Senior Manager, Insights & Customer Experience

At Rite-Hite, your work makes an impact. As the global leader in loading dock and door equipment, we design and deliver solutions that keep our customers safe, secure, and productive. Here, you’ll find innovation, stability, and the chance to grow your career as part of a team that’s always looking ahead. Our Senior Manager, Insights & Customer Experience owns the development, delivery, and continuous evolution of Rite-Hite's Insights and Customer Experience (CX) center of excellence. You'll lead a professional team that generates market, customer, and competitive intelligence to inform product development, marketing planning, and enterprise strategic decisions. In addition, you'll build and steward the CX program in partnership with business leaders across distribution (sales and service), business units (BUs) and leadership. This is a hybrid position (3 days onsite), reports to the Director, Performance Marketing and interacts regularly with senior leadership across the enterprise. ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES Insights Program Leadership • Owns development and management of an annual research/insight plan across Voice of Customer, competitive intelligence, and market intelligence — aligned to product development, positioning, pricing, launch, competitive differentiation, and value proposition needs across the enterprise. • Leads the design and execution of research studies; advises product marketers, product managers, and business leaders on the best methodologies to generate decision-quality insights. • Sifts through large volumes of data across multiple sources to pinpoint the most critical business insights and translate them into recommended actions. • Owns the process for evaluating, purchasing, and utilizing third-party market research reports. • Designs and leads execution of routine sales team surveys in partnership with distribution and business development. • Publishes insights to the leadership team on a routine cadence, including trends, business implications, and recommended actions; leads the presentation of findings to key stakeholders. • Represents the Insights CoE in strategic planning cycles, launch planning, and business reviews. • Works in partnership with the International team to ensure research and Customer Experience initiatives are aligned (vendor management, process, format, tools, etc.). • Partners with Legal and R&D on patent-related customer research to assess customer-valued features. Customer Experience (CX) Program Ownership • Owns the development, launch, and continuous evolution of a comprehensive Rite-Hite CX program, including CSAT, cNPS, relationship and transactional surveys, and closed-loop follow-up processes. • Aligns with business leaders across distribution (sales and service) and the BUs to co-develop the right CX measurement approach for each segment, journey stage, and customer touchpoint. • Packages CX findings into clear, decision-ready outputs for stakeholders, enabling business understanding of customer feedback and driving operational improvements to better align with customer needs. • Leads the design of the ideal customer journey and, in partnership with the Director, Performance Marketing, the CMO and other leaders, supports prioritization of CX improvement initiatives. • Drives adoption of the CX program across Rite-Hite, and establishes governance for CX data, reporting cadences, and action tracking. • Leads customer journey mapping and persona work. • Participates in customer visits and designs engaging customer immersion experiences to capture insights during visits. Team, Capability, and Vendor Development • Leads a team of research and CX professionals: direct report(s) and vendor partners. • Sets individual and team objectives; coaches and develops team members; manages performance. • Establishes operational objectives, policies, procedures, and work plans for the CoE; delegates assignments and reviews at critical points. • Proactively expands the function's capabilities, including research methods, AI-enabled research and synthesis tools, survey platforms (e.g., Qualtrics), and internal service delivery models. • Owns strategic relationships with third-party research and CX vendors; oversees vendor selection, negotiation, performance management, and periodic portfolio review. • Monitors internal stakeholder satisfaction with the Insights & CX CoE and drives continuous improvements to responsiveness, quality, and stakeholder experience. • Accountable for CoE-associated budget management. EDUCATION and EXPERIENCE • Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, Market Research, or a related field required. • 7-15+ years of related experience in customer or business insights, market research, customer experience, or a related field, with 5+ years in a formal people management role. • Demonstrated experience building, scaling, or substantially maturing a CX program (CSAT, NPS/cNPS, journey mapping) in an enterprise environment. • Demonstrated experience managing external research vendors and portfolio budgets. • Experience with Qualtrics (or comparable survey platform), marketing analytics tools, and AI-assisted research and synthesis tools. • B2B environment experience preferred; multi-business-unit or multi-channel environment experience strongly preferred. KNOWLEDGE / SKILL REQUIREMENTS The ideal candidate will demonstrate: • Advanced knowledge of research methodologies (qualitative, quantitative, focus groups, AI-assisted research) and the ability to advise business partners on the right approach to achieve outcomes. • Advanced understanding of customer experience program design, measurement, and continuous improvement — including CSAT, cNPS, journey mapping, and closed-loop processes. • Executive presence: clearly and succinctly communicates to the leadership team and across the organization; represents the CoE credibly with senior leaders. • Strong analytical and problem-solving skills; leads formal problem-solving activities (problem definition, data and pareto analysis, root cause, solutioning, and measures) for key marketing and CX metrics. • Demonstrated ability to translate research and CX data into operational improvements and business decisions. • Demonstrated people leadership and vendor management expertise. • Cross-functional influence: builds trust with senior leaders, partners with International colleagues, etc. without direct authority over them. • Sound business judgment: prioritizes the research and CX portfolio against the highest-leverage business decisions and manages trade-offs across competing stakeholder requests. • Comfort operating in complex, matrixed, and geographically distributed environments. • Ability to plan, organize, and prioritize across multiple concurrent programs to meet deadlines. What We Offer At Rite-Hite, we take care of our people – because when you’re supported, you can do your best work. Our benefits are designed to support your health, your future and your life outside of work: • Health & Well-being: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, plus life and disability insurance. A robust well-being program with an opportunity to receive an extra day off and more. • Financial Security: A strong retirement savings program with 401(k), company match, and profit sharing. • Time for You: Paid holidays, vacation time, and personal/sick days each year. Join us and build a career where you’re supported – at work and beyond. Rite-Hite is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under federal, state, or local law. In accordance with VEVRAA, we are committed to providing equal employment opportunities for protected veterans. We are also committed to maintaining a drug-free workplace for the safety of our employees and customers.