8 Action Items for Contact Center Leaders

Contact center leaders are responsible for more than answering customer questions. They must balance Customer Experience, workforce development, technology, automation, operational efficiency, brand consistency, and the changing expectations of customers across multiple communication channels. These eight action items provide a practical framework for building a contact center that can adapt while continuing to deliver meaningful customer experiences.

• 1. Keep Voice at the Center of an Omnichannel Strategy
• 2. Develop the Next Generation of Contact Center Agents
• 3. Train Based on the Voice of the Customer
• 4. Think Beyond Customer Service
• 5. Use Artificial Intelligence Strategically
• 6. Establish a Clear Corporate Identity
• 7. Design Experiences, Not Just Transactions
• 8. Empower Your Organization to Say "Yes"
• About Call Center Services International

Technology and customer behavior will continue to change, but the fundamentals of effective contact center leadership remain remarkably consistent: understand the customer, develop capable people, use technology intelligently, remove unnecessary friction, and give employees the tools and authority needed to solve problems.

1. Keep Voice at the Center of an Omnichannel Strategy

Digital channels, self-service, messaging, chat, and automation have expanded the ways customers can interact with businesses, but they have not eliminated the importance of human conversation.

Voice remains especially valuable when customers have complicated questions, sensitive issues, urgent situations, or problems that are difficult to resolve through automated channels.

The goal should therefore not be to choose between voice and digital. Contact center leaders should determine which channels are best suited to different customer needs and create an experience that allows customers to move between them with as little friction as possible.

Voice technology itself has also evolved. Intelligent routing, conversational AI, speech analytics, automated transcription, virtual agents, and more capable IVR systems can support customers and agents while preserving access to human assistance when it provides the most value.

The objective is not to replace voice with digital channels. It is to use each channel where it creates the most value for the customer.

That principle is central to building a modern customer service contact center capable of supporting customers across multiple communication channels.

2. Develop the Next Generation of Contact Center Agents

As self-service and automation resolve more routine interactions, the situations that reach live agents can become increasingly complex.

This changes the skills required from the contact center workforce. Product knowledge and process training remain essential, but agents also need communication skills, judgment, problem solving, emotional intelligence, adaptability, and the ability to manage customer situations that do not follow a predictable script.

Contact center leaders should therefore view agent development as an ongoing process rather than a one-time onboarding exercise.

Training, coaching, Quality Assurance, performance feedback, career development, and leadership opportunities can help employees continue building the skills required as customer expectations and technology evolve.

Modern contact centers need more than representatives who follow processes. They need professionals who can understand customers, solve problems, and create effective human interactions.

Continuous training and career development are also important elements of CCSI's company culture and employee development strategy.

3. Train Based on the Voice of the Customer

Contact center training should not be based exclusively on internal processes and company expectations. Customer feedback can provide valuable information about what agents are doing well, where interactions create frustration, and which behaviors have the greatest impact on Customer Experience.

Voice of the Customer programs can use surveys, customer comments, call recordings, interaction analytics, Quality Assurance evaluations, complaints, escalations, and performance data to identify recurring patterns.

Those insights should then influence training, coaching, scorecards, processes, and agent development.

The most useful training connects internal performance expectations with what customers actually experience.

CCSI's Quality Assurance and Call Monitoring solutions help organizations evaluate customer interactions and connect them with measurable agent performance.

4. Think Beyond Customer Service

Customer Experience is larger than the contact center interaction itself.

Customers form opinions about a company through marketing, purchasing, onboarding, billing, product use, customer service, technical support, collections, renewals, cancellations, and many other touchpoints.

Contact center leaders should therefore understand where their operation fits within the complete customer journey rather than viewing each interaction as an isolated service event.

A customer may contact an agent because of a problem created somewhere else in the organization. Identifying those patterns can help companies address the underlying cause rather than repeatedly asking the contact center to manage the symptoms.

This broader perspective should extend beyond senior leadership. Supervisors and frontline employees also benefit from understanding how their individual responsibilities influence the customer's relationship with the brand.

Customer Experience extends beyond the contact center. Every touchpoint can strengthen or weaken the customer's perception of the organization.

5. Use Artificial Intelligence Strategically

Artificial Intelligence has moved from an emerging contact center technology to an increasingly important part of Customer Experience and business operations.

AI can support voice and virtual agents, self-service, interaction summaries, routing, Quality Assurance, knowledge management, analytics, email, messaging, and other processes.

The objective, however, should not be automation for its own sake.

Contact center leaders should determine where AI can reduce repetitive work, improve response times, increase consistency, provide agents with better information, and make customer interactions easier.

Human assistance remains important when situations require empathy, judgment, negotiation, creativity, complex problem solving, or relationship building. The strongest operating model may therefore combine automation with trained human employees rather than treating the two as competing alternatives.

Learn more about CCSI's Generative AI Voice & Virtual Agent solutions.

6. Establish a Clear Corporate Identity

Customer service employees represent the organization every time they communicate with a customer.

For that reason, agents need more than procedures and scripts. They should understand the company's values, expectations, communication style, and the type of relationship the organization wants to build with its customers.

Products, marketing, employees, policies, customer service practices, and digital experiences all contribute to the customer's perception of a brand.

Consistency between those elements helps establish trust. When the contact center communicates in a way that contradicts the rest of the organization, the customer experience can feel fragmented.

Contact center leaders should therefore make corporate identity part of recruiting, onboarding, training, coaching, Quality Assurance, and everyday management.

7. Design Experiences, Not Just Transactions

Efficiency is important, but customer interactions should not be evaluated only by how quickly they end.

A successful interaction should also consider whether the customer received an accurate answer, understood the resolution, felt respected, avoided unnecessary effort, and left with confidence in the organization.

Not every interaction requires an extraordinary gesture. In many situations, the most valuable experience is simply one that is easy, accurate, professional, and human.

Contact center leaders should examine both agent-assisted and automated interactions to identify opportunities to reduce friction and make the experience feel more thoughtful rather than purely transactional.

“Aim your experience at their hearts, not just their wallets.”

— Peter Guber

8. Empower Your Organization to Say "Yes"

Agents cannot consistently create good customer experiences if policies, processes, systems, or approval requirements prevent them from resolving reasonable customer needs.

Contact center leaders should identify unnecessary barriers that force employees to say “no” even when a practical solution exists.

Common examples include:

• Not providing support through the customer's preferred channel
• Policies that prevent reasonable resolutions when the company is responsible for an issue
• Agents lacking sufficient authority to resolve common customer problems
• Different channels providing inconsistent answers or service options
• Processes that force customers to repeatedly explain the same issue

Empowering agents does not mean eliminating business controls. It means clearly defining what employees are allowed to do, providing the information and training required to make appropriate decisions, and creating escalation paths for situations that fall outside those boundaries.

Well-designed empowerment can help employees resolve more issues during the interaction while reducing unnecessary transfers, escalations, repeat contacts, and customer frustration.

CCSI's bilingual and bicultural agents are supported through training and professional development designed to help them deliver strong customer interactions.

Turning Contact Center Priorities Into Action

Contact center technology will continue to evolve, but leadership priorities should remain focused on the outcomes that matter most: capable employees, effective processes, useful technology, consistent experiences, and satisfied customers.

Organizations do not need to transform every part of their operation at once. Leaders can begin by identifying the areas creating the greatest customer or employee friction and then determine which combination of process improvements, workforce development, technology, automation, and management changes can produce the greatest impact.

Originally published: February 24, 2017
Last reviewed and updated: July 29, 2026