At Disrupt 2023 in the UK, we interviewed Seb Reeve, Business Development Director at Microsoft (Nuance), on the benefits of empowering contact centre advisors to help deliver excellent CX.
In this video, Seb discusses today’s contact centre challenges, the evolution of CX and the opportunities it is creating and how the role of the modern-day advisor is continuously changing.
ADVISORS NEED THE RIGHT TOOLS AND SUPPORT
The challenges in customer experience are certainly numerous. We’ve talked a lot about the changes in consumer expectations given what’s going on in society. So that creates a different kind of pressure on businesses to change and adapt and actually quite quickly. Also, we tend to forget the people involved and ensuring that people who are on the front line of customer experiences have the tools and capabilities to make changes to the way they behave – either on the phone, on chat, digital channels or whatever else they’re doing. And, you know, people don’t change quickly as they need a lot of support in order to really fulfil the needs of the consumers in the way they’re changing.
AI IS GIVING ADVICE AND ASSISTANCE IN REAL TIME
In terms of arming customer service advisors with the latest technologies, I talked a little bit in my keynote address (at Sabio’s Disrupt) about how AI is not just taking jobs or acting as a chatbot or advisor to simply take work away – but actually we’re seeing the new breed of capabilities sitting side-by-side and working in concert with the advisors on the front line. So, giving them advice and assistance in real time, giving them the kind of products or solutions they should be talking to their customers about, but also guiding them on how to talk to customers. Technologies, like GPT today, can formulate language that the advisors can really use to have a more positive interaction with the end customer. If you think about what it’s like on the front line, and there are people at all levels of seniority working in contact centre, someone who’s only just started the job needs more support (than someone experienced). I think there’s certainly a lot of solutions I’m hearing about that can help them hit the ground running on day one, and deliver that great customer experience.
ADVISOR ATTRITION IS A CONCERN
I think advisor attrition is definitely a concern in the industry and of course, it creates a real skills’ gap. We’re losing a lot of key skills every time we lose great people. And so I think supporting them more robustly in the day-to-day, in the trenches and in the way they’re actually working – making sure that they feel like their hands being held and they’re being given, not only the capabilities, but the information they need to support their role and ensure that they’re delivering great customer experience.
USE DATA TO SUPPORT CHANGE
I think organisations need to need to think about how they’re providing change, and changing their customer experience, especially. For me, it’s about an agile way of working, so nothing gets done in a seismic way and we don’t really want to be making huge changes anyway. I think businesses who are leaders in the space tend to be using data to support that change. So, it’s about looking at data that tells you how customers are changing the way they work with you, how your advisors are performing, or some of the things that they’re having to deal with today that they didn’t yesterday and then using that data to affect changes in a more iterative fashion. So that’s an agile way of working, using data to reinforce the belief that you made the right changes. I think leaders are really all about that agile, continual improvement mindset.
About Sabio Group
Sabio Group is a global digital customer experience (CX) transformation specialist with major operations in the UK (England and Scotland), Spain, France, Netherlands, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa and India.
The Group, which includes ‘makepositive’, delivers solutions and services that seamlessly combine digital and human interactions to support outstanding customer experiences.
Through its own technology, and that of world-class technology leaders such as Amazon Connect, Avaya, Genesys, Google Cloud, Salesforce, Twilio and Verint, Sabio helps organisations optimise their customer journeys by making better decisions across their multiple contact channels.
The Group works with major brands worldwide, including Aegon, AXA Assistance, BBVA, BGL, Caixabank, DHL, loveholidays, Marks & Spencer, Rentokil, Essent, GovTech, HomeServe, Saga, Sainsbury’s Argos, Telefónica and Transcom Worldwide.
