Director Customer Service AI Product

Build Your Career with Ashley Furniture- Where Innovation Meets Comfort

Who We Are:

At Ashley, inspiring the love of home is at the heart of everything we do. As the world's largest manufacturer of home furnishings, we're more than a business - we're a family driven by innovation, competitiveness, and an unwavering commitment to excellence. We persevere through challenges, push beyond the status quo, and constantly seek better ways to deliver an exceptional customer experience. Our solutions-first mindset and dedication to growth are why Ashley remains #1 in our industry.

If you're ready to grow, you've come to the right place. With a true "Growth Mindset," Ashley Furniture invests in developing future leaders and helps every team member learn from the best in the business.

If you are a current Ashley employee: Please login to your UKG account and apply using the internal job board.

Summary:

Drive AI-powered product development within Customer Experience, collaborating with engineering, data, and operations teams to launch solutions that improve CSAT, reduce handle time, and deflect contacts. Define strategy, ship high-impact features, and continuously optimize through data, testing, and customer feedback.

Responsibilities:

• Define and own the roadmap for Customer Service/Experience Product-AI across chat, voice, email, and self-service to increase customer satisfaction and reduce contact volume
• Translate customer journeys and voice-of-customer insights into detailed product requirements and user stories for AI features that lower average handle time and improve first-contact resolution
• Partner with engineering and data science to design, build, and launch LLM/NLP-powered solutions with clear acceptance criteria, model performance targets, and safety guardrails
• Instrument analytics, establish KPIs, and implement A/B tests to quantify impact on CSAT, FCR, AHT, and ticket deflection
• Integrate AI features with CRM and contact center platforms to create seamless agent and customer experiences
• Establish responsible AI standards for privacy, safety, and content quality; document policies to protect customer data and maintain trust
• Build feedback loops and annotation processes to continuously improve model quality; monitor error rates and iterate on training data and prompts
• Collaborate with customer care, retail, eCommerce, and operations teams to align releases with service goals and peak seasons
• Create product documentation, release notes, and enablement materials to drive adoption and measurable business outcomes
• Drive continuous improvement by prioritizing features that improve quality, reduce costs, and strengthen customer loyalty

Qualifications required:

Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, Information Systems, Human-Computer Interaction, Business, or related field, or equivalent practical experience

Experience

• 5+ years of product management or equivalent experience delivering customer-facing digital products
• 2+ years building AI-powered customer service or customer experience capabilities
• Proven ability to ship conversational AI, agent-assist, or intelligent routing features in production
• Experience mapping customer journeys and writing user stories with acceptance criteria tied to service outcomes
• Ability to query and analyze data (SQL or BI tools) to size opportunities, diagnose performance, and communicate insights
• Strong communication and collaboration skills to translate technical concepts and align stakeholders
• Demonstrated commitment to responsible AI, privacy, and safety in customer interactions
• Track record of continuous improvement and iterative delivery that measurably improves quality and reduces service costs
• Working knowledge of machine learning, NLP, and large language models; ability to evaluate models using intent accuracy, resolution rate, and precision/recall metrics
• Experience with conversational AI platforms (Google Dialogflow, Amazon Lex, or Azure Bot Service)
• Familiarity with cloud AI services (Azure OpenAI, Amazon Bedrock, or Google Vertex AI) for prototyping, fine-tuning, and deploying models
• Proficiency with product analytics, data querying (SQL), and BI tools (Power BI or Tableau)
• Experience integrating with CRM and contact center technologies (Salesforce Service Cloud, Zendesk, Genesys, or Five9) using APIs and webhooks
• Comfort working in Agile environments using Jira and Confluence; familiarity with feature flagging and experimentation platforms (LaunchDarkly or Optimizely)

Additional Qualifications, preferred:

• Advanced skill in conversation design and prompt engineering for LLM applications; experience with retrieval-augmented generation
• Experience in omnichannel customer service and contact center operations, including IVR, workforce management, and knowledge base governance
• Background in retail or eCommerce customer support with familiarity in seasonal volume patterns, delivery issues, and returns/exchanges
• Experience deploying AI features on Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud and applying MLOps practices
• Strong facilitation skills to lead discovery, usability testing, and agent feedback sessions

Certifications

• Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
• AIPMM Product Management certification
• Azure AI Engineer Associate
• Google Professional Machine Learning Engineer

Work Environment:

This position is located in an active industrial manufacturing and distribution center with moderate to high noise levels, temperature variations, and material handling equipment in operation. The role may require extended periods of standing or walking on concrete floors and the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) such as safety glasses and steel-toed boots. The fast-paced environment involves time-sensitive and safety sensitive operations and may include various shift schedules to support production and distribution needs.

Benefits We Offer:

• Health, Dental, Vision, Employee Assistance Program
• Paid Time Off; increases with years of service
• Generous Employee Discount on home furnishings
• Professional Development Opportunities
• Tuition Assistance
• Ashley Wellness Centers (location specific)
• 401(k) and Profit Sharing
• Life Insurance

Our Core Values:

• Honesty & Integrity: Acts with transparency, discretion, and ethical judgment. Trusted to handle sensitive information and provide accurate, unbiased insights.

• (Dirty Fingernail: Takes full accountability for outcomes, not just tasks. Inspects details, ensures data accuracy, and follows through to completion.

• Continuous Improvement: Actively seeks better ways to improve templates, tools, and processes. Learns from prior initiatives and embeds lessons into standard work.

• Growth & Results Focus: Understands how transformation initiatives drive growth, cost reduction, and profitability. Keeps work aligned to enterprise priorities.

• Culture of Leadership: Leads through influence, reliability, and example. Builds trust across functions and supports leaders at every level.

• Customer-Centric & Boundaryless: Works across silos for the greater good of the organization. Ensures outputs meet the needs of executives, initiative owners, and teams.

• Operational Excellence: Demonstrates strong organizational discipline, attention to detail, and the ability to translate ambiguity into clear, executable tools.

Interested in learning more about Ashley Furniture's Community Engagement programs, Environmental Stewardship, or our Core Values, click the links below:

Corporate Social Responsibility

View Our Corporate Brochure

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and provide a drug-free working environment. While Ashley appreciates the interest of all candidates only those meeting specific position requirements may be contacted. This job description does not constitute a written or implied contract of employment. The company reserves the right to revise or change job duties and responsibilities as the need arises.

Notice to Search Firms: We are not seeking assistance or accepting unsolicited resumes from search firms. We will not pay any placement, referral or other fees to any search firms unless we have agreed otherwise in a valid, written agreement for the specific position posted and signed by an authorized representative of Ashley Furniture Industries.

* Please note this position is not eligible for current or future employment sponsorship. Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States without the need for visa sponsorship now or at any time in the future.