The contact centre industry has never stood still for long, but the pace of change now feels different. AI is becoming more embedded in day-to-day operations. Customer expectations are rising. Simpler interactions are being automated away. And what remains for frontline teams is often more complex, more emotional, and more difficult to resolve. Against that backdrop, one of the biggest questions facing the industry is no longer just about technology. It is about capability.
That was the focus of our latest Contact Centre Network discussion, where I was joined by Rob Dermott, Client Solutions Director at CCA Recruitment Group, and Nathan Dring, Founder of Nathan Dring & Associates. Together, we explored what the contact centre skills gap really looks like, where the biggest capability shortfalls are emerging, and what leaders need to do differently if they want to prepare their organisations for 2026 and beyond.
The starting point for the discussion was a series of stark industry statistics. Research suggests only one in three contact centre leaders believe their teams currently have the skills needed for future digital CX environments. Salesforce reports that customer expectations are rising faster than organisations’ ability to equip their people to meet them. Zendesk has found that most organisations believe AI will significantly reshape the agent role, yet many admit they are not ready to reskill their workforce. And the World Economic Forum has projected that 44% of core skills will change by 2027. When you line those figures up side by side, the picture is clear: the gap between technology ambition and people capability is widening.
What made the conversation particularly powerful, however, was that both Rob and Nathan pushed beyond the data and into the practical realities behind it. Rob was quick to point out that some of these challenges are not entirely new. In many ways, the contact centre has been moving towards this moment for years. Self-service has already stripped out many of the simpler contacts. Customers often arrive at a human interaction after they have exhausted digital options, which means they are more likely to be frustrated, confused, or emotionally charged.
As Rob put it, “A lot of these challenges are already there,” before highlighting the importance of situational judgement as a growing capability gap. He described the need for people who can stop, question the instruction in front of them, and decide whether it is actually the right course of action. In other words, the future contact centre cannot rely on people simply following the sat nav. It needs people who know when to challenge the route.
That insight led naturally into the question of what kind of skills matter most now. Communication, Rob argued, remains fundamental, but not in the old sense of simply sounding polished on the phone. As customer interactions become more bespoke, more sensitive, and less repeatable, the ability to communicate clearly, calmly, and credibly becomes even more important. It is no longer enough to memorise a response and repeat it a hundred times a day. Agents increasingly need to explain, reassure, solve, and adapt in real time. Alongside this, he pointed to data accuracy, digital literacy, and adaptability as critical future skills, especially in environments where AI may help generate information but where human judgement is still needed to sense-check whether the outcome is right.
Nathan approached the same challenge from a different, but equally important, angle: leadership. For him, one of the biggest capability gaps in the contact centre today sits not only with agents, but with the people leading them. Too often, he argued, organisations promote strong frontline performers into leadership roles without really preparing them for what leadership actually demands.
A great agent may understand the work, but that does not automatically mean they are ready to coach others, navigate emotional dynamics, or lead a team through ambiguity and change. Nathan captured this brilliantly when he described the shift from agent to team leader as emerging into a world where
“all the buildings are falling, you still need to get over there, but none of the roads exist and everything you thought was solid has wobbled slightly.” It is a vivid description of what many first-line leaders experience: the job changes, the relationships change, the expectations change, yet the support often does not.
This matters even more in an AI-enabled environment. As roles become more complex, agents need more coaching, more confidence, and more support to work effectively alongside technology. Nathan made the point that while many organisations are investing heavily in AI tools, they are not putting the same energy into helping people adapt to those tools.
“We’re saying, here’s a new skill set. Here’s a brand new bike for Christmas. We’re taking off the stabilisers. There’s a massive hill. Bye.” It was a funny line in the moment, but it landed because it felt uncomfortably true. Too many organisations launch new systems, run some initial training, and then assume adoption will take care of itself. In reality, people need a much gentler runway. They need to understand why the technology is being introduced, where it fits into their workflow, how it helps them, and what support will be available when things do not go perfectly.
That point led to one of the most memorable phrases of the session, introduced by Rob: “Clarity is currency.”
