Lorena Lovric, Director of Customer Experience at Aterian, is an active member of the Genesys Orchestrators Program, where she shares her insights and expertise. In this article, Lovric discusses her perspective on leadership in the experience economy (As told to Ginger Conlon.)

 

Over the course of my career, I’ve built and operated multi-brand customer experience (CX) organizations supporting millions of interactions across geographies, marketplaces and direct-to-consumer channels. I’ve led enterprise platform migrations, launched global voice support without adding headcount, and introduced AI-powered email and routing solutions that reduced handle time while improving quality and consistency.

Today, I lead global CX at Aterian. I architect and own the end-to-end CX ecosystem, which runs on the Genesys Cloud™ platform — spanning voice, digital, knowledge, workforce engagement and AI-assisted workflows.

But the real throughline in my career is about using CX technologies to make work easier for agents, not harder. When you remove friction from their environment, empathy shows up naturally at scale. And when agents are happy, supported and confident, great customer experiences follow.

That belief defines my leadership style.

I am unapologetically agent-first and deeply hands-on. I spend a disproportionate amount of time on engagement and upskilling because I’ve learned that most CX problems are learning problems, not performance problems.

When agents don’t feel confident, everything suffers. When they do, everything improves.

CX as a Leadership Proving Ground

That’s why, for me, employee engagement isn’t an HR initiative. It’s operational strategy. I build learning directly into workflows through real-case walkthroughs, workshops and open forums where questions are rewarded, not avoided. What makes this approach engaging is that growth is constant and visible.

I’m clear about expectations, but I match that clarity with support. Agents know I care just as much about how they’re developing as I do about the outcome.

That combination — high standards and high support — keeps teams energized, curious and capable of delivering genuinely human experiences, even at scale. It also sets the stage for career growth.

I strongly believe CX is an incubator for future leaders. There’s no better training ground in a business. In CX, you learn how the products work, how operations scale, how data tells a story and how decisions impact real people.

Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of watching agents advance in their careers by moving into Finance, IT, Marketing, Product and Revenue. They often excel in their new roles quickly because they bring a strong work ethic, comfort with numbers and a deep understanding of customer impact.

Why Soft Skills Matter

The most important skills in CX continue to be listening, empathy and judgment. Customers may not remember the exact refund or how quickly a ticket closed. But they will remember how the interaction made them feel.

Listening is about interpreting tone, intent and context. Empathy is an operational capability that must be practiced consistently. Judgment — the ability to navigate nuance — is what protects trust in high-stakes moments.

I help my team develop these skills by slowing things down where it counts. We review real interactions. We talk through tone and phrasing. We analyze why certain responses land better than others. I encourage agents to explain their thinking. All this builds agents’ confidence in handling complexity, rather than relying on scripts.

If you want senior-level CX leaders in your pipeline, teach judgment early and be truly open to feedback.

One of the best things an employee ever said to me was, “No, and here’s why.”

That moment told me they felt safe enough to challenge me and confident enough to bring reasoning, not resistance. In CX, that combination is gold. It means people are thinking, not just executing.

If you want scalable excellence, you need to provide your team with psychological safety, so they will protect the experience — even from you.

It’s also essential to build resilience intentionally. Resilience isn’t about pushing harder. It’s about removing unnecessary friction and giving people room to recover.

CX is emotionally demanding work. I normalize tough days. I create space to reset after heavy moments. I make wins visible. I turn real CX problems into challenges, competitions or quick experiments to build confidence.

During a major product recall, for example, our team of 11 agents was handling more than 30,000 customer interactions per day. Instead of letting the pressure crush morale, we turned it into a game. We tracked progress visibly, celebrated wins in real time and leaned into healthy competition. Our SLA held steady. Pride in the work kept the energy high.

Agents who feel trusted, challenged and supported will rise to the moment — and often surprise themselves with what they can handle.

The Changing Role of AI in Leadership

The core of how I lead has always been rooted in empathy, clarity and trust. What’s evolved is how I enable that consistently as expectations, volume and complexity continue to grow.

That scale has changed the “how,” but not the “why” of leadership for me. AI is now influencing the “how.” When used thoughtfully, AI should remove friction, surface context and support better human decisions. It should reduce cognitive load so agents can focus on the human side of the conversation, where the real experience is created.

I’m intentional about positioning AI as a support system, especially for complex or emotionally charged interactions. We’re transparent about what it does and what it doesn’t do. We involve agents early, gather feedback and teach them to work with AI outputs critically — using them as guidance while still owning the interaction.

Looking ahead, AI will increasingly act as a real-time coach. It will surface emotional cues, highlight context, and help agents practice listening and learn tone awareness faster. But it won’t replace soft skills. It will strengthen them.

In fact, as AI takes on speed and accuracy, human skills become more valuable. Contextual thinking, emotional intelligence and adaptability will separate top CX professionals from average ones.

Customers expect continuity across channels and time. They expect to be remembered. That requires people who can think in conversations, not tickets.

The future belongs to CX professionals who can stay human under pressure while evolving alongside technology.

Engagement is the Experience

If you’re a CX professional, your job isn’t just about metrics, platforms or automation strategy. It’s about designing an environment where empathy can scale. Focus on developing your own and your team’s contextual thinking, emotional intelligence, curiosity and adaptability. Master the systems — don’t hide behind them. Get comfortable with complexity. Stay open to evolving tools while protecting what makes experiences meaningful.

AI will handle more tasks. Customers will expect more continuity. Pressure will increase.

The differentiator won’t be who has the most automation. It will be the organizations that build teams confident enough to think, human enough to listen and resilient enough to deliver great experiences — consistently.

We’re operating in an experience economy where customer perception is the differentiator. Customers don’t just want resolution; they care about how the interaction made them feel, whether they were heard and whether their time was respected.

And here’s the hard truth: Employee engagement isn’t a side initiative in CX. It is the experience.

Customers don’t interact with your org chart or your AI roadmap. They interact with your people. If your team is disengaged or burned out, no amount of tooling will save the experience.

Engaged employees think more critically, care more deeply and handle complexity better. They use judgment. They stay present. They go off script when the moment demands it.

That’s where competitive advantage lives.