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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Interaction Manager

💰 $ - $

Interaction ManagementCustomer ExperienceContact CenterOmnichannel

🎯 Role Definition

The Interaction Manager is responsible for overseeing and optimizing customer interactions across all channels (voice, chat, email, social, SMS, and bot interactions). This role combines operational leadership, omnichannel routing strategy, workforce management, and continuous improvement to deliver exceptional customer experience, maintain service-level targets, and drive efficiencies. The Interaction Manager partners closely with contact center operations, technology teams, quality assurance, and business stakeholders to design, implement, and measure interaction strategies that reduce handle times, increase first contact resolution, and improve customer satisfaction.

Key focus areas include omnichannel contact routing and escalation logic, CRM and telephony platform optimization (e.g., Genesys, Avaya, NICE, Twilio, Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud), conversational bot performance, workforce planning and intraday management, KPI reporting, and agent enablement.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Contact Center Supervisor
  • Workforce Management Analyst / Planner
  • Customer Experience Analyst

Advancement To:

  • Contact Center Operations Manager
  • Head of Customer Experience / CX Director
  • Omnichannel Operations Director

Lateral Moves:

  • Workforce Management Lead
  • Quality and Training Manager
  • Digital Channel Product Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Own end-to-end interaction strategy for omnichannel customer service, designing routing policies, escalation paths, and channel blending rules to meet business goals and support peak capacity planning.
  • Lead day-to-day management of contact center interaction flow, making real-time decisions to reroute traffic, prioritize queues, and ensure adherence to service level agreements (SLAs) and response time targets.
  • Define, monitor, and continuously optimize KPIs such as Average Handle Time (AHT), First Contact Resolution (FCR), Service Level (e.g., 80/20), Abandon Rate, Customer Satisfaction (CSAT/NPS), and Cost per Contact to drive measurable improvements.
  • Partner with IT, platform vendors, and digital product teams to implement and tune routing engines, IVR dialogue flows, chatbots, and API integrations that improve automation rates and reduce manual transfers.
  • Develop and maintain interaction rules, contact attributes, and routing logic in the contact center platform (e.g., skills-based routing, priority routing, time-of-day splits) to align agent skills to customer needs.
  • Manage project delivery of interaction-related initiatives including platform upgrades, new channel rollouts (e.g., social messaging, WhatsApp), and conversational AI enhancements, ensuring timely deployment and minimal disruption.
  • Serve as the primary liaison between operations, engineering, and business stakeholders to translate business requirements into technical specifications for routing, automation, and analytics.
  • Design and execute robust A/B tests and post-implementation analyses for routing changes, IVR redesigns, and bot handoff improvements to validate impact on operational metrics and customer experience.
  • Oversee agent enablement programs related to interaction tools, providing playbooks, job aids, and hands-on coaching to ensure consistent use of CRM, knowledge management systems, and conversation assist tools.
  • Create and present consolidated executive-level dashboards and weekly/monthly performance reviews for senior leadership, highlighting trends, root causes, and action plans tied to business outcomes.
  • Lead incident response for major interaction-related outages or degradations, coordinating containment, customer communication, and post-mortem analysis with technical teams and vendors.
  • Drive continuous improvement initiatives using Lean, Six Sigma, or Kaizen principles to reduce repeat contacts, streamline handoffs, and improve self-service containment.
  • Own vendor relationships and SLA management for hosted contact center providers, chat and bot vendors, telephony carriers, and third-party analytics partners.
  • Implement quality assurance frameworks for omnichannel interactions, defining scoring rubrics, sampling strategies, and feedback loops to improve coaching and performance.
  • Manage capacity planning and intraday staffing decisions in coordination with Workforce Management (WFM), ensuring resources are optimally allocated across channels to meet demand variability.
  • Oversee knowledge base governance and content lifecycle across channels to improve agent productivity and increase self-service success rates.
  • Develop playbooks for complex escalations, regulatory interactions, and high-value customer handling, ensuring compliance with legal, security, and quality requirements.
  • Coordinate cross-functional programs to integrate CRM, order management, and billing systems with interaction platforms to create a unified customer view and seamless agent experience.
  • Drive the adoption of conversational AI and automation strategies—defining intents, designing handoff points, evaluating bot accuracy, and measuring containment and escalation metrics.
  • Conduct root cause analysis on recurring issues (e.g., call transfers, repeat emails, chat deflection shortfalls) and lead remediation projects with measurable targets and accountability.
  • Mentor and develop a multi-disciplinary team of interaction specialists, quality analysts, and contact routing engineers to build bench strength and succession plans.
  • Ensure data integrity for interaction and customer metrics by defining data governance processes, reconciling platform-level metrics, and coordinating with analytics teams.
  • Advocate for customer-centric design by synthesizing customer feedback, voice of the customer insights, and journey maps to inform interaction policies and technology investments.
  • Prepare and manage budgets associated with interaction tooling, vendor contracts, and optimization projects, tracking ROI and identifying cost-saving opportunities.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
  • Assist in recruitment and staffing for interaction-related roles when required.
  • Participate in cross-functional committees focused on digital transformation and customer experience improvements.
  • Provide input into disaster recovery and business continuity plans related to customer-facing systems.
  • Support compliance audits and data privacy initiatives related to interaction recording and storage.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Omnichannel Contact Routing: Deep experience designing and configuring skills-based routing, priority routing, and omnichannel queue strategies across voice, chat, email, and messaging platforms.
  • Contact Center Platforms: Hands-on experience with major platforms such as Genesys Cloud/Engage, Avaya, NICE, Cisco UCCX, Five9, or Twilio Flex; ability to configure flows, reporting, and integrations.
  • CRM & Ticketing Systems: Proficiency with Salesforce Service Cloud, Zendesk, Microsoft Dynamics, or equivalent systems and knowledge of CRM-to-telephony integrations.
  • Conversational AI & Bots: Experience designing intents, handoff logic, and escalation flows for chatbots/virtual assistants (e.g., Dialogflow, Rasa, Amazon Lex, IBM Watson).
  • IVR Design & Optimization: Practical skills in scripting and optimizing IVR menus, prompts, and self-service pathways to maximize containment and reduce transfers.
  • Workforce Management Tools: Familiarity with WFM systems (e.g., NICE IEX, Verint, Aspect, Calabrio) for forecasting, scheduling, and intraday adjustments.
  • Analytics & Reporting: Strong SQL skills, experience with BI tools (Tableau, Power BI, Looker), and ability to build dashboards and perform root-cause analyses.
  • Telephony & APIs: Understanding of SIP, telephony routing concepts, CTI integrations, and RESTful APIs for system orchestration and event-driven routing.
  • Quality Assurance & Monitoring: Experience defining QA frameworks, speech/text analytics, and coaching programs to improve agent performance and compliance.
  • Project Management: Ability to run cross-functional projects, write requirements, manage vendors, and deliver interaction-related initiatives using Agile or Waterfall methodologies.
  • Data Governance & Privacy: Knowledge of data retention, recording regulations, and privacy controls (e.g., PCI, GDPR) relevant to interaction data.

