Do Agents Have The Needed Skills and Training?

Contact centers are in an increasingly tumultuous environment of economic, social, and technological change.

Ever-higher customer service expectations, likely accelerated by shifts in consumer spending to upper-income population tiers, combined with new AI-driven automation tools, appear to be placing more pressure on center leaders to ensure they have the right number of higher quality, well-trained staff.

But accomplishing this fundamental task isn’t easy with slowing population growth and declining labor force participation rates as older workers retire and women leave or choose not to enter the applicant pools (see December 2025 Feature, “Staffing Against the Storm,” and against limited staffing budgets.

To better understand how to help contact centers with their agent recruiting, assessment, and training in today’s environment, we had a virtual conversation with Dina Vance, Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing/Managing Director of North American Operations, Ulysses Learning.

Dina is a frequent contributor to Contact Center Pipeline with nearly 40 years of industry experience. Here are her insights in response to our questions.

Q. Are contact centers hiring and retaining the employees with the quality – and in the quantities – they need? What developments and issues matter most?

Contact center executives are experiencing challenges in hiring and retaining employees at the quality or scale they need. Every executive I speak with echoes the same concern: the challenge is getting harder, not easier.

What’s driving this isn’t a shrinking need for people. Quite the opposite. As organizations accelerate their AI strategies, technology is reshaping roles by raising skill requirements and increasing the complexity of the work that reaches human agents.

In our research, we are finding AI is not eliminating jobs. Instead, it is transforming them and, in many cases, increasing the need for well-trained AI-literate employees. (Ed. note: see BOX for an in-depth discussion on AI).

Research from ICMI underscores the depth of the retention problem. Turnover remains high, fueled by low pay and, most importantly, a lack of career growth opportunities. Half of all agents cite limited advancement as a primary reason for leaving.

At the same time, even with AI automating routine tasks, 87% of contact centers still plan to hire or backfill roles, according to ICMI. This is a clear signal that automation is shifting the nature of the work, not reducing the workforce.

Another way to look at the changes impacting our workforce is how AI shifts the profile of the ideal agent. As automation handles simpler inquiries, the interactions that reach humans are more emotionally charged and more complex.

Calabrio (now Verint) reports that 61% of centers are seeing an increase in emotionally intense customer interactions, and customer expectations for empathy in the human interface continue to rise.

This means agents must now excel at being critical thinkers while working seamlessly alongside AI systems that provide real-time guidance and workflow support.

“…technology is reshaping roles by raising skill requirements and increasing the complexity of the work…” —Dina Vance

Taking it together, the evidence is clear: contact centers are struggling to hire and retain the talent they need, not because AI is replacing people, but because AI is raising the bar for what human roles require.

These shifts in our industry point to a future where success depends on building a more skilled, AI-augmented workforce. The centers that thrive will be those that invest in elevating human capability to meet the new demands created by AI-driven operations.

Q. What new skills are agents now expected to have? And can longer-tenured agents be trained effectively to have them?

This is a great question because it gets to the heart of how new agents and tenured agents each bring different, but equally valuable, strengths to today’s contact centers.

Technology enhancements and shifts in customer expectations are reshaping the nature of customer interactions, and as a result, [and as] we have already discussed, the skills required by human agents are evolving.

New hires often enter the workplace with fresh perspectives and come with digital fluency, having been raised on technology solutions.

I think back to my kids’ learning experience in school compared to mine. Anyone who entered school in the late 2000s and early 2010s grew up in an education system that was rapidly shifting toward digital learning.

This generation was among the first to complete assignments on school issued devices, whether laptops, Chromebooks, or tablets. Most students were routinely using technology as part of their daily academic experience.

This early exposure to digital tools has shaped how today’s new contact center agents think, learn, and problem solve, giving them a natural fluency with technology that complements the AI-enabled environments they now enter.

Tenured agents, on the other hand, carry deep tribal knowledge which should not be discounted. These agents have an intuitive understanding of customer patterns that systems simply are unable to replicate.

In addition, given today’s labor market, the financial case for retention of tenured team members is especially compelling because the true cost of turnover is extraordinarily high.

Data consistently shows that replacing an employee typically costs between 50% and 200% of their annual salary when leaders account for recruiting, onboarding, training, and lost productivity during ramp-up, according to “The Myth of Replaceability: Preparing for the Loss of Key Employees.”

The article, written by Regina Dyerly and published by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), also points out that in many cases, total costs can climb even higher depending on role complexity and experience level.

