Contact Centres: The Future - How AI is Reshaping & Elevating Human Skills

We launch a three-part series on the future of contact centres, starting at the front line with the operator’s changing role. We explore how AI removes repetitive work, why complex conversations now define value, and how multiskilling and hybrid work create real career growth.

• why automation now handles routine requests
• why complex and emotional calls need humans
• how to multiskill across voice, chat, email and social
• how real‑time AI guidance boosts speed and accuracy
• why CX beats call volume as the core metric
• how outsourcing cycles affect skills and escalation
• how hybrid and remote work expand talent options
• how operators build value with empathy and problem solving
• what leaders must train and measure to raise quality

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Transcript

Kicking Off The Contact Centre Series

Jeremy Blake 0:28

Hi, Bobby. What have we got for our listeners today?

Twenty-Five Years Inside Contact Centres

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Well, we have something rather exciting. We've got a new series that we're starting today on the podcast. It's a three-part series, and it focuses exclusively on the subject of contact centers, call centers, the future of contact centers. And this is a subject that we come back to again and again because we do a lot of work in contact centers, but also they are what we call a movable feast. They are changing all the time. So it's important to understand what's happening in them because at one point or another we're all going to have to speak to some of them. And also we need to think about if it is changing, if these places are changing, how do the individuals who work in them prepare for that? How do the companies that run them manage that? So that's what the focus is going to be of these three episodes. Now, before we launch into that, Jay, you and I, uh, many people may not realize this, have been training for 25 years. 26 years. And we've done 26. Good lord. Soon soon. Um, and we have worked in many, many contact centers over the years, whether it be small telesales departments, right up to massive contact centers with thousands of people in. So tell the tell the listeners a little bit about some of our experience uh in the wider contact center industry.

Service Versus Sales And Motivation

Outsourcing Waves And Skills Gaps

Jeremy Blake 2:04

Well, I suppose one of the interesting things that we have focused on and helped people do is understand the difference between customer service and sales. Quite often we've made customer service people into sales people, and also I'd say salespeople into customer service people. I think that's been a large part of what we're doing, training them to be able to handle new, renewal, existing, problematic complaints. I mean, the topics that we've done have been so varied. And I think why people have got us in over the years, all over the world, really, we've done this, is not only do we understand the customer and what they want, and we design that journey of why are they calling, what is it that that's led to this. We're quite useful in helping managers understand how to keep that team aware of what they're really doing, you know, what they're really it isn't it isn't your internal system of filling in your form and filling in your screen. The customer doesn't give a monkeys about that, they just want the car to be picked up off the road or be sent a replacement, this or that. And a lot of the work is in keeping these places motivational because that's tough. Because, you know, peop people who go to these places are often, you know, not necessarily always massively motivated. And we try to make the leadership effective, improving people little by little, because it's quite hard work getting on that phone every single day, clipping on the headset or looking at the screen.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Well, I think that's been the shift, certainly in the last 10 years or so, where we've done more and more work with team leaders and performance managing individuals, um, especially uh in the UK, but that definitely spreads um abroad as well. And I think it's fair to say that over the time that we've been working in contact centers, we've seen distinct trends of, for example, lots of service being outsourced to places like India and Spain and other places, and America and the Philippines and India, and then these services start to come back into the UK again, and so there's a surge in UK contact centers, and all of those people need developing. And in fact, for some of our clients, we've trained thousands of their people and their team leaders to do those jobs, and now I think it's probably a fair observation that the trend has reversed, and more and more service is now being outsourced again and to other places.

Jeremy Blake 4:39

Yeah, and the other trend we'd see is I remember we did an interesting program where we helped design the beginning of the journey with a client, which meant that the people weren't engaged till later. We designed bot journeys, so we do some of that work. Because often people think it's it's fine to use AI, but if I'm shouting yes six times at the phone to try to get the right cinema screen or whatever it is, it's moved on a bit from that now, Jay.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

It's moved on a bit from that.

