SOFTEL Around the World: Meet the Experts Behind Every Conversation
3 continents. 30 years. 4 offices. 8 languages spoken daily. That’s SOFTEL today — and most of what makes it work never shows up on LinkedIn.
Founded three decades ago, we’ve grown into a global team of contact-center experts across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC. Different cities, different time zones, different languages and local customs — but one shared craft: making sure every customer conversation lands the way it should, anywhere in the world.
The people behind that work rarely get the spotlight. We want to change that.
Today, we’re launching SOFTEL Behind the Scenes — a weekly series introducing the global experts who keep contact centers running seamlessly. Each week you’ll meet a different colleague: what problem they solve, what they’ve learned from working in their region, and what most outsiders get wrong about modern contact centers.
If you’ve ever wondered what “global contact-center expertise” actually looks like up close, follow along. One expert, one country, one conversation at a time.
First Stop – Our headquarters in Montreal, Canada. Let’s get to know our COO, Michael Leibowitz.
1. Michael, please allow us to get to know you – what do you do and what does your role involve on a typical day?
Michael: I lead global operations for SOFTEL, which means making sure our people, delivery teams, and client programs work together across regions. A typical day moves between customers, partners, internal teams, and new offers — from contact-center delivery to AI governance, regulated-service bundles, and healthcare workflows related services. What ties this together is the full customer interaction experience, not just the contact center itself. Our work often involves integrating with the systems clients already rely on — CRM, healthcare, collaboration, workflow, reporting, and other enterprise platforms — so every interaction is connected, measurable, and useful.
2. Ever since you joined SOFTEL, how has the company grown?
Michael: SOFTEL has grown from a strong contact-center specialist into a broader global CX and AI solutions partner. We still solve the core operational problems — routing, service quality, integration, support — but we are now adding structured AI regulatory bundles, advisory-led service packages, healthcare-focused capabilities, and ISO 27001 and ISO 42001-certified governance practices. That growth also reflects how the market has changed: customers no longer want isolated tools; they want the entire customer interaction journey to work across the platforms they already use. SOFTEL’s role is to connect those environments and make the experience seamless from the customer’s first contact through resolution and follow-up.
3. You are in charge of people and operations globally. How would you describe SOFTEL’s company culture? How do you ensure team collaboration in a remote setting?
Michael: I would describe SOFTEL’s culture as practical, accountable, and collaborative. Because we work across regions and time zones, we cannot rely on hallway conversations; we need clear ownership, good documentation, and fast alignment between sales, delivery, operations, and product teams. That culture is important because customer interaction projects touch many different systems and stakeholders, not just one platform. We need teams that can understand the client’s environment, coordinate across technologies, and make sure the solution works in the real operating model.
That discipline matters even more as we package new services. Whether we are supporting AI governance, contact-center transformation, or healthcare integrations, the work only succeeds when our teams share context early and solve as one global team.
4. What’s one thing people might find surprising about contact centers?
Michael: People often think contact centers are only about scripts and headsets. In reality, they are where customer experience, data, compliance, and operational performance meet. Every interaction can show what customers need, where processes break, and where automation or AI can help. The surprising part is how much of the value comes from what happens around the contact center — the integrations, workflows, data flows, and handoffs into the customer’s existing systems. When those pieces are connected properly, the contact center becomes part of a much larger customer interaction ecosystem.
That is why contact centers are no longer just cost centers. They are strategic listening posts, especially when supported by governed AI, strong integrations, and industry-specific workflows.
5. How could companies ensure contact center best practices, considering the capabilities of AI?
Michael: Companies should treat AI as a governed operating capability, not just a chatbot. The best approach is to define the use case, set clear data and compliance boundaries, keep humans in the loop for sensitive decisions, and measure the impact continuously. AI also needs to fit into the broader customer interaction environment, including the client’s CRM, knowledge, workflow, healthcare, collaboration, analytics, and reporting systems. Without that integration, AI risks becoming another disconnected tool instead of a practical improvement to the customer and agent experience.
At SOFTEL, that means combining advisory, implementation, platform integration, regulatory assurance, and industry-specific bundles so AI improves speed and consistency without creating unmanaged risk. We also work with highly regulated financial and insurance clients in Europe and North America, so our solutions are designed to stay tight within security, privacy, compliance, and operational guardrails.
“SOFTEL’s strength is that we do not look at customer engagement as a single channel or single platform; we help clients connect the full customer interaction experience across the systems they already use, with the governance, integration discipline, and global delivery capability needed to make it work.”
