“Embrace Any Chance to Contribute”

Each month, we’re featuring a member of ICMI’s Strategic Advisory Board. This group of industry thought leaders, practitioners, and solution providers help ICMI keep tabs on customer insights and contact center market developments, ensure our content offerings are aligned with industry best practices and our products evolve at pace to serve the community, and grow industry relationships.

This month, we’re featuring Eric Mackowitz, Assistant Vice President at Amica Insurance.

1. Could you describe your current role?

In my current role, I’m based at Amica’s headquarters in Lincoln, Rhode Island, and oversee our First Notice of Loss contact center operations in Lincoln, Carmel, Ind., and Spokane Valley, Wash. I’m also involved in various enterprise-wide customer experience initiatives.

2. What, in your opinion, are the characteristics of someone who is successful long-term in this industry?

I think the ability to communicate, build relationships, and work collaboratively – both within a department and throughout an organization – are some of the characteristics that would lead to success!

3. What is one piece of advice you would like to share with those who are just setting out on a career path in the contact center industry?

Willingly seek out and accept as many duties, projects and roles as you possibly can. Embrace any chance to contribute, and develop new skills and learn along the way, no matter how busy you might think you are. It’s these experiences that will help you develop, make you an asset for your organization and position you as an obvious choice when new opportunities come up!

4. There have been so many changes in the contact center industry, both because of new technology and because of the COVID-19 crisis. How do you feel those changes will shape the industry in the next decade?

It’s certainly been a challenging year, but we’re looking forward to welcoming our team back to the office really soon. We miss seeing everyone and recognize the value of keeping our culture alive in person! While the improvement of digital channels is certainly driving more self-service, especially with some of the simpler transactions, we don’t see that significantly diminishing the need for our outstanding representatives to be there to guide and serve our customers in a complex industry. At the same time, we’ll continue to look at and invest in technology to enhance our teams’ ability to provide excellent customer service and become more efficient.

5. It’s clear by your participation on the board that you believe in the role of mentorship in the contact center industry. Can you share a valuable lesson you learned from a mentor, and share who that mentor was?

My current boss and department vice president, Jeff, has really fostered the idea of involving our entire leadership group in various initiatives to drive continuous improvement across our centers. Not only does this promote engagement and development of our leaders, it helps us continually improve our service and the customer experience. It’s amazing what can be accomplished as a team!