Jeremy Blake 5:05

No, no, I wish there's still a cinema chain without naming them where you go, yes, yeah, no. Do you want to see the life of Chuck? No. Um, it's not Stephen King's best, please, no. Um anyway, so so various things and in various cultures. That's the other thing I'd say is that we've really done the research into the culture. You know, if we were to say about challenge and checking and just getting the language right in the training is key because you'll have a group of people who think their job is one thing. We come in and say, actually, your job is something else, and we have to put that across in the right way so we don't have a mutiny. Where should we go first? Where are we going first?

Humans Handle Complex, High‑Stakes Issues

SPEAKER_00 5:43

So, first of all, we're moving to the front line. We're moving to the call center, contact center operator. And when we talk about this individual, we could be talking about somebody who receives or makes a phone call, of course, but they could just as well be doing chat or WhatsApp or using other email, other methods or teams or whatever to speak to their customers. But they are working in a team in a contact center operation, although, of course, they could very well be working remotely as well, and we'll come onto that in a bit. So we're going to think a bit about these um these contact center operators. Now, Jeremy mentioned AI earlier, and of course, AI is gently taking over this industry, and in some cases, quite quickly. So let's think a little bit about what AI actually does. It's very good at picking up simple repetitive calls. So things that are uh, you know, I need to change my password, I need to change my address, I need to get some details correct, um, I need to do something which is a detailed administrative task, that AI system will now pick up those inquiries. And more and more, it'll either be done on the internet or over the phone using that AI service. And that's significant. I mean, that is now taking up to 30 to 50 percent of calls that are of this type are handled by a machine. So that's a that's a big shift. But I think what that means is that for the operator, if we have more complex conversations, more emotional conversations, more high-stake conversations, then that needs a person. It needs a conversation. Now, that what that does offer is a bit of a challenge because if you've been someone who has been quite happy to do transactional things for years and years, you may not be skilled enough to have a complex emotional or high-stake conversation. So that's an interesting perspective.

Multiskilling Across Channels

Jeremy Blake 7:57

I think I might just come in here and just remind listeners that even though the teenager in your house, your village, your nephew, whatever, lives in their phones, there is a huge population still alive and living who love to use the phone. And this is another sort of challenge when we're looking at who works in contact centers or works from home, as Bob's saying, is they may not be using the medium in their day-to-day life. Only at work are they using the medium of the phone or the headset or whatever. But there is still millions of people who will choose that channel to make a call to sort it over the phone, who don't want to type the answer with their thumbs into a remote thing. And that is not going anywhere for some years.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Okay, so the other things to consider are the fact that as an operator, you shouldn't just pigeonhole yourself into one channel. So if you speak, you should be able to do chat and email and use social media and different types of messaging. And I think what that really leads us on to is something we've talked about a lot is the multi-skilling of operators. So if it's a retention call, you can do that. If it's a new business call, you can do that. If you know you should be able to mix and well, we can't afford, simply, can we, to have multiple teams.

Jeremy Blake 9:18

So that's been another cost consideration is that you train a person to do more than one role.

AI As A Real‑Time Coach

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Now there's also the idea of how AI helps the operator. So that's really interesting at the moment, where there are um uh systems within the contact center which listens to the call and makes suggestions to that operator. Now you don't just passively passively accept the recommendation the AI system makes, but what you need is a bit of sophistication to be able to go, ah, I know what it's getting at here, and use that info more effectively.

Jeremy Blake 9:50

Because AI is listening to all of the words, running it and analysing the data quicker than you can. Absolutely right. Your listening for tone will still be at a higher level than AI currently, but eventually it will listen at tone. But at the moment, the research shows that if a customer mentions something three times, they're probably quite interested in it, and you may have missed it.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Now, there's a few um sort of broader sections here, five main sections to to consider, and then we'll kind of summarize it. The first one is um as a customer, I might also want to move between channels, okay? Because that's the way my life is. I'm messaging, I'm having phone calls, I'm doing having conversations, whatever it may be. Uh you should be able to offer me that. So that's really important. Um now the other thing is uh if you're measuring your operator in terms of the delivery of their service in the way in the way that they're doing it, these days it's not just a cost center of this person does X number of calls per day. Is this person delivering a good customer experience? That is the really, really important measure. And I think for the individual, that's what you should be measuring yourself against as well. Am I improving the customer experience?

