Envision a reality where Artificial Intelligence (AI) commandeers your customer service. Consider AI not merely conducting routine transactions but also enhancing intricate and emotionally nuanced dialogues with your customers.
Is this a far-off dream or a prevailing reality?
We dive into this and much more in our recent "Advice from a Call Center Geek!" podcast episode with customer experience maestro and influencer, James Dodkins.
We embark on a journey through the realm of 'autonomous enterprises', where businesses are leveraging AI and automation to revolutionize customer interactions and maximize operational efficiency.
Looking ahead at the future of call centers, we discuss an interesting contradiction - the level of expertise required to substitute AI and automation could paradoxically increase the status of call center agents. There are some truly thought-provoking discussion points here.
We conclude the hour-long episode by deliberating on the role of trust in the era of AI.
This episode is a must-listen if you're contemplating the implications of AI on customer experience!
If you are looking for USA outsourced customer service or sales support, we here at Expivia would really like to help you support your customers.
Please check us out at expiviausa.com, or email us at info@expivia.net!
Follow Tom: @tlaird_expivia
Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek
Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/
Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@callcenter_geek
Linkedin Group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/9041993/
Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Envision a reality where Artificial Intelligence (AI) commandeers your customer service. Consider AI not merely conducting routine transactions but also enhancing intricate and emotionally nuanced dialogues with your customers.
Is this a far-off dream or a prevailing reality?
We dive into this and much more in our recent "Advice from a Call Center Geek!" podcast episode with customer experience maestro and influencer, James Dodkins.
We embark on a journey through the realm of 'autonomous enterprises', where businesses are leveraging AI and automation to revolutionize customer interactions and maximize operational efficiency.
Looking ahead at the future of call centers, we discuss an interesting contradiction - the level of expertise required to substitute AI and automation could paradoxically increase the status of call center agents. There are some truly thought-provoking discussion points here.
We conclude the hour-long episode by deliberating on the role of trust in the era of AI.
This episode is a must-listen if you're contemplating the implications of AI on customer experience!
If you are looking for USA outsourced customer service or sales support, we here at Expivia would really like to help you support your customers.
Please check us out at expiviausa.com, or email us at info@expivia.net!
Follow Tom: @tlaird_expivia
Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek
Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/
Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@callcenter_geek
Linkedin Group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/9041993/
Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
This is advice from a call center geek a weekly podcast with a focus on all things call center. We'll cover it all, from call center operations, hiring, culture, technology and education. We're here to give you actionable items to improve the quality of yours and your customer's experience. This is an evolving industry with creative minds and ambitious people like this guy. Not only is his passion call center operations, but he's our host. He's the CEO of Expedia Interaction Marketing Group and the call center geek himself, tom Lear.
Speaker 2:Welcome back everybody to another episode of advice from a call center geek the call center and contact center podcast, and we try to give you some actionable items to take back in your contact center improve the overall quality, improve the customer experience, hopefully improve your overall experience as well. James, what's up? We kind of figured out our logistical issues, so a couple of minutes late, but it's good to talk to you again. I think we last time we talked was was pre COVID.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it might have been and had still a little AMA and some things. So how you been man, how what's going on across the pond? Yeah, been good.
Speaker 3:Been good, everything's good. England is the same as it was before miserable and rainy all the time, even during summer. We there's all like in Europe. Everyone's getting these like crazy, wild, like heat waves. Right, I can't you got a bubble? Yeah, we're not getting any. I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't want the place to set on fire, but right. Little bit of sunshine. It'd be nice just for one day.
Speaker 2:It's crazy how I was at the nice interaction, so the in contact or nice CX one. Now like change your name 14 times, right. But and I was in New York City and it was the first like I walked out and I didn't know about these Canadian wildfires like I did at the time, and it looked like Mars, like everything was red. People are like don't breathe the air. So I don't know, maybe maybe you're in a good spot, maybe you got that good clean up silver linings.
Speaker 3:That's pretty bad advice. Don't breathe, all right, what feel turn it doesn't really be the alternative, right?
Speaker 2:Well, hey, man, listen, since, since we have talked, so much has happened. I know you, I love what you've been doing on the on kind of the AI, the fun AI front, and then, I think, also the you know kind of getting into the weeds a little bit with it as well. Yeah, you know, let's, I love talking to you because we never plan anything. This is just kind of you and I kind of spitball on it. So again, we're live on Tik Tok, live on LinkedIn, you know, with James Dawkins. So if you guys have any questions at all, please, you know, throw it out there. If anything is worth it and is not ridiculous, we will definitely kind of talk that through as well.
