Once upon a time, the job of a contact center manager was all about call volume, schedule adherence, and five nines. The headset-wearing hero lived in the world of service-level agreements, quality assurance scores, and average handle times.
Today's customer expectations and technologies like cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) are rewriting the script quickly. The skills that qualified contact center managers are shifting as well. Here are some of the key changes, and how to future-proof your skillset.
From WFM to WEM
Managing contact center staff used to be about optimizing scheduling, allocating resources, and monitoring adherence. That has shifted to creating a positive work environment that enables agents, reduces turnover, and drives business outcomes. From a managerial perspective, that means moving from tactical coaching, babysitting, and performance reviews to driving engagement, workforce upskilling, and mobility.
Future-proofing to-dos: Make a friend in HR to help you map out current and future skills needs for your teams and relevant upskilling plans. Make a friend in sales or marketing to help you pitch those opportunities to agents. Bonus points if you identify opportunities outside the contact center that are aspirational growth paths for agents.
From manager to influencer
The traditional contact center manager was part traffic controller, part coach, and part firefighter. Today, while the job is still primarily in the contact center, managers have to think beyond the traditional contact center walls and channels and not just about customer service but overall customer experience (CX) strategy. New CX leaders blend tech and analytics savvy with storytelling and tactical know-how with big-picture thinking. They think in journeys, not tickets, and partner with marketing, product, and digital teams to shape end-to-end experiences. They gently lead change management efforts and help agents thrive through those changes.
Future-proofing to-dos: Take an improvisational comedy class to hone your "yes, and" skills, institute your take-a-marketer-to-lunch-day program to pick their brains about brand experience, and do your homework on the tools, technologies, and politics of any customer interaction points that aren't your job today.
From technology manager to technology strategist
Before cloud contact centers came around, contact center managers were judged by their familiarity with telephony systems, interactive voice response systems, and ticketing platforms, and they had the pagers and work cellphones to prove it. Today, CX leaders are taking advantage of the cloud to delegate the performance and day-to-day operations of their CX infrastructure to vendors that are on the hook for it, that focus not just on tech performance but on strategic integration of channels, and that look not just at technology usage but how it's delivering on business goals.
Future-proofing to-dos: If you haven't already done so, make plans to move your contact center to the cloud (unless you absolutely can't for a REAL reason, your decision will pay off in terms of real ROI), demand that your CX vendors provide telemetry on an ongoing basis (not just at quarterly business review or renewal time) to help you ensure you can show how tech usage is delivering on real business outcomes, and make a friend in finance. When you get ready to make the business case for the next transformation you're convinced the company needs, you'll have someone to help you make the business case compelling to the folks in charge. Bonus points if you can credibly talk about tech needs as profit drivers, not cost savings.
From metrics-driven to data fluency
It's no longer enough to be able to report on average handle time, first-call-resolution, customer satisfaction scores, and occupancy and adherence. Future CX leaders need to be data sherpas, interpreting sentiment, providing proactive insights, and leveraging data, analytics, and AI to drive more proactive actions.
Future-proofing to-dos: Take a data storytelling course and start thinking about how you can better leverage the data you have to provide ongoing consistent insights about the performance of company products or services. Bonus points if you're already able to provide data-driven recommendations to product or service leaders about potential new offerings or revenue opportunities. Double bonus points if they listen to you.
From process optimization to AI transformation
Old-school contact center leaders spent a lot of time on standard operating procedures, knowledge documentation, and quality assurance. The next generation of CX leaders are automating all of that and more with AI. This means they need an understanding and familiarity with AI features and use cases, the ability to evaluate the potential ROI from potential transformation initiatives, and the desire to understand and influence customer loyalty and brand experience, both within and beyond their organizations.
Future-proofing to-dos: Get your hands dirty with multiple AI tools (if you haven't already), ask your key vendors to share their AI roadmaps (and ask a lot of questions until you're sure you understand the answers), and block time at least once a month on your calendar to check in on emerging trends and vendors in AI. Bonus points if you experiment with building a digital service agent to accomplish a basic task. Double points if you successfully put it into production.
The contact center isn't just a cost center anymore; it's a strategic lever for growth, loyalty, and innovation, meaning contact center managers are moving from factory overseers to experience engine orchestrators. No matter your title, this isn't just a headset job anymore; it's a seat at the CX strategy table, if you're ready.
Rebecca Wettemann is founder and CEO of Valoir.