Team Lead, Account Advocate

The Role

Apollo.io is seeking a proactive, data-driven Account Advocate Team Lead to guide and elevate our growing team of Account Advocates. This team plays a critical role in Apollo’s customer lifecycle, specializing in billing inquiries, renewals, downgrades, refund assessments, and high-touch retention conversations with customers considering cancellation. As Team Lead, you will ensure your team consistently delivers exceptional customer experiences while also protecting revenue, reducing churn, and uncovering meaningful insights about customer sentiment and product fit. You’ll be responsible for coaching advocates in negotiation, objection handling, billing acumen, and customer empathy—empowering them to confidently navigate complex, emotionally charged interactions.

In this role, you will partner closely with Support, Finance, Sales, Customer Success, and Product teams to streamline billing processes, advocate for customer improvements, and create repeatable playbooks that improve both efficiency and outcomes. This is a highly impactful leadership role that blends people management, operational excellence, financial understanding, and customer retention strategy.

Responsibilities

Team Leadership & Development

• Mentor and coach Account Advocates on renewal management, churn prevention, negotiation techniques, and maintaining empathy during high-stakes conversations.
• Provide structured feedback to improve product knowledge, billing accuracy, and objection-handling confidence.
• Identify skill gaps and design targeted training programs supporting career growth across Support, Sales, Finance, or Customer Success.
• Conduct regular 1:1s, career development sessions, and performance reviews with clear goals and accountability.

Performance Management & Operational Excellence

• Monitor and analyze key team metrics (e.g., save rate, renewal rate, churn reasons, refund accuracy, CSAT, handle time).
• Implement data-driven coaching strategies to improve consistency, reduce avoidable churn, and ensure policy adherence.
• Optimize workflows, escalation procedures, and billing operations to create a seamless experience for customers.
• Partner with Support leadership to build knowledge bases, renewal playbooks, policy documentation, and call scripts.

Customer Retention & Revenue Impact

• Oversee high-touch conversations with customers looking to downgrade or cancel, ensuring timely outreach and strategic retention efforts.
• Support escalated billing or refund cases requiring nuanced judgment, policy interpretation, or negotiation.
• Identify patterns in churn or dissatisfaction and turn these insights into actionable recommendations for Sales, Customer Success, and Product teams.
• Collaborate with Finance to ensure compliance, accurate provisioning, and quality control of refund and billing decisions.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with Product and Engineering to escalate recurring issues impacting customer satisfaction or renewals.
• Partner with Sales and Customer Success on contract alignment, special pricing cases, and prevention of involuntary churn.
• Represent customer needs and revenue-impact opportunities in cross-functional meetings, advocating for long-term solutions.

Team Escalation & Policy Alignment

• Serve as the final escalation point for complex billing, refund, or renewal cases.
• Ensure consistent interpretation of refund policies, contract terms, and billing workflows across the team.
• Stay ahead of product updates, pricing changes, and policy evolutions that may affect customer conversations.

Skills & Qualifications

Required

• 3+ years in a customer-facing role within SaaS (Support, Renewals, Customer Success, Retention, and Billing Operations), with at least 1 year in a leadership or mentorship role.
• Demonstrated success in customer retention, objection handling, or renewal management.
• Strong analytical mindset; adept at using data to drive coaching, decision-making, and process improvements.
• Excellent English fluency, both written and verbal, with the ability to simplify complex topics and guide customers through emotionally charged situations.
• Proven ability to balance customer empathy with business policy and financial considerations.
• Experience making judgment-based decisions on refunds, credits, or contract nuances.

Preferred

• Familiarity with billing systems (e.g., Stripe, QuickBooks, Spotdraft) and CRM platforms (e.g., Salesforce).
• Experience leading or supporting customer renewal workflows in a high-volume SaaS environment.
• Basic understanding of subscription management, account provisioning, and user access logic.
• Exposure to churn analytics, VOC (Voice of Customer) programs, or revenue operations.
• Experience partnering with Finance, Sales, and Product teams to resolve customer-impacting issues.