Staff Program Manager - Customer Risk & Retention

Organizations everywhere struggle under the crushing costs and complexities of “solutions” that promise to simplify their lives. To create a better experience for their customers and employees. To help them grow. Software is a choice that can make or break a business. Create better or worse experiences. Propel or throttle growth. Business software has become a blocker instead of ways to get work done.

There’s another option. Freshworks. With a fresh vision for how the world works.

At Freshworks, we build uncomplicated service software that delivers exceptional customer and employee experiences. Our enterprise-grade solutions are powerful, yet easy to use, and quick to deliver results. Our people-first approach to AI eliminates friction, making employees more effective and organizations more productive. Over 72,000 companies, including Bridgestone, New Balance, Nucor, S&P Global, and Sony Music, trust Freshworks’ customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX) software to fuel customer loyalty and service efficiency. And, over 4,500 Freshworks employees make this possible, all around the world.

Fresh vision. Real impact. Come build it with us.

We are seeking a highly organized, strategic, and customer-focused Program Manager to lead our cross-functional response to high-risk customer situations in our Enterprise Success & Services Team (ESS). This role will be at the center of our effort to proactively manage and resolve complex account escalations, mitigate retention risk, and ensure the voice of the customer is surfaced clearly and acted upon decisively.

This individual will act as a program leader—partnering with ESS (CS + PS), Support, Product/Engineering, and Sales—to orchestrate and drive resolution across the most critical customer situations. Success in this role requires strong executive communication skills, a bias for action, and the ability to bring structure and clarity to ambiguous or urgent circumstances.

Reports To:  Program Director, Enterprise Success & Services (Brian Caldwell)

Key Responsibilities:

1. Retention Risk Program Leadership

   • Own and evolve the formal escalation management framework for at-risk accounts.

   • Lead a regular cadence of reviews (weekly and ad-hoc) of critical customer situations, coordinating updates, action plans, and follow-through across your stakeholder group.

2. Executive Reporting & Stakeholder Communication

   • Build and present succinct executive summaries and retention risk dashboards for senior leadership, highlighting themes, progress, and blockers.

   • Serve as the point of contact for executive escalations, ensuring communication is timely, consistent, and outcome-focused.

3. Cross-functional Coordination

   • Drive accountability by ensuring clear owners, timelines, and next steps for each active escalation.

   • Facilitate alignment across ESS team (CS + PS personas) on customer goals, implementation challenges, and joint risk mitigation plans.

   • Engage directly with customers when needed to clarify plans and regain confidence

4. Program Analytics & Continuous Improvement

   • Identify trends, root causes, and patterns across escalations to inform your stakeholder group of proactive retention strategies.

   • Partner with operations and business intelligence teams to build dashboards that track escalation volume, time-to-resolution, and outcome effectiveness.

5. Enablement & Readiness

   • Support ESS team (CS + PS personas) with playbooks, templates, and best practices to manage early warning signs and prevent escalation.

   • Educate internal teams on the escalation process and drive consistent adoption.

Experience:

• 5+ years of experience in Customer Success, Project/Program Management, or Escalation Management within a SaaS environment.
• Demonstrated experience managing executive-level communications and high-stakes customer relationships.
• Strong cross-functional collaboration skills; able to influence without authority across Services, Support, and Product.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; can distill complex issues into clear executive summaries.
• Ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
• Comfortable working with systems like Salesforce, Gainsight, and project management tools.
• PMP, Six Sigma, or Customer Success certifications are a plus
• Understanding of SaaS business models including retention and adoption strategies

Personal Attributes:

• Strategic thinker with a hands-on approach.
• Exceptional writing, presentation, and communication skills
• Detail-oriented, with an ability to focus on both the big picture and day-to-day operations.
• Exceptional organizational and multitasking abilities.
• Strong sense of accountability and integrity.

At Freshworks, we are creating a global workplace that enables everyone to find their true potential, purpose, and passion irrespective of their background, gender, race, sexual orientation, religion and ethnicity. We are committed to providing equal opportunity for all and believe that diversity in the workplace creates a more vibrant, richer work environment that advances the goals of our employees, communities and the business.

The annual base salary range for this position is $156,600 to $225,055 USD
Compensation is based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to location, experience, job-related skills, and level. Bonus/equity may be available.

Please note this is a hybrid role that requires an in-office presence 3 days / week (Tue-Thur)

At Freshworks, we are creating a global workplace that enables everyone to find their true potential, purpose, and passion irrespective of their background, gender, race, sexual orientation, religion and ethnicity. We are committed to providing equal opportunity for all and believe that diversity in the workplace creates a more vibrant, richer work environment that advances the goals of our employees, communities and the business.