Still Taking Calls After 30 Years: TP’s Miranda Collard on the Human Side of CX

The Gist

• AI with a human core. Teleperformance is embracing generative AI not just for automation, but to elevate agent performance, retention, and customer satisfaction.
• Agent experience fuels CX. Miranda Collard shares how emotional intelligence training and frontline insights are redefining customer experience from the inside out.
• Insight to action is the 2025 priority. From text analytics to real-time enablement, CX leaders are finally turning call data into action — and results.

Table of Contents

• AI, Empathy and Frontline Power: A Conversation With TP’s Miranda Collard
• AI, Agent Experience and the Emotional Core of Customer Service 
• Where AI Is Delivering Real Performance Gains
• Why Agent Experience Is the Frontline of CX
• Empowering Agents Through Their Own Insights
• 'TP Loves Ideas': A Frontline Innovation Engine
• Trust And Transparency In AI Security
• First Call Fumbles And Full-Circle Moments
• From Insight To Action: The Next Frontier For CX Leaders
• The CX Leader on the Line
• Final Thanks and a Look Ahead

AI, Empathy and Frontline Power: A Conversation With TP’s Miranda Collard

In this episode of Beyond the Call, CMSWire Editor-in-Chief Dom Nicastro sits down with Miranda Collard, Global Chief Client Officer at TP, for a deep conversation about the future of customer experience.

Collard — a 30-year TP veteran who still takes customer calls — offers real talk on the intersection of AI, agent empowerment, emotional intelligence and what CX leaders must prioritize in the back half of 2025.

AI, Agent Experience and the Emotional Core of Customer Service 

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Yeah. And tell us about that BPO. What's going on in TP's world? What's the client sort of bread and butter right now? What's the big thing that your company's offering? What's the strength there?

Miranda Collard: Yeah, I mean, obviously we're leaning in on the AI front, right? And it's, you know, we kind of call them surfing the waves and over the decades, we've had a multitude of technologies that have come forward or channels, if you will, that have come forward from the omni-channel to the different platforms to the technology. And, you know, we really pride ourselves on being at the forefront of that adoption and what that really looks like from an experience perspective.

Miranda Collard: And looking that from an end to end, I think what you always see in the early technology phases of these waves is the art of possible. Like what is really possible? What is out there is the industry standard. You know, what can we pull in? What partnerships can we form? And those types of things to really make it a meaningful activity and part of the customer journey.

Miranda Collard: But I think what's interesting right now is that you have this big scale, right? Of AI you have in the art of possible where people are saying, okay, you're never going to have to make a phone call again. And I think we all know that that's not going to happen, but, that's a repetitive behavior over the decades as technology continues to advance. I think the way we're looking at it and a lot of the partners, because we're behind the scenes and we're a part of every day-to-day activity, particularly with the frontline, is now how do we better enable and equip the frontline experts — like to really be high-end delivery customer journey experts in that, because there's a lot of things that could happen to really improve that experience.

Where AI Is Delivering Real Performance Gains

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Yeah, where are the biggest wins right now with AI in like a contact center arena? Like where are clients seeing these gains? Is it efficiency? Is it customer satisfaction? Is that growing because of AI? Like I can't tell you, since ChatGPT came into the mix, CMSWire has just been amazing because of it. Like we've used it, we've used AI, but I can't tell you there's like significant gain, probably efficiency gains for sure. That's number one for us. What is it for those contact center leaders?

Miranda Collard: Yeah, that's a great question. I think now we're starting to see, you know, that we're past the ideation phase in really mapping the generative and AI tools and technologies. People, I think people have a misconception that this is kind of on a front-end experience level versus what you can really do from a backend perspective, which creates those efficiency gains.

Miranda Collard: Because when it's easier for you to find answers and knowledge, have efficiency gains. When it's easier for you to find answers and provide resolution, you're going to have customer satisfaction gains. You're going to improve retention. You're going to have, you know, all of these. When you have technology and tools that will help you drive even sales solutions, that these tools will help you understand what the customer needs most and when.

