assisting Regional Sales Managers (RSMs) and regional leadership with identifying customer goals/values and cross-sell and up-sell and services opportunities, as well as assisting with renewal proposals
• Driving advocacy in the form of references and success stories 
• This role requires approximately 25 - 50% travel

Required Skills and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) in Business, Information Technology Management, Instructional Design, or other education-related field
• Understanding of the application of instructional technologies to varied teaching and learning environments.
• Understanding of enterprise level IT infrastructure, deployment methodologies, and cloud/SaaS environments
• 8-12 years of pre-sales experience, preferably in enterprise sales and/or education technology
• Strong oral and written communication skills
• Exceptional ability to present to small and large groups of people who may have varied roles, experience, and perspectives
• Ability to work independently in a geographically dispersed team and be self-motivated
• Proven ability to engage effectively at the executive-level
• Fluency in written and spoken English 

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Advanced degree
• Previous government sales or account management experience (Federal, State & Local, or other)

About Blackboard

Blackboard advances teaching excellence and unlocks the full potential of technology to deliver meaningful outcomes. We empower institutions to deepen connections between educators and learners, inspire engagement, and drive long-term academic success across the full learner journey.  For more information, please visit www.blackboard.com.  

The expected salary range for this position is $105,200 – $115,000. The range reflects base salary only and does not include additional compensation such as sales incentives or benefits. Placement within the pay range will depend on a variety of factors, such as experience, skills, internal parity, and location.

Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the country where the role is based at the time of hire and must maintain that authorization for the duration of employment. The company does not provide visa sponsorship or immigration support for this position.

This job description is not designed to contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties, or responsibilities that are required. Nothing in this job description restricts management's right to assign or reassign duties and responsibilities at any time.   

Anthology is an equal employment opportunity/affirmative action employer and considers qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, gender, age, color, religion, national origin, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, protected military/veteran status, or any other legally protected factor.