Raz Dar, CEO of Elvee, explores why investing in the growth and empowerment of contact center supervisors is essential to building resilient, high-performing teams.
With annual turnover rates in contact centers exceeding 60%, the cost of poor retention can surpass millions of dollars. And to make matters worse, that staggering sum is just the tip of the iceberg, with training costs and time, as well as deteriorating customer service, a loss of institutional knowledge, performance KPIs not being met, ramped-up recruiting efforts, and a bad work atmosphere all adding to the unbearable toll.
While a lot of the focus tends to be on frontline agent satisfaction, one layer up, contact center supervisors (or team lead as they may be called) face a distinct and often underestimated set of challenges that could hold the key to ensuring employee retention. While contact centers invest heavily in recruitment, onboarding, and upskilling agents, many overlook the fact that effective agent performance starts with strong, well-trained leadership. A high-performing employee may be promoted to manager based on tenure or productivity, but excelling on the phones doesn’t automatically translate to managerial aptitude. While hitting KPIs tends to be their focus, solutions such as better coaching and work-life balance that are not traditionally measured but contribute to hitting those KPIs are too often overlooked.
The Hidden Strain of Agent Training
Being a contact center manager is one of the most demanding leadership roles in any organization. It requires far more than an understanding of scripts, systems, or call flows. Rather, it demands emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, coaching ability, data literacy, time management, and adaptability. And when managers either don’t have these skills or haven’t been trained to develop them, the teams suffer.
Coaching becomes inconsistent, feedback is either vague or nonexistent, and performance management turns into micromanagement. Instead of driving improvement, the manager becomes the bottleneck. Worse yet, many of these managers don’t even know what they’re missing because they’re so overwhelmed with data from multiple sources and multiple platforms – the cure becomes the poison. The result is firefighting day-to-day issues instead of being able to step back and develop as leaders.
Directing Without a Playbook
Managing dozens or hundreds of agents presents enormous challenges, particularly when managers lack the essential tools and knowledge needed to support their teams’ success. And when no formal structure is in place for performance feedback, skill development, or behavioral improvement, it becomes impossible.
While training during onboarding is relatively common day to day guidance on the floor covering how to lead, track progress, or use performance data is lacking; managers are forced to rely on instinct. However, instinct only comes with time, often too late, and isn’t transferable, a fact that turnover rates make clear. While some try their best, others fall back on punitive metrics, micromanagement, or even burnout and disengagement. In both cases, team morale and retention suffer, and service quality quickly diminishes.
The shift to hybrid and remote work has only intensified the issue, with many managers now responsible for leading remote teams with zero preparation or training on how to lead from behind a screen. Without visibility into agent workflows or real-time communication, many defaulted to rigid monitoring tools or reactive feedback, again, not because they wanted to, but because they lacked better options.
Hope at the end of the line
The good news is that with the emergence of AI, call center supervisors and managers have crucial new support. AI can help surface real-time insights on agent performance, sentiment, and behavioral patterns that managers would otherwise miss. It can flag coaching opportunities, detect burnout risks, and identify skill gaps early. Automated quality monitoring and performance analysis allow managers to make smarter, faster decisions, not based on instinct, but on actionable and measurable data.
Just as importantly, technology can reduce the manual burden of supervision, giving managers time to do what only humans can do: lead with empathy, develop talent, and build trust.
But tech alone isn’t enough. Upper management must play a proactive role in equipping their middle managers for success. That means formal leadership training, mentorship programs, clear career pathways, and systems that encourage learning curves. It means giving managers a voice in strategic decisions, and ensuring they’re not just enforcing policies but helping to shape them.
Contact center managers are the critical link between strategy and execution. When their development is invested in and when they’re given the tools to lead effectively, the entire organization benefits. To build resilient, high-performing contact centers, the first step is simple: invest in the people who are expected to lead them.
About the Author
Raz Dar serves as CEO of Elvee, bringing decades of experience in technology leadership, business development, and sales to the role.Before Elvee, he led global sales initiatives for multiple early-stage startups in Israel’s dynamic tech ecosystem. He also held senior positions at AWS, where he was named Israel’s Salesperson of the Year for leading a major cloud migration and successfully partnered with NICE through their complex cloud transition. Earlier in his career, he spent nearly 20 years at Amdocs in roles spanning software development, business development, and sales leadership, including managing a $50M P&L as Senior Account Executive for AT&T. He holds a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering & Management from Ben-Gurion University.