Miranda Collard: So when you're showing up ready to deliver on those things, you start to see all of those elements of key performance indicators improve. They just simply improve. But I think one of the unspoken things that really improve in all of these interactions is the retention of your people, right? When they're successful and you're helping make them more successful, they continue to stay and grow and, you know, hopefully become the next global chief client officer.

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Miranda Collard’s CX and EX Playbook

Key strategies, insights and actions from the Global Chief Client Officer of TP.

Why Agent Experience Is the Frontline of CX

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Yeah, and that comes down to agent experience, right? And to me, I don't think there's a better opportunity for that connection between EX and CX because it's like right there in the front lines. It's like EX for the agent means better CX for the customer, right? And connecting those two is such a challenge. But what does agent experience mean to you? Because you have been an agent and you have experience being an agent.

Miranda Collard: 100%.

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: And now you're on that other side of trying to improve agent life. What do agents want today? What are their challenges? And how do you keep them sort of smiling in a job that there's not a lot of smiles in those interactions?

Miranda Collard: Yeah, it's — I mean, it's — yeah, absolutely. It's one of the hardest jobs that you'll ever do. It's also one of the most rewarding in development of your skills, right? In your personal skills and your soft skills and your emotional intelligence and all of those things. I've been a firm believer, my entire career, that culture is everything. Obviously 31 years at TP, I learned a lot of that through the culture and value system of TP. And really at the heart of that is servant leadership, right?

Miranda Collard: We're here to serve. We're here to serve our employees, we're here to serve our customers. And as part of that, we have always been maniacal about how we show up for our employees. And now in this instance, how we show up from an emotional intelligence perspective.

Miranda Collard: Just as pervasive as it is from an adoption of AI and technology, it's equally as such on how we're enabling the frontline to further those emotional intelligence skills, because you're going to have to show up in a different way. Which means we need to make sure that at the same time and in parallel, that we're preparing the frontline, the management, the leaderships with our emotional intelligence program — which, by the way, has been active now. I believe we're up to 60 to 80,000 people that have gone through this training program.

Miranda Collard: One with the frontline and two with the leadership of how you really support and nurture this emotional intelligence environment from an enablement perspective, because you're going to have more crucial need to be there in present interactions more than you ever have. And we'll continue to evolve as we move on through the next revolution of whatever that looks like.

Empowering Agents Through Their Own Insights

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: I mean, I got my mother to tell me that every day. She doesn't even know what I did, but she tells me I did a great job. But I need to hear it from my business, my partners, my colleagues. I want to know how I'm contributing. So with agent experience, like empowering them is so crucial. Is there a way that maybe like TP does this or you've heard in the industry of empowering those agents more and taking their insights and using them to build better experiences? Because they're front and center with the customers.

Miranda Collard: Yeah, I love that. Yeah.

Miranda Collard: If you're looking for an answer, all you have to do is walk into your contact center and have a conversation. You'll find an answer. You'll find an answer on product. You'll find an answer on friction. You'll find an answer on what needs to change, what's happening by market. I mean, there is expert information that they don't even realize they have in their brains. And all you have to do is kind of suck it out and collate it and make sure the right people understand it.

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Yeah, get it out of them, yeah.

Miranda Collard: We have processes for that, obviously, at TP for years and years to bring forward all of that information. But I think what's even more crucial right now and as a part of kind of mirroring the EQ and the AI perspective for us is that in our business, there is a standard quality practice, if you will, like quality assurance.

Miranda Collard: You could think of it as compliance — did I say this right? Did I do this right? Did I read this? Did I kind of follow the flow I was supposed to follow? But now you're able to do that every day with AI. You don't need somebody sitting here checking the boxes. But what you can do now is start capturing those insights and information that's coming in.

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Miranda Collard: So not only can you capture it through AI, but then you can supplement it with what I call, you know, kind of the TP loves ideas — like the fast recommendations of how should I solve this? You tell the frontline a problem that you're trying to solve and you're going to walk away with so many great ideas on how to solve it. And if you can just nurture that and bring it forward and do something with, I mean, 10% of it — just 10% of it — you are going to make such a significant difference.