Jeremy Blake 11:10

I think that is the language now, and we call it CX, don't we? So we've gone from call centres to contact centres to customer experience per se. Because the reason why I think contact centres as a term will drop even more is the center isn't the building, it's not at home, the workforce is dispersed.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

So the important stat here is that more than 50% of interactions are now non-voice.

Jeremy Blake 11:34

That is that the statement. Have you got that where it's coming from?

SPEAKER_00 11:39

That's uh that's come from uh Gartner and Forrester and what have you. So um, and if you add high-quality digital channels, um you can reduce your call volumes by 10 to 30 percent whilst improving the customer experience. So that is a really important trend. But let's think about it from the uh the agents, the operators' point of view, you need to be a bit more omni-channel. So you need to be comfortable in chat, comfortable in messaging. Um, and also I think uh that problem solving skill is really important because that's more of the type of conversation you're gonna be having. In fact, I just spoke to a contact center a little while ago, and the person I spoke to couldn't actually solve my particular problem and just dropped it like a hot brick. And I thought that's where you really need some some training.

Jeremy Blake 12:31

Because they didn't want to or they couldn't.

Specialisation And Career Growth

SPEAKER_00 12:32

They just literally couldn't. It was something they couldn't touch.

Jeremy Blake 12:35

Beyond their training, beyond their training.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Beyond their knowledge, training, and there was no flexibility within their task at all. Now, a few other things um to think about.

Jeremy Blake 12:45

Um And then I just want to come back to a point you made.

Cloud, Hybrid Work And Mobility

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Well, yes. So on the AI side of it, which is that automation um is becoming very large scale now. Um what you're essentially doing is deflecting about 40% of routine contacts. So that's really significant. That's a high amount of calls. Imagine that worldwide. Um McKinsey and others estimate it can improve your agent productivity by 20 to 40% as well by reducing errors. Great. I believe that. Can you imagine how how often have we in the past had people ringing up and saying, You've just booked my flight for me, but the name's wrong? You know, those tiny little things, if it can do that, that's also going to reduce uh calls as well. Um, so what that means is you're also you're also getting less escalation of issues. So all of that contributes to a more efficient service. Um so we talked a little bit about upskilling agents and making them a bit better at dealing with complex um problems. I think that that's really, really good. Um, and also understanding that AI isn't gonna take your job, it's gonna enhance what you do and make that service better.

Operator Mindset And Ongoing Upskilling

Jeremy Blake 14:02

I think that's a really good point. That if the people are skilled and more happy at solving problems, dealing with more complex customer uh considerations and experiences, then they're gonna be valuable. I've just remembered a stat that is now so extraordinarily out of date and shows where how the world has changed. I think it was in about 2010 the newspaper society published a stat that all of us want to buy products and services within a seven mile radius of our home. Now we don't care where we get it from. It can come internationally. Um, it can come from, you know, we live in Bucks, we get it from Glasgow, it doesn't matter. Which is why this trend of contacting contact centres isn't going anywhere.

Preview: Next Up, Team Leaders

SPEAKER_00 14:40

So that Lynn leads us to this other balancing act because we mentioned earlier that lots of people are sending their contacts out to outsource contact centers again in places like the Philippines and India and Latin America and Eastern Europe. But what that means is that the there's now a broader competition because that I could easily send my calls there, but if those people aren't good at the complex technical stuff or the sales stuff or the upsell or the specialized conversations, then that's not going to help me. And so there needs to be your escalation problem coming back to the back. Exactly right. Exactly. And what you don't want is then escalations coming back and causing even more pain on the system. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So I think that's a that's an important point that you've got to get those those bits right. Um, and in fact, I I've got one note here that there are in some locations there are talent shortages of high-skill customer experienced people who haven't had the training or just don't know how to deal with these uh these more complex issues.

