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Shift4 (NYSE: FOUR) is boldly redefining commerce by simplifying complex payments ecosystems across the world. As the leader in commerce-enabling technology, Shift4 powers billions of transactions annually for hundreds of thousands of businesses in virtually every industry. For more information, visit www.shift4.com.

Director, Contact Center AI Strategy & Automation

Reports to: SVP, Global Head of Support

Summary

Shift4 is expanding globally and our Support organization is roughly 1,000 people strong, serving merchants across phone, chat, and email — with 93% of volume still landing on the phone channel. This role has been created to change that ratio and shrink the denominator at the same time: reduce the number of contacts that happen in the first place, and route what remains to the lowest-effort, lowest-cost channel that still resolves the merchant's issue.

This is not a platform engineering role. Shift4 already has a Contact Center Technology function that owns NICE CXone administration, IVR build, and platform delivery. This role is the strategic and analytical layer above that: the person who determines *what* should be automated, self-served, or eliminated by product/process fix — and who partners with Technology, Product, and each Support line leader to get it built. Success is measured in contacts eliminated and contacts shifted, not tickets closed.

This role is onsite and can be based at the following Shift4 locations: Center Valley, PA (Headquarters) or Las Vegas, NV

Relocation assistance may be available.

Responsibilities

Contact Driver Diagnosis

• Build and own a repeatable methodology for analyzing contact drivers across all Support lines (Shift4 Dine, Software Support, Consolidated Support, Vectron, Shared Services) — using call recordings, transcript/topic analysis, Salesforce case data, and NICE CXone analytics.
• Quantify contact volume by root cause and distinguish three buckets for every driver: (1) eliminable via product fix, (2) eliminable via process/policy fix, (3) not eliminable but shiftable to bot or self-service.
• Maintain a prioritized, ROI-ranked backlog of contact-reduction opportunities and present it to senior leadership on a recurring cadence.

AI & Self-Service Strategy

• Design the end-to-end strategy for where conversational AI, agent-assist, and self-service belong in the merchant journey — balancing Shift4's channel-shift goals against the reality that POS troubleshooting calls often run 45–60 minutes and don't compress cleanly into chat or bots.
• Define target-state automation architecture in partnership with Contact Center Technology (Cognigy, NICE CXone AI, or equivalent), without owning the underlying platform build.
• Establish guardrails for what merchants should never be routed to a bot for, and where agent-assist (not replacement) is the right AI application.

Cross-Functional Execution

• Partner with each Support line leader to translate their team's operational and merchant-facing knowledge into automation and self-service requirements Product and Engineering can act on.
• Represent Support's contact-reduction agenda in Product and Engineering roadmap conversations, arguing the business case where automation requires upstream product changes.
• Work directly with Contact Center Technology, WFM, and Knowledge Management (all under Shared Services) so strategy, staffing model, and knowledge base evolve together rather than in silos.

Measurement & Executive Reporting

• Own the contact-reduction scorecard: contacts eliminated, contacts deflected/shifted, self-service resolution rate, CSAT/QA impact of automation, and realized cost/efficiency impact.
• Present strategy, business cases, and results directly to senior executives, including tradeoffs and where AI should NOT be applied.
• Build the change-management approach for rolling out automation to a 1,000-person org without degrading quality scores or morale.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in contact center operations, CX strategy, or automation/AI strategy roles, with at least 3 years at a leadership level with direct executive exposure.
• Demonstrated, quantified track record of reducing contact volume or driving efficiency through AI/automation in a contact center environment — able to speak to specific % reduction, cost avoided, or CSAT/AHT impact achieved.
• Deep working knowledge of contact center operations end-to-end: routing, IVR, QA, WFM, and channel economics — enough to credibly assess where automation helps versus where it creates hidden cost (e.g., chat AHT inflation from multitasking customers).
• Experience partnering with Product and Engineering to convert operational pain points into roadmap items, including building and defending a business case.
• Proven ability to present to and influence senior/executive audiences independently, without heavy staffing support.
• Experience operating in a decentralized, multi-brand or multi-acquisition environment (comparable to Shift4's ISV/SkyTab/Revel/Vectron structure) where standardizing across disparate legacy systems and teams is part of the job.
• Comfortable working independently in a fast-moving, still-forming function — this role will need to define its own operating rhythm, not inherit one.

Preferred Qualifications (Additional experience that is a plus to have):

• Familiarity with conversational AI/CCaaS platforms such as NICE CXone, Cognigy, Genesys, Five9, or comparable, from a strategy/business-owner perspective rather than an admin/builder perspective.
• Experience in payments, FinTech, POS, or another highly regulated, high-mix-complexity industry.
• Background in a support organization that underwent multiple acquisitions/integrations, with direct experience rationalizing tools and processes across newly combined teams.
• Familiarity with LLM-based agent-assist or generative AI applications in a service/support context.

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We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any other federal, state or local protected class.