'TP Loves Ideas': A Frontline Innovation Engine

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Yeah, you said TP loves ideas? Was that like an internal initiative or... Okay.

Miranda Collard: Yes. TP loves ideas. We want everyone's ideas all around the world on how we can improve. We can improve for our clients. We can improve, you know, internally inside of our organization. We just want all of the rich information.

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Yeah, I love that because I think what holds a lot of us back in the workplace is we don't think people are gonna like the idea. But empowering people through actually formality of like TP loves ideas, that encourages people. I really like that, I think that's so cool. With AI and implementations into the customer service and support arena…

Trust And Transparency In AI Security

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Do you have a lot of clients that are concerned with security and like maybe a financial services company and that kind of thing? How does TP approach that? What's on the minds of these customer support leaders when it comes to security in AI in a new world of, uh-oh, we get a lot of customer data here. We're playing with AI. Let's be careful.

Miranda Collard: Of course.

Miranda Collard: It is a huge concern and of course it's agnostic to vertical, but as you can imagine, there are a couple verticals from a compliance perspective — the US healthcare system, the banking, financial service, insurance space, right? There's a lot of compliance components and stuff to that. But I would say everybody's worried about the regulatory, the protection of the consumer data — as they should be.

Miranda Collard: And I kind of see that on the scale I mentioned earlier — like really far out here — right, of what the scale of AI could potentially be versus the enablement components that I feel the entire industry is leaning towards.

Miranda Collard: But for TP, we've built a security practice for many years that I would liken to one of the very top banking companies inside of the US where we run in parallel with that because we want to be at the very forefront of the protection — both for our customers as well as our clients, of course.

Miranda Collard: But we like to show up in a way that is transparent, full of data and information, full of insights in what's happening across the security space. And we have the most incredible security team across the world for us and that runs inside the leadership team here in the US. They just keep a pulse on everything. And quite frankly, we all get together on this all the time too, because security is not just one company's issue, right? It's all of our issue. It's something we all have to be aware of.

First Call Fumbles And Full-Circle Moments

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Yeah. Well, call center agent days for you. You've got to give me one story. Like there has to be something that you've taken from that experience and told for many, many years at a dinner table with family or something that you've learned or one particular thing that stood out or just like an amalgamation of things that stood out for you in your experience. If you can't on the spot, think of that one story…

Miranda Collard: Yes.

Miranda Collard: I have so many stories. Probably not a lot for publishing, but I definitely have a lot of stories. You know, it was very interesting. It was obviously a lot easier 31 years ago. We were, you know, we were kind of dialing on lead sheets and such. And I was selling Harley Davidson subscription cards for $4.95 a month and you could send it back if you didn't like them and then get them the next month.

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Phone, phone, that's it, one channel. No omni-channel.

Miranda Collard: I remember coming out I was so nervous to take the phone call and so it's finally somebody had answered the phone and I just was like uh... uh... uh... and I'm like...

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: What a response!

Miranda Collard: I'm killing it. Like I bet you I am gonna be a C-suite executive one day. And I just hung up the phone and I immediately was like, supervisor, supervisor, like, I'm such a loser. I just hung up on this customer. And he was like, take a deep breath. Everything is gonna be fine.

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Look at where you are.

Miranda Collard: It's okay. I just remember being so nervous, but I will tell you that one of the things I love to do to this day is to continue to take interactions. So I might not be able to systematically follow the systems because it's much more complex on all the different clients and programs we have, but you will find me still dropping in and taking a voice call over to talk to a customer, which I love to do. I love to listen to the interactions.

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Wow.

Miranda Collard: I think sometimes it can be a lost art in our business — that to stay as close to the front line as you possibly can, you're one listening session away from having an amazing next idea. It's just something that I love to do.

