Project Manager – Contact Center Operations

Connect Centric•Akron, OH

2d•$140,000 - $160,000•Hybrid

About The Position

At Connect Centric, we are more than just consultants—we are partners committed to our clients' success. We take a hands-on approach, working closely with our clients to transform strategies into measurable, real-world outcomes. As a strategy execution team, we take full ownership of every initiative from start to finish, ensuring that our clients see tangible results, not just ideas. Our work is grounded in IQ, EQ, and TQ—combining intelligence, empathy, and technology acumen to turn strategy into real-world outcomes. Connect Centric is seeking an experienced Project Manager to lead the day-to-day operation of a contact center program. This is not a project coordinator position. The Project Manager will own the performance of the operation and serve as the primary point of client contact. The role includes responsibility for contact center operations, workforce management, service levels, staff performance, training, quality assurance, reporting, escalations, knowledge management, and coordination with technology support teams. The Project Manager must be able to lead a team that handles routine inquiries while recognizing and escalating sensitive, urgent, or potentially life-threatening matters. This position is contingent upon contract award.

Requirements

At least eight years of experience in contact center, hotline, customer service, or related operations.
At least five years of experience directly managing contact center personnel, supervisors, or operational teams.
Demonstrated experience managing staffing, schedules, service levels, quality, training, escalations, and operational reporting.
Experience leading a remote or geographically distributed workforce.
Experience managing operations in a regulated, compliance-sensitive or similarly controlled environment.
Strong understanding of contact center performance measures, including service level, answer time, abandonment, average handle time, backlog, productivity, quality, and customer satisfaction.
Experience developing or maintaining standard operating procedures, call flows, escalation procedures, training materials, scripts, and knowledge resources.
Experience managing complaints, sensitive contacts, urgent escalations, or incident-intake processes.
Proven ability to identify operational risks, determine the appropriate response, and drive corrective actions through completion.
Strong written and verbal communication skills.
Ability to lead difficult conversations, coach employee performance, de-escalate issues, and remain composed during urgent or sensitive situations.
Strong judgment and the ability to distinguish routine operational matters from issues requiring immediate escalation.
Highly organized and able to manage daily operations while maintaining visibility into longer-term risks, staffing needs, and contract commitments.
Must be authorized to work in the United States without current or future sponsorship.
Must be able to successfully complete required company and federal background-screening, suitability, credentialing, and system-access procedures.
All work must be performed from within the United States or its territories.

Nice To Haves

Experience managing a federal or state government contact center, help desk, public-information service, or customer-service program.
Experience managing operations subject to contractual performance standards and formal quality-control requirements.
Experience with workforce management, quality management, call recording, analytics, customer relationship management, case-management, or knowledge-management systems.
Experience managing bilingual English and Spanish customer service operations.
Knowledge of Section 508 accessibility requirements.
Project Management Professional certification or a comparable contact center, operations, quality, or workforce-management certification.
Bachelor’s degree in business, management, communications, public administration, social work, education, psychology, or a related field. Equivalent professional experience will also be considered.

Responsibilities

Lead daily operations including inbound calls, outbound follow-up calls, voicemails, emails, and incident-report intake.
Maintain reliable coverage during required operating hours and adjust staffing based on contact volume, workload, employee availability, emerging events, and service-level performance.
Oversee work assignments, schedules, queue performance, response deadlines, and daily operational priorities.
Ensure the operation meets contractual requirements for call-answer times, abandonment rates, email processing, voicemail callbacks, complaint routing, incident processing, escalations, and reporting.
Monitor operational performance throughout the day and intervene before backlogs or service-level issues affect customer experience.
Manage operational risks, document issues, assign corrective actions, and track each action through resolution.
Serve as the primary point of contact between Connect Centric and the client.
Lead client meetings and provide clear updates on staffing, service levels, quality, training, risks, technology issues, corrective actions, and open decisions.
Respond to client requests and ensure agreed-upon actions are assigned, tracked, and completed.
Remain available to meet virtually with the client at anytime.
Forecast staffing needs using contact volume, average handle time, email workload, employee availability, service-level performance, and seasonal demand.
Monitor individual and team performance and intervene when quality, productivity, attendance, conduct, or compliance falls below expectations.
Conduct regular one-on-one meetings, performance reviews, coaching sessions, and corrective-action follow-ups.
Maintain staffing continuity through cross-training, backup coverage, documented procedures, and succession planning.
Conduct or oversee call monitoring, email reviews, quality calibration sessions, coaching, and corrective-action planning.
Review escalations for completeness, timeliness, and adherence to approved procedures.
Lead root-cause reviews when a contact, report, referral, escalation, or contractual requirement is mishandled.
Create, review and approve daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual, and requested custom reports.
Other duties as assigned related to contact center operations and related improvements.