Jeremy Blake 15:46

I wonder, and I don't know if this is in the research, is if if AI will take over outbound for the operatives. So you and I for years have tried to help our clients to have small outbound teams nudging people, saying, You got this organized around this time last year, you're on my screen, why don't I call you? They've always been reluctant because they use demand as excuses and so on and so on. But I wonder if AI, you get a call going, hi, you booked your ex with us last February. Would you like to talk about it? I can put you through to someone. You know, it might be an in and out combination down the track.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

So the opportunity for the operator is uh as a somebody who works in one of these contact centers, I can become skilled in a particular industry or product. I can learn more and more about it. I can develop my sales and my negotiation and relationship skills because I'm going to need those. And what that means is that I'm much more likely to be considered as a promotional person. Valuable. Absolutely. Um, so that's uh huge.

Jeremy Blake 16:47

Much better way to thinking about the work.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Oh, yeah. Now, all of that then feeds into this other element here, which is about this fact that everything's in the cloud now. And what that means is that more and more workforces are hybrid with people not just working from home, but working anywhere. And this uh feeds into uh some of our recent episodes about digital nomading, which is now being done in so many different places now. So as an operator, it's actually quite appealing to think I'm pretty goddamn good at this. I should be able to do this from anywhere, and I either choose somewhere that's good for my commuting, or I have a very flexible work pattern where I can work from home or work in different places. But there is a huge growth in global remote roles, as long as the language and the skills fit, you can do it anywhere.

Jeremy Blake 17:37

Well, I we had a call and I took it from this chap who's based on uh wherever that massive lake is, um, Salt Lake City, and um in the US, and yeah, one of a number of massive lakes, looking at Bob's face, going, which lake are you gonna hit me with? And the second call I had with him, he was in Colombia.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

Oh, there we are.

Jeremy Blake 17:58

And he just takes his laptop and does the work. So he's managed to say, I'm good at what I do, it doesn't matter where I work, I get the job done.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Very nice. And then the last element really is this idea that um we want individuals to work on how their knowledge, AI assistance, and the way they schedule themselves sort of helps that contact get better and quicker and more efficient. So almost as an operator, you are responsible for working out how to make this better for each customer that you speak to. Rather than doing it in a set way, it's more responsive to I know now that we can speed up this for the customer in a better way by using this. And I think that makes you slightly more interested in the service that you're delivering. And then, of course, where there is a gap, there needs to be skills building for soft skills, literacy, industrial industry knowledge, all that sort of thing, which continually improves those people, uh, regardless of you know where they're based or whatever it may be. Now we can develop our people as much as we like. So I think that's you know, I think it's it's a really uh positive place to be as well.

Jeremy Blake 19:17

So actually, you're saying the future of the operator is more emotionally intelligent, more verbally dexterous, better at English, better at tone, better at listening. The skill set rockets, but then it means you deal with higher value stuff, which means you'll probably have an opportunity to be paid more and so on.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

Well, I've got a very nice summary here, which is as an operator, you should be thinking this. My job is getting more skilled, it's not disappearing. If I focus on empathy, problem solving, and learning new tools, I become more valuable. Now, imagine if every operator had that in front of where they're a leader that supported them. And a leader that supported and helped them do that, it would be fantastic.

Jeremy Blake 19:58

And I think I don't know, a training company that supported them as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Well, who knows? Who knows? So I think there's some really good positive stuff there for the wider operators in the contact center industry. Have a little think about that. What we're gonna look at in our um in our next episode is team leaders. Team leaders are so important in contact centers. We've done a recent series on team leaders, um, but we're not gonna go through that stuff again. What we're gonna look at is specifically, as a team leader in a contact center, what are the bits that I really need to focus on so that I'm bringing all of my people in my team to a good level? But also, do I have a wider understanding of what's happening in this industry, where it's going, and how I can contribute to growth and success?

Reality Training: How To Work With Us

Jeremy Blake 20:45

Lovely. Thank you for joining us for part one.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

See you on the next one.

Jeremy Blake 20:50

Bye for now.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

This podcast comes from Reality Training. For the last 25 years, we've transformed the customer interactions of many leading UK businesses and developed thousands of managers to be better at what they do. To find out more about our work, to see what we could do to help your organization, go to realitytraining.com.