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Wow, that is pretty cool that Miranda Collard, Global Chief Client Officer at TP is getting on contact center calls.

Miranda Collard: Hopefully none of my clients are going to go pull my recordings after this.

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Is the board and like C-suite people like, “Miranda, you don't have to do that anymore. We got a team of thousands or whatever to do that.”

Miranda Collard: We are such a competitive organization you will find us now competing — like we'll sit down on a sales program to compete against each other.

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Wow, competitive fire there, I love it. And then getting back to your response, you know, back in the day with the — I'm just thinking of like a coach, your coach saying, “All right, now let's break down the good things about the call and the bad things.” So let's start with the “I wouldn't approach it that way,” but you know, at least you were uttering something.

Miranda Collard: Yeah, I might start with, “Hi, my name is Miranda and I'm calling from Harley Davidson collector cards.”

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Wow, what an experience. I mean, you are just — I don't think I've talked to someone who's had this experience that you had, you know, in this industry. I'm so glad we got you on the show. Like, so glad. Never, never have I had someone that this long at a company that's in the business, that's done it, that still does it, that talks to these brands all over the world.

Miranda Collard: No, I appreciate it. Yeah, it's been a fun journey.

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From Insight To Action: The Next Frontier For CX Leaders

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Try to figure out what's on their mind. And to that end, you know, what's gonna be happening the rest of 2025? What are some of the top initiatives that these customer support center leaders just want to get done? They want to have better — like I went to a conference in this space and I can tell you that the big thing on their minds is getting better insights from these customer support calls.

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: And like text analytics was the big buzzword there, like getting everything that's in that call and making better sense of it and taking action. So insights to action, insights to action. What's top of mind with what you're hearing out there for the rest of the year?

Miranda Collard: Yeah, no, I think we're completely aligned with that as well. I think the insight to action has always been a top priority. I think the action is the difference, right? Because I think we're now more enabled than ever to actually put real activity in place that's going to improve that enablement.

Miranda Collard: Whereas before, the technology wasn't necessarily as advanced or it would be an expensive and a big undertaking, right? When you just think about technology in general at these companies, it's not uncommon for a frontline person to have to log into up to 16 systems. You know, it's just not uncommon. It's not uncommon to sit in training for six to 16 weeks.

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Hmm.

Miranda Collard: It's not uncommon to have these analytical data and information, you know, coming out and forward. But that action, I think, is the most exciting part of what's going to happen in 2025. And really, finally, for those of us that have been doing this for so long, finally, we're going to be able to take that enablement and that frontline experience to the next level. Seriously, if we could just do a fraction of what we've wanted to do in technology on that front over the course of the coming years — it will improve experience globally across the board. Every single, every single customer experience will improve just with that activity.

The CX Leader on the Line

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Yeah, well said. Good positive note to end. But I do want to ask one more question. If on a call that Miranda Collard is handling from a customer, if they say, “This is ridiculous, I want to talk to the leader of customer experience in the company,” what do you say?

Miranda Collard: I said, I am your person. You — I am your person.

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: I'm literally that person. No, you're not. There's always someone above you, Miranda. Come on, there's always a CX leader above you. That's not you. You're a call center agent.

Miranda Collard: Now, I'd say Dom, listen to the passion in my voice. I am here to solve your issue today, and I am going to stay with you until it's accomplished.

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Well, there you go. Or you could just share your LinkedIn profile and be like, “No, no, seriously, I am the person.”

Miranda Collard: Yeah.

Miranda Collard: I just give this back to the frontline agent and say, here you go. Sure. Really help you. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. My pleasure.

Final Thanks and a Look Ahead

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Here you go. Put it back on. Yeah, yeah. Now you got the boss. The boss is in the... Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you, you know, once again for joining us on the CMSWire TV's Beyond the Call. Miranda Collard, Global Chief Client Officer, TP — we're looking for exciting things coming your way out of TP and just the industry. We will be watching the story. We appreciate it.

Miranda Collard: Thank you so much. Appreciate your time. Thank you. Take care.

Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: You too.