The Session
In this live session, Justin Browning, Managing VP of Operations at Velera, and Sean Minter, Founder and CEO of AmplifAI, shared Velera's four-year transformation journey from operational chaos to AI-powered excellence.
The conversation went far beyond technology implementation—revealing a strategic roadmap for how large-scale contact centers can systematically fix foundational cracks, implement performance management at scale, and leverage AI across the entire ecosystem without losing the human element.
The Speakers
Justin Browning brings 28 years of industry experience and 23 years with Velera, holding positions across workforce management, quality assurance, and back-office operations. As Managing VP of Operations, he oversees Velera's contact center serving 4,000+ credit unions with 2,400 agents handling 22 million calls annually.
Sean Minter is the Founder and CEO of AmplifAI, a Dallas-based performance management and AI platform launched in 2018. Named a leader in the QA space by CMP Research, AmplifAI integrates data from multiple systems to deliver automated coaching recommendations, quality automation, and actionable intelligence for contact center leaders.
Who This Is For
This session is essential viewing for:
- Contact center leaders managing multi-client operations who struggle with fragmented data, inconsistent quality coverage, and coaching effectiveness visibility
- Operations executives planning AI adoption who need a practical roadmap for fixing foundational issues before scaling AI investments
- Training and quality teams looking to reduce manual workload while improving agent development outcomes
- CX strategists seeking to understand how AI can enhance—rather than replace—the human coaching experience
Whether you're leading 50 agents or 5,000, Velera's journey offers a proven framework for transforming contact center performance through strategic technology adoption.
Top 5 Takeaways from the Conversation
1. Fix the Cracks in Your Foundation Before Scaling AI
Justin opened with a powerful history lesson: AI was coined in 1956, yet most organizations rush to implement it without addressing the systemic issues that will undermine its effectiveness.
"We thought if we put AI over what we have in place today, it's gonna be broken because we have a lot of cracks in what we're trying to solve for."
Over four years, Velera systematically rebuilt:
- Training: From 6-week "death by PowerPoint" to building-block microlearning with simulations
- Engagement: Stood up a dedicated team focused on recognition, celebrations, and employee value
- Hiring: Transitioned from onsite-only to nationwide remote hiring with digital interview screening
- Quality: Moved beyond 5-6 call sampling to sentiment analysis on 100% of interactions
- Unified Desktop: Consolidated 14 applications into a single pane of glass (targeting 80% coverage by March)
(down from 6 months)
(351s → 315s)
(single digits in 90 days)
The lesson: Don't layer AI on dysfunction. Stabilize operations first, then amplify with intelligence.
2. Performance Management Is the Unlock—Not Just Another Dashboard
When asked how many attendees had a "robust performance management solution," only one hand went up in the room. Velera was in the same boat—attempting to build one through a ticketing system.
"I thought it was a great idea. It wasn't."
The four challenges they needed to solve:
- Researching data was slow: Supervisors spent 20-25% of their time just figuring out what to coach
- No coaching visibility: Hard to see who was coaching and how often
- No effectiveness measurement: Impossible to know if coaching was actually working
- Siloed data: Metrics scattered across Power BI, Qlik, Excel, and multiple applications
AmplifAI's solution unified all data sources into a single dashboard and used AI to:
- Tell supervisors exactly who to coach and why (based on algorithms analyzing performance patterns)
- Recommend next best actions (recognition when improvement happens, follow-up when it doesn't)
- Measure coaching effectiveness by leader and KPI (e.g., "Justin's handle time coaching makes things worse, but his quality coaching drives improvement")
This final point unlocked peer learning: identifying which leaders excel at which metrics so they can train each other.
"We could see across our enterprise who's really good at handle time, who's really good at quality, and pair those people up so they can learn from their peers."
3. AI Can Coach the Coach—And It's a Game-Changer
One of the most powerful revelations: AmplifAI's AI doesn't just support agent development—it develops the supervisors.
The platform can:
- Listen in on coaching sessions between supervisor and agent
- Auto-generate summaries of the conversation, goals discussed, and action items
- Provide real-time feedback to the supervisor on what they did well and what to improve next time
Historically, managers had to observe coaching sessions manually to develop supervisors—an inefficient, time-intensive process that rarely happened at scale.
"With manager's plates, they have so much going on, they don't have time to sit in 20, 30 hours of coaching sessions. The AI does it for them."
This creates a virtuous cycle: better-coached supervisors deliver better coaching to agents, who deliver better experiences to customers.
4. The Next Wave: AI Across the Entire Ecosystem
With the foundation solid and performance management in place, Velera is now accelerating AI adoption across six strategic areas:
Training
AI-generated microlearning modules from documents—built in 30 seconds instead of weeks
Quality
Auto-scoring expanding beyond greetings/closings to authentication procedures, regulatory compliance, and complex workflows—across 100% of calls
Hiring
AI reviewing digital interviews to recommend candidates for traditional interviews (handling 1,000+ applicants efficiently)
Agent Assist (3 components)
- CFPB Compliance: AI detects and documents consumer complaints automatically
- Call Documentation: AI transcribes calls and populates ticketing systems so agents focus on connection, not note-taking
- Next Best Action in Real-Time: AI guides agents on what steps to take based on conversation context (e.g., "We think you need to file a lost/stolen report")
Generative AI + Performance Management
AI analyzes handle time, sentiment, and call types to surface hyper-specific insights.
Example: "Justin's handle time is 50% higher than peers on lost/stolen credit card fraud calls"—not just "Justin's handle time is high"
"It's gonna complement the performance management tool we have in place and get better insights to our leaders quicker and faster."
5. Key Implementation Lessons: Don't Boil the Ocean
Justin shared hard-won lessons from the implementation journey:
"When I learned the full power of AmplifAI, I wanted to start adding things into our pilot. Everyone said: slow down. Don't boil the ocean."
"We looked at vendors who do a lot of other stuff. They're a jack of all trades and a master of none. AmplifAI has the secret sauce on performance management."
"I'm an operations guy. I want things fast. I didn't always bring IT, compliance, and legal with me early. It slowed things down."
Typical timeline: 6-12 months. Velera's timeline: 3-4 months
"Bring your compliance people, bring your IT people, bring legal to the table. Talk about how you're gonna use this data and get them bought in before you select a provider."
Final Thought
Velera's story is a masterclass in strategic AI adoption: fix what's broken, implement intelligent systems that unify and action your data, then scale AI where it delivers the highest ROI.
The trust in AI may be declining industry-wide—but that's because too many organizations are chasing innovation without strategy. Velera proves that when you build the right foundation, AI doesn't replace humans—it makes them more effective, more empathetic, and more empowered to deliver exceptional customer experiences.
"AI is complimenting the human experience so that the human experience can be more empathetic, conversational, and create that stronger connectedness with our teams."