In the context of skills and transformation, it is a powerful idea. If leaders are not clear about what the future role looks like, what good performance means, or what skills the business actually needs, then development becomes vague and reactive. Training gets delivered, but not embedded. Technology gets introduced, but not adopted well. People are expected to change, but are not shown exactly how. Clarity, in this sense, is not a nice-to-have. It is the thing that allows confidence, capability, and progress to build.
From there, we moved into the changing nature of the operational leader’s role. If the contact centre of the future is more insight-driven, more AI-enabled, and more focused on end-to-end customer journeys, then the leader’s role must evolve as well. We discussed the idea that contact centre leaders need to become less like queue managers and more like experience architects — people who can connect people, process, and technology and lead teams through change.
Nathan’s response was a sharp reminder that this evolution cannot happen without real investment in core leadership behaviours. “If we invest in leaders who are emotionally intelligent and know the core behaviours they need to demonstrate and can then bring out of their people,” he said, “you’ll see a real shift.” For him, the priority is not a two-day course or a one-off webinar. It is embedding leadership behaviours over time — using the existing rhythm of the contact centre, such as huddles, stand-ups, one-to-ones, and coaching sessions, to reinforce the right conversations again and again.
Rob added another useful dimension to this by highlighting what organisations are now looking for in senior operational hires. Increasingly, they want people who can challenge legacy assumptions, influence others effectively, and bring ideas to the table that the organisation may not have thought of on its own. The ability to challenge constructively, to connect with diverse teams, and to lead people through uncertainty is becoming just as valuable as technical knowledge or functional experience. This feels particularly important in contact centres, where teams are now more diverse in age, background, and working style than ever before. The future leader, in Rob’s view, is someone who can get the best out of that diversity while keeping the team aligned around a common purpose.
The discussion also touched on burnout and attrition, which remain critical concerns in the context of skills and transformation. As AI takes care of simpler, more repetitive tasks, the emotional and cognitive demands on agents are increasing. The contacts that reach a human are often the ones that are harder to resolve, more vulnerable in nature, or more emotionally loaded. If organisations fail to acknowledge that, they risk creating more pressure while simultaneously expecting higher performance.
Nathan was especially clear on this point. “You don’t sweat an asset that much,” he said. “You wouldn’t run a machine at 100% all day and expect it not to break, and so there’s something about recognising that with people as well.” It was a strong reminder that the future contact centre cannot simply become more efficient at the expense of human sustainability. If people are expected to carry more complexity, they will need more support, more flexibility, and better leadership around them.
One of the most interesting themes running throughout the session was the idea that, despite all the conversation about AI and digital transformation, the real differentiator may still be profoundly human. In fact, the more technology advances, the more important some of the most timeless leadership and people skills become. When I asked both guests which capabilities they believed would matter most over the next couple of years, neither reached first for a technical answer.
Rob spoke about communication and situational judgement. Nathan went straight to emotionally intelligent and compassionate leadership. That in itself says a great deal. Even in an era of automation, insight, and AI support, organisations still rise or fall on the quality of their human interactions.
So what should contact centre leaders take away from all of this? First, the skills gap is not just a future issue. It is already present, and it is affecting leaders, agents, and wider CX organisations right now. Second, solving it will require more than recruitment alone. Organisations need much clearer definitions of future roles, better capability mapping, and more intentional development pathways for existing teams. Third, technology investment must be matched by equal seriousness about people investment.
AI may augment the work, but it cannot replace the need for strong judgement, empathy, adaptability, and leadership. And finally, if leaders want to build future-ready contact centres, they need to stop thinking of development as an event and start treating it as an ongoing part of the operating model.
The conversation closed on a simple but important truth: while the contact centre of the future may look different, the fundamentals still matter. People still need support. Leaders still need to lead. And customers still need thoughtful, capable humans when things become difficult. The organisations that bridge the skills gap best will not be the ones that buy the most technology. They will be the ones that bring clarity, coaching, and human judgement into the heart of transformation.
If you missed the live session, I’d strongly encourage you to catch the replay. It is a timely conversation for any leader currently thinking about recruitment, development, culture, or the future shape of their operation.
And if the phrase “clarity is currency” sticks with you, that is probably a good thing. In the years ahead, it may prove to be one of the most important leadership ideas in the contact centre industry.
Thanks For Reading
Garry