Soft Skills

  • Strategic Thinking: Ability to translate business objectives into scalable interaction strategies and measurable outcomes.
  • Leadership & People Management: Experience mentoring teams, building high-performing groups, and driving accountability across operations and technical stakeholders.
  • Stakeholder Management: Strong ability to influence cross-functional teams and negotiate priorities with product, IT, and commercial leaders.
  • Communication: Exceptional written and verbal skills to present complex operational insights to executives and frontline teams.
  • Problem Solving: Analytical mindset to diagnose issues from multi-channel data and drive corrective action plans.
  • Customer Empathy: Deep understanding of customer journeys with a focus on designing frictionless interactions.
  • Adaptability: Comfortable operating in high-change environments with competing priorities and tight SLAs.
  • Coaching & Development: Experience leading performance improvement conversations, training initiatives, and knowledge-sharing sessions.
  • Attention to Detail: Rigor in validating data, establishing testing protocols, and ensuring configuration accuracy.
  • Time Management: Ability to prioritize across strategic projects and urgent operational needs without compromising quality.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Information Systems, Communication, or related field (or equivalent professional experience).

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Customer Experience, Industrial/Systems Engineering, Data Analytics, or MBA.
  • Certifications in contact center platforms, conversational AI, Lean Six Sigma, or project management (PMP/Agile/Scrum) are a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Customer Experience Management
  • Information Technology / Systems
  • Operations Management
  • Data Analytics / Business Analytics

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 5–8+ years in contact center operations, interaction management, or omnichannel service roles.

Preferred:

  • 7+ years with progressive responsibility in interaction routing, workforce planning, contact center technology, and cross-functional program delivery.
  • Proven track record of implementing omnichannel routing strategies, deploying conversational AI, and achieving measurable improvements in CSAT, FCR, and cost-to-serve metrics.
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