Speaker 2:Even if it is ridiculous, I think ridiculous is all right too, but sometimes on Tik Tok it's not. It's not really for a LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:Okay inappropriate, so we'll see. But hey, let's start with that. Maybe let's talk through. You know what changes. I mean I know there's a ton of changes that have been happening. What are some of the things that I think I've surprised you from a speed right, how quickly things have moved. Some of the things that you guys are doing as well. I mean, I'd love to hear that and some of the things that are kind of just exciting you right now with, with kind of this, new AI spaces. It relates to customer experience.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean for me. I'm just trying to share the post on my LinkedIn. It's not working. I don't know how to come report it. I might report it, let's see what happens. Why is there not just a share button? Come on, never mind, my guys don't get to see it.
Speaker 2:It's funny, we're like supposed to be like technology dudes too.
Speaker 3:I've broken it, and I've turned it on and they're the other side.
Speaker 2:Right, no problem.
Speaker 3:I'm just going to write it. I've closed it. I'm back with you. I was trying to be so.
Speaker 3:One of the things that's really interesting at the moment that I'm finding is something like Gartner and folks have been talking about for a while and we're talking about a pego is this idea of an autonomous enterprise. Now, to start with it sounds a little bit scary, but the way we kind of think about it is. So. You think about this future idea of autonomous driving. So you got a car. The car knows where you want to go. You get in the car and it takes you there. It figures out the very best route to get you to whatever place you need to get to. The car's constantly self optimizing, it's learning about itself, it's improving itself. Imagine that, but in a business.
Speaker 3:Now, the reason why I say it's quite far away is because that idea of a business being fully autonomous, fully self driving, is a very long way away. We may never get there, same as we may never get to a fully autonomous vehicle that takes us to places, but there are still parts of autonomy that we're using now every single day in our cars. My car it's not a particularly fancy one, but it figures out the best route to get me to where I want to go. It's using things like the adaptive cruise control to make sure I'm not going too close to a car in front. It's checking my blind spots. It's got lots of these little pockets of autonomy that are helping me be a better driver every day.
Speaker 3:That's the mindset we're taking with business going. Look, there is this grand idea of an autonomous enterprise, which is very grand and very lovely. Most big companies are going to go there, but what are the things we can do today? What are the ways that we can use AI and automation to improve the lives of our employees and our customers? So that's super interesting to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that brings up a lot of questions. It's almost like we're becoming kind of tribal almost in what we think about AI and what we think about what you just said. So there's a group of people that say, hey, I think that's going to happen or that's what we are trying to do. There's other people that are saying the say I think isn't ready. There's other people that I think we're kind of. Most people are, which kind of makes sense because it's in the middle, are looking at kind of that hybrid so the car can take us where we want to go if we want to choose that, or at least can get us most of the way there. But then, looking deeper into that CX funnel with the agent, and then all the badass awesome tools now that are coming available for the actual agent, that may even like I don't know like squash the distance between that generative first touch. Take me down that road. I don't need a human to where that agent is. And I think that's the questions that we're having now.
Speaker 2:And also the vendors. You go to call center week, you go to call and contact center expo and I know I've talked a lot about this is there's not a lot of differentiation. People are trying to just kind of do the low hanging fruit, which may be the hardest thing to do, to be honest, to do what you just said, and there's just. I just feel like there's so many onions, layers to this onion, that we're not looking at, and I think that's the almost frustrating thing for me as a I'm not a software company, right, like you guys kind of do some of this stuff. That's the thing for me, that I think there's a lot of frustration in the marketplace as well, for what's real, what's not, what do I need? Where's things going and how does this whole thing kind of play out? Like that's not really a question.
Speaker 3:That's what it's a really good point, because the way I'm looking at it is, this is the way that companies are going to go, because people ask the question is it good or is it bad? It is what it is. Yeah, massive companies, and, of course, at Pegasystems we deal with massive companies and a prize. Yeah, with millions of customers. So I'm talking really in that vein, but they are going to have to go this route because they are under immense pressure to do more with less. So, whether you think it's good or you think it's bad, it doesn't really matter, because it's going to happen. We are here to try to help it happen in the best way possible, because there's going to be two ways that these companies are going to focus on it. They're going to focus on it to try and cut costs Yep or they're going to focus on it to try and improve the lives of their employees and their customers.
