Leadership 
Contact center directors are a rare breed. They combine hands-on experience, strategy and vision, and awareness of what’s happening in the outside world of customer experience.
You can start a call center without a director. But you can’t expect to become one of the leaders in your category without the direction of such personnel. It would be like a ship without a captain, setting sail into uncharted waters.
If you’re looking for a new, or perhaps your first, contact center director, read on to learn all the traits you must keep an eye out for. We also include a sample job description and some template questions to ask when interviewing candidates.
Skills and Characteristics To Look for in a Contact Center Director
Strategic vision
Through experience, on-the-job learning, and formal training programs, a director will have the proven ability to align contact center operations with broader business and CX strategies.
This is less hands-on and day-to-day compared with, say, a contact center manager. It’s more about having expertise in developing long-term plans for technology adoption, workforce optimization, and customer satisfaction improvements.
Technological proficiency
A must-have for the modern call center director is a deep understanding of omnichannel contact center platforms, AI tools, analytics dashboards, and automation technologies.
They must be competent in using such technology and have experience integrating emerging technologies like predictive analytics, sentiment analysis, and generative AI. Failure to embrace new technology is a real barrier to entry when searching for a new leader.
Leadership excellence
Any director must have strong problem-solving and leadership skills. Moreover, the ideal candidate should demonstrate a focus on coaching, motivating, and retaining talent across remote, hybrid, and in-office teams.
They must also be skilled in conflict resolution and continually work to create a positive workplace culture. Tasked with ensuring a low turnover rate, a new director must put employees first — as part of a more holistic customer experience program. Happy employees make for happy customers, after all.
Data-driven decision-making
You realize what a step above the contact center a director role actually is when you drill into the decisions one must make.
The ideal candidate must not only be comfortable analyzing KPIs (e.g., FCR, AHT, and CSAT), but they must also be confident in making informed operational improvements off the back of their findings and data. This may include staffing level changes, workflow changes to improve customer experience, or cutbacks and increases in technology spend.
Customer-centric approach
While they need to put employee well-being and engagement at the forefront of any strategy, a contact center director must show an unwavering commitment to delivering exceptional customer experiences.
By focusing on efficiency, personalization, and empathy, designing and executing a customer-first strategy is the core of the director role.
Agility and innovation
It’s fair to say that most of the role will involve proactive, long-term vision. However, a seasoned contact center director must also have the ability to adapt to rapid changes in customer expectations, industry trends, and technological advancements.
That agility may come from working in a call center in the past. You might make it a non-negotiable ask that your new hire has hands-on experience in a pressured work environment.
How Expectations Have Evolved in Recent Years
Omnichannel leadership
Call center director jobs are about more than just managing inbound call centers. They’re now managing customer interactions from channels like email, web chat, SMS, and social media.
Directors must oversee seamless customer interactions across phone, chat, email, SMS, and social media platforms. This means implementing and maintaining the technology as well as coaching the right culture and responses needed away from the phone.
Focus on technology-driven efficiency
Compared with a decade ago, there is now a greater emphasis on leveraging AI, automation, and real-time analytics to optimize call center operations and enhance customer experiences.
Call center technology has evolved tenfold over the last few years, with the most recent innovations impacting productivity and efficiency. Without this knowledge and awareness, you’ll be on the back foot.
Hybrid workforce management
Another key change in recent times is the ability and demand for agents to work from home. With many studies proving the benefits for staff, customers, and the business, it should be an expectation that your new director will manage and communicate with stakeholders in different locations.
Your ideal candidate must have years of experience using collaboration tools and ensuring consistent performance across diverse and distributed teams. Look for experience with internal tools like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or Webex.
Increased responsibility in data compliance
Directors must ensure certifications for and adherence to call center security and data privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR and HIPAA) while managing sensitive customer information.
Recent changes to US and EU legislation mean there are more data protection and payment security requirements to be compliant with. While the day-to-day tasks won’t sit with the contact center director, the responsibility is ultimately theirs.
Sample Job Description for a Contact Center Director
Title
Contact Center Director
Location
Remote/Hybrid/On-site
Key responsibilities
- Lead all contact center operations, including staffing, training, and call center performance management.
- Oversee omnichannel communication strategies to deliver seamless customer experiences.
- Use AI and analytics to monitor and improve KPIs like FCR, AHT, CSAT, and NPS.
- Develop and execute a strategic vision for the adoption and innovation of contact center technology.
- Ensure compliance with data privacy regulations and industry standards.
- Collaborate with customer experience, IT, and marketing teams to align contact center goals with company objectives.
Required skills
- Expertise in contact center platforms, CRM tools, and analytics software.
- Strong leadership and communication skills to manage large, diverse teams.
- Proven ability to develop and execute strategic plans.
- Familiarity with AI, automation, and omnichannel technologies.
- Familiarity with a variety of contact center solution providers.
Interview Questions To Find Top Candidates
Leadership and vision
- How have you aligned contact center goals with broader organizational objectives in the past?
- What strategies have you implemented to improve team performance and morale?
Technological expertise
- Can you talk about your experience implementing AI or automation in a contact center?
- How do you evaluate and select new technology for your team?
Customer-centric focus
- Describe how you’ve improved customer satisfaction and retention in previous roles.
- What call center best practices do you follow to ensure consistent experiences across multiple channels?
Data-driven insights
- What performance metrics do you prioritize, and how have you used them to drive improvements?
- How do you approach identifying and addressing process inefficiencies?
Agility and adaptability
- Tell me about a time you successfully adapted to a major change in the contact center landscape.
- How do you stay ahead of industry trends and evolving customer expectations?
Salary Ranges for Contact Center Directors
According to ZipRecruiter, the average salary for a contact center director can be broken down as follows:
- Average Annual Salary: $103,011
- Hourly Rate: Approximately $49.52
- Weekly Salary: Approximately $1,980
- Monthly Salary: Approximately $8,584
- 25th Percentile: $87,500 per year
- 75th Percentile: $120,000 per year
- 90th Percentile: $133,500+ per year
It’s important to note that many factors may influence the salary of a contact center director. For example, geography still plays a large part despite the potential for remote work. Metropolitan areas, like California, typically pay a higher salary due to the increased living costs.
Industry variance is a key contributor, too. In healthcare companies, where social care or emergency services are involved, for instance, expect these salaries to lie in the higher percentiles compared with, say, retail.
Future Career Paths for Contact Center Directors
Vice president of customer experience
With all the experience overseeing customer service, this leadership role is extended to other departments like marketing, product, and customer support. The task here is to continuously improve the customer experience in all parts of their life cycle with you.
Chief customer officer (CCO)
The CCO is responsible for developing and executing initiatives that keep customers loyal to your company. While the primary concern is existing customers, there may also be efforts to engage new prospects to get a flavor of what it will be like when they sign with you.
Director of operations or technology executive
Directors often move away from the contact center and transition into broader roles managing operational efficiencies or tech implementation company-wide. A lot of what you learn in high-pressure call centers can be applied cross-department.
Entrepreneur or consultant
Contact center directors may choose to leave management and move into a specialist niche role. Here, you can use your expertise and project management skills to start a consultancy or work as a freelancer specializing in contact center optimization or customer experience innovation.
Contact Center Directors Stay in the Know
It takes time to find the perfect contact center director candidate. To prepare yourself to make the right choice, you need to level the playing field.
It pays to know as much as the person you’re hiring. And while that includes experience in your business and call center environments, it also means staying up to date with the latest customer service trends.
Want a view of what’s hot in customer experience?
