Director, Support Operations & Automation

Job Description:

The Director, Support Operations & Automation owns the complete front-door support experience spanning Human-assisted Help Desk & Call Center operations, and Digital-first automation, self-service, and case deflection strategies. The role is responsible for ensuring clients can resolve issues immediately, reliably, and through the lowest-friction channel—prioritizing automation-led resolution first, while maintaining a high-performing, compassionate healthcare support contact center for exceptions requiring live assistance. This role transforms frontline support from a cost center to a digital enablement engine, continuously decreasing cost-per-contact while preserving service outcomes, regulatory compliance, and clinician satisfaction.

Help Desk & Contact Center Operations: Own end-to-end L0 assisted support across voice, chat, email, and in-app escalation channels.

Operational Accountability

Lead 24x7 or extended-hours Help Desk operations supporting:

• Providers, clinicians, practice administrators, and revenue cycle teams.
• Authentication issues (MFA/SSO)
• Access provisioning
• Environment issues
• Interface workflows
• Standard incident and service request intake

Maintain Service Level Agreements (SLAs):

• ASA (Average Speed of Answer)
• Abandon Rate
• First Contact Resolution (FCR)
• Escalation response objectives

Drive patient safety and compliance adherence in service delivery (HIPAA, SOC2, PHI handling standards).

Workforce Planning & Service Delivery

• Own staffing models aligned to:
• Volume forecasting
• Multichannel concurrency (phone + chat)
• Skill-based routing
• Billing vs clinical issues
• Technical vs administrative support

Establish seasonality and release-based surge capacity planning.
Lead vendor or outsourced call center partnerships and quality oversight.
Drive frontline productivity and performance:

• Cases per agent/day
• Shrinkage management
• Schedule adherence
• Contact handling efficiency

Quality Assurance & Training

• Build and own:
• QA scoring rubrics
• Call coaching programs
• Skill certification paths
• Knowledge proficiency testing.

Integrate healthcare communication and patient safety standards into frontline training.
Establish frontline upskill progression toward:

• Automation-assisted triage roles
• AI escalation specialists
• Knowledge creation SMEs.

Digital Experience & Case Deflection Strategy

• Define enterprise Level Zero strategy that aggressively shifts volume from: Agent → Bot → Guided Workflow → Knowledge → In-app automation → Proactive service
• Develop deflection targets for:
• Password resets
• MFA and login troubleshooting
• Upgrade FAQs
• Performance issue diagnosis
• Interface onboarding and training needs
• Partner with UX and Product leaders to redesign experiences driving contact prevention instead of faster handling.

AI & Workflow Automation Leadership
Own chatbot and virtual assistant delivery (ServiceNow Virtual Agent, Salesforce Einstein).

Implement:

• Natural language case classification
• Automated resolution playbooks
• Intelligent routing and self-healing workflows

Deploy:

• LLM-based troubleshooting guides
• Dynamic incident notifications and advisories
• IVR modernization aligned to digital-first entry points.

Knowledge Management & Content Governance

Own Knowledge Center of Excellence:

• Structured authoring standards (KCS)
• Validation workflows
• Compliance oversight

Ensure:

• Articles support both human agents and automation consumers (bots, help panels).
• Embedded knowledge flows into:
• Onboarding journeys
• SaaS upgrades
• In-app training.

Demand Modeling & Financial Ownership

Maintain accountability for:

• Cost per contact (by channel)
• Deflection profitability models
• Avoided FTE growth savings driven by automation.
• Support staffing ratios aligned to:
• Active users
• Contact drivers
• Self-service adoption levels.
• Own the transformation of Support demand growth < Customer growth.

Reporting & Performance Management

Help Desk & Call Center KPIs

• Average Speed of Answer (ASA)
• Call Abandonment Rate
• Agent Occupancy & Shrinkage
• First Contact Resolution (FCR)
• Escalation Rate

Digital & Deflection KPIs

• Case Deflection Rate
• Digital Engagement Rate
• Self-Service Resolution Rate
• Bot Containment Rate
• Knowledge Article Utilization
• Search Success Rate

Service & Financial KPIs

• CSAT / NPS
• Cost per Contact
• Cost Per Case
• Tier 1 Volume Trends
• Margin Contribution from Deflection

Cross-Functional Transformation Leadership

Acts as a primary partner to:

• ITSM/ITOM Operations – embed automation and event-driven remediation
• Product – remove top issue drivers based on contact analytics
• Client Success & Training Teams – migrate recurring questions into enablement or prevention solutions
• Human Resources – lead workforce skill transition from call handling to automation enablement

Leadership

• Build a hybrid team of:
• Call center leaders & workforce planners
• Quality & training specialists
• Knowledge management professionals
• AI/automation product managers
• Platform engineers
• Foster a culture of: “Prevent the call > automate the fix > resolve if needed.”

Perform other duties that support the overall objective of the position.

Education Required:

• Bachelor's degree.
• Or, any combination of education and experience which would provide the required qualifications for the position.

Experience Required:

• 10+ years support operations leadership including call center management.
• 5+ years driving digital transformation or automation programs in a SaaS or regulated tech environment.
• Experience scaling:
• 50+ agent Help Centers.
• AI/chatbot or automation platforms.
• ServiceNow or Salesforce Service Cloud platforms.
• Workforce management platforms (NICE, Genesys, Five9, etc.).
• Knowledge management systems (KCS).
• ITSM/ITOM toolsets integrating CMDB & monitoring (Dynatrace, PagerDuty).
• Healthcare IT, FinTech, or compliance-driven SaaS highly preferred.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:

• Knowledge of: Platform & technical fluency. Customer experience and service management. Case ecosystems.
• Skill in: Leadership, decision-making, communication, problem/situation analysis.
• Ability to: Ability to develop and mentor others.

The company has reviewed this job description to ensure that essential functions and basic duties have been included. It is intended to provide guidelines for job expectations and the employee's ability to perform the position described. It is not intended to be construed as an exhaustive list of all functions, responsibilities, skills and abilities. Additional functions and requirements may be assigned by supervisors as deemed appropriate. This document does not represent a contract of employment, and the company reserves the right to change this job description and/or assign tasks for the employee to perform, as the company may deem appropriate.

NextGen Healthcare is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.