“…if there is one attribute most needed in our agents today, it is their ability to be complex problem solvers…”

In a tight labor market, where roles remain unfilled longer and competition for talent drives up wages and hiring costs, these replacement expenses are amplified even further. Both groups are essential and when developed intentionally, they complement each other in powerful ways.

Consider a customer who reaches out not with a simple request, but with a layered concern such as, “I’ve tried resolving this three times already. What’s actually going on, and how do we fix it for good?”

That kind of interaction demands the ability to interpret context and the skill to navigate multiple systems and policies to uncover the real issue. These are the moments that define a customer’s perception of the brand.

This is critical. Contact centers remain the face of their companies, often representing the highest number of customer touchpoints. One thought to consider is customers rarely remember the exact words exchanged but they remember how the interaction made them feel.

AI cannot evoke that feeling. But a skilled CSR can. That’s why hiring must focus on the human capabilities that create connection.

This shift is reflected in the new skill expectations for modern agents. They must demonstrate emotional intelligence and de-escalation, which have become essential as difficult interactions rise by 61% (Calabrio/Verint), as I cited earlier.

Agents must be comfortable working alongside automation tools that surface knowledge or guide next steps. They need to communicate seamlessly across omnichannel environments: voice, chat, email, and social.

And if there is one attribute most needed in our agents today, it is their ability to be complex problem solvers because automation has already removed the easy tasks from their queue.

Longer-tenured agents, meanwhile, bring knowledge and they can be role models for the new hires in understanding the nuances of processes and customer sentiment in ways that no system can fully capture.

The question isn’t whether they can learn new skills because as a learning company we firmly believe everyone can learn new skills.

The real issue is that most organizations lack the structure to help them do it. Organizations often miss the opportunity to offer upskilling pathways to help both new and experienced CSRs reach their full potential.

Q. Are there fewer suitable applicants? What skills are missing? Are centers hiring less qualified candidates and training them more?

Recently, I’ve been deeply involved in researching how to attract stronger candidates into the contact center labor pool, and the experience has been eye opening.

There are absolutely fewer suitable applicants today, and much of that decline stems from a fundamental shift in what younger generations want from work.

Think about the traditional contact center role—tethered to a headset for eight hours, following strict schedules, and managing a constant stream of emotionally charged interactions—and then compare that to what we know recent graduates value.

These prospective employees want flexibility, autonomy, variety, and work that feels meaningful. At least, that’s exactly what my own recent college graduate tells me.

A “butt in seat” job with rigid structure and high emotional labor simply doesn’t align with those expectations, which naturally shrinks the pool of applicants who are both interested in and prepared for the realities of the role.

As a result, many candidates lack the core skills needed today: critical thinking, resilience, emotional intelligence, and the ability to navigate technology-enabled workflows.

Because of this, contact centers are hiring less qualified candidates more frequently, but they’re compensating with stronger training programs, better onboarding, and more structured development pathways.

“One of the most meaningful steps, though, is giving people a safe place to practice and level up their skills.”

My recent graduate also pointed out how much culture matters on Day 1 of a new job. When people join a company, they want to be welcomed into a clear vision and connected to people who make them feel part of the brand.

The solution isn’t to lower the bar; it’s to change how we help people reach it.

That means designing onboarding experiences that accelerate skill development and create opportunities that make the role feel like a stepping stone rather than a dead end. It also means building a culture where agents feel supported rather than monitored.

Q. What steps can contact centers take to ensure a high quality, well-trained workforce capable of delivering excellence?

Contact centers can build a high quality, well-trained workforce by combining strong people practices with development approaches that reflect how humans actually learn and grow. It starts with career growth pathways, since a lack of advancement remains one of the top reasons agents leave organizations.

One of the most meaningful steps, though, is giving people a safe place to practice and level up their skills. As expectations rise, agents need room to experiment, stumble, and improve without the pressure of a live customer listening on the other end.

That’s why simulation-based learning has become such a powerful tool. In our work, we’ve seen how AI-supported simulations, where learners interact with a realistic avatar customer, create space for authentic practice.

The beauty of this approach is simple: people can make mistakes, learn from them, and try again without fear of judgment. It mirrors the way confidence is built in any craft: through psychological safety to grow at your own pace.

When contact centers combine clear career paths with emotionally intelligent training in safe simulation environments, they create a workforce that is well-trained to deliver exceptional service experiences at every point of contact.