Speaker 3:My opinion is, the companies that focus on cutting costs are not going to do as well as the companies that focus on improving the lives of their customers and their employees. Now, the thing is, if you focus on cutting costs, chances are you're not going to improve the lives of your employees and your customers. However, if you focus on improving the lives of your customers and your employees as a result, you will cut costs, because you're only going to be doing the very necessary stuff needed to deliver positive outcomes for both parties there. So is it good, is it bad? It doesn't matter. Companies are going to do this. We're here to try and persuade as many companies as possible to do it in the right way.
Speaker 2:James, what do you think and I've been thinking a lot about this too is what is the low hanging fruit?
Speaker 2:What does this, how does the roadmap of this, take place For me?
Speaker 2:We have been playing and I've been posting a lot on how, even again, I have a very small, relatively non-software IT staff. I have an IT staff to do integrations, to work my BPO, to do what I need to do there, but they have even been able to take on some of these things because of the I don't want to say ease of use, but kind of the ease of how it could be from at least the utilitarian standpoint. Case in point has been QA To be able to write prompts in the chat EPT world, to say, hey, we're a BPO and I have credit unions and retailers and financial services companies and they all have different scorecards and be able to write prompts and to be able to figure that out without an agent. We figured that out in days. Now it's not scalable yet, but the proof of concept of that is. So for what you guys are doing, what do you see as kind of the roadmap or the first things that can kind of take on that AI persona, I guess?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the way I think about it is. When it comes to experiences that customers have with companies, they tend to fall into one of two categories either transactional or emotional. So transactional experiences are things like changing my address or changing my payment date yes, the stuff that just needs to get done. The emotional things is like claiming on a life insurance policy, for example. Now, the big issue I'm seeing is when companies are going to want to apply AI and automation to the emotional experiences. They're the very last things that we should be applying that stuff to. The transactional stuff is the stuff that I don't want to have to talk to someone. You don't want to talk to someone.
Speaker 3:When I first came to Pegger, there was a guy that was helping me through the ropes, called Andy. Big up to Andy if he's watching. He always used to demo address changes and I was like dude, that's boring man, why are you just demoing the address change? Then I moved house and I was like, oh my God, this is the single most frustrating. I'm on the phone to someone because I can't do it online, because there's no easy way. I can't go to a chat bot and say, hey, chat bot, I need to change my address to this and it just does it, which it should be able to do. I'm on the phone, there's someone there on the other end doing their job, trying to build rapport with me, and I'm like, dude, I've got 17 more of these to do. Can you just get it done?
Speaker 3:There are certain things, certain experiences that just need to happen like that, and companies need to figure out what they are.
Speaker 3:This is where the AI comes into play really well, having a smart brain in the background that can understand things with a little bit more context and a little bit more nuance, because if I'm changing my address because I've changed house, it's a transactional experience. Maybe if I'm changing my address because I've just been through a horrific divorce, maybe that then becomes an emotional experience. Companies tend to think they have millions and millions of processes. They've got about 20. There's probably more. What they do have lots and lots of is scenarios. I think what companies need to do is take a step back and look at all of these different scenarios that can come into play and figure out which ones are transactional, which ones are emotional. The transactional ones immediately should be automated, should use AI to get them done as quickly as possible, then figuring out, well, how do we use AI and automation to help augment the agent experience when they are dealing with those relationship-building, emotional, really high-value interactions?
Speaker 2:Let me throw this at you as a I don't know. I don't see devil's advocate, because I think we're on the same page. What is I mean for us, and not even for us, but for vast majority of companies? For the last 10 years, we have been automating transactional things. For that, I almost think what's the point of AI? I can do that. I can reset a password through a chatbot. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Which company can you reset a password through a chatbot with? I would love to know who that is.
Speaker 2:That's just some simple APIs.
Speaker 3:That's why it should be, because that's the thing. People are starting to rebel because we're playing with chat GPT, everyone is playing with it. Hey, write me a poem about whatever. Then we'll go onto a website and go to a chatbot and be like I need to change my address. It can't do it. They're in the past. Most of the digital interactions that customers are having with companies are awful. They're built in the wrong way. They're built channel per channel. The chatbot has been designed by itself. The WhatsApp experience has been designed by itself. The web experience has been designed by itself. The SMS expert, each individual channel, has been built by itself. Any time a company needs to change or do anything, they're having to do it in a million different places. It's all inconsistent. I'll go on the chatbot and say hey, I need to change my address. It