Associate Director-IVR Strategy & Customer Automation

About the Role:

The Associate Director, IVR Strategy & Customer Automation, is responsible for leading the strategy, governance, and evolution of IVR and AI-driven customer interaction capabilities across the contact center experience. This leader will drive the modernization of customer self-service and automation capabilities across voice and related service channels.

This role requires a strategic and forward-thinking leader with proven experience delivering conversational AI, intelligent automation, and customer experience transformation. The Associate Director will partner with operations, product, IT, digital, analytics, and vendor teams to identify opportunities, define priorities, implement solutions, and improve business and customer outcomes.

The ideal candidate combines strong strategic vision with operational discipline and execution excellence. They will bring a clear understanding of emerging AI capabilities, customer journey design, and contact center operations, along with the leadership skills needed to drive measurable results. ***This position can be filled remotely anywhere within the country.***

What You’ll Do:

This role has key responsibilities that includes the following areas.

Strategy & Roadmap

• Develop and lead the strategy and roadmap for conversational AI, intelligent self-service, and customer automation capabilities
• Identify opportunities to improve customer interactions through AI-enabled experiences, intelligent routing, workflow automation, and enhanced self-service
• Align automation initiatives with business priorities, customer needs, operational goals, and enterprise technology strategy

Solution Design & Implementation

• Lead cross-functional efforts to design, develop, test, implement, and optimize conversational AI and customer automation solutions
• Translate business requirements and customer pain points into effective self-service experiences and automation strategies
• Oversee customer journey design elements such as conversation flows, intent handling, routing logic, escalation paths, and handoff to live agents
• Ensure strong implementation practices, including planning, testing, change management, deployment, and post-launch support 

Business Partnership & Customer Experience

• Partner with contact center operations, IT, product, digital, customer experience, and analytics teams to support business priorities and improve service outcomes
• Use customer feedback, journey insights, operational performance data, and service trends to identify and prioritize improvement opportunities
• Ensure customer automation solutions are intuitive, effective, compliant, and aligned with broader customer experience goals

Innovation & Emerging Technology

• Stay current on market trends, emerging technologies, and best practices related to conversational AI, agentic AI, intelligent automation, and customer engagement platforms
• Evaluate new capabilities, tools, and partners that can enhance the customer experience and support business objectives
• Foster a culture of innovation, experimentation, and continuous improvement across customer automation initiatives

Vendor & Platform Management

• Manage relationships with vendors and partners supporting conversational AI, contact center automation, and related platforms
• Ensure vendors meet performance expectations related to service delivery, innovation, support, and platform reliability
• Coordinate platform enhancements, issue resolution, releases, and ongoing optimization efforts with internal and external stakeholders
• Establish clear governance, communication, and escalation processes across vendors and business partners

Operational Excellence, Risk & Governance

• Monitor performance of automation capabilities, including containment, routing effectiveness, experience quality, escalation patterns, and platform stability
• Establish governance processes and operational standards to support sustainable delivery and continuous improvement
• Ensure solutions comply with applicable privacy, security, regulatory, and customer data requirements
• Promote disciplined controls for performance monitoring, change management, and risk mitigation

Leadership & Collaboration

• Serve as a senior leader and subject matter expert for conversational AI strategy and customer automation
• Lead cross-functional collaboration across business, operations, technology, product, and vendor teams
• Communicate strategy, priorities, progress, and performance clearly to leadership and stakeholders
• Build alignment and momentum for automation initiatives across the organization

Do You Have?

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Technology, Operations, Computer Science, Communications, or a related field
• 8–10+ years of progressive leadership experience in contact center technology, customer experience, conversational AI, intelligent automation, or related areas
• Proven experience leading strategy and execution for conversational AI, customer automation, or next-generation self-service capabilities
• Demonstrated success delivering complex, cross-functional initiatives involving business, operations, technology, and vendor teams
• Strong understanding of customer journeys, self-service design, conversation flows, routing logic, escalation strategies, and contact center operations
• Experience managing external vendors, platform partners, and support models in a complex environment
• Strong leadership, communication, collaboration, and change management skills
• Ability to balance strategic planning with operational execution in a fast-evolving environment
• The following software/technical skills:
  • Advanced knowledge of contact center platforms (eg. Nice, Genesys, Talkdesk)
  • Advanced experience with telephony systems, IVR, chat platforms, and web self-service tools
  • Understanding of APIs, integrations, and cloud-based systems
  • Intermediate experience with reporting and analytics tools
  • Intermediate experience MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams)

Even Better:

• Knowledge of AI-enabled customer engagement technologies, intelligent routing, virtual assistants, and automation platforms preferred
• Strategic thinker with a strong customer and business orientation
• Proven ability to lead transformation and influence across functions
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity and driving clarity in emerging capability areas
• Strong judgment and decision-making skills with a focus on outcomes

• Passion for innovation and continuous improvement in customer experience

Minimum Requirements:

College degree and 10+ years professional level experience with 3-5 years supervisory experience; or 14+ years professional level related experience with 3-5 years supervisory experience; or an equivalent combination of education and professional level related experience required. 

The compensation range for this position is from $108,600 to $142,700. Our compensation approach is designed to be fair and competitive. Pay for this role is based on factors such as your experience, skills, education, and location.

Notice to Non-U.S. Citizens:Uniti, as a holder of licenses granted by the Federal Communications Commission, is required to notify and to obtain approval from federal regulatory agencies prior to granting certain system/network access to any non-U.S. citizen personnel. Offers of employment extended to non-U.S. citizens are contingent upon receiving the requisite approval from agencies overseeing compliance. Non-U.S. citizens are required to provide Uniti with the personal identifying information required to obtain the necessary approval prior to accessing certain systems and/or Uniti’s network. If you are not a U.S. citizen, please notify your recruiter or contact HR Legal as soon as possible for information on Uniti’s foreign personnel disclosure and approval requirements.

Notice to Applicants: Depending on the position and its job functions, offers of employment may be contingent upon successful completion of certain pre-employment screenings, including but not limited to drug-screen, motor vehicle records check, or other pre-employment screening. All such screenings will be conducted by an external third-party with the Candidate’s written consent and in accordance with federal and state law. Refusal to authorize or submit to a required pre-employment screening may disqualify the candidate from employment. Any misrepresentation during the application or interview process may result in denial of employment, withdrawal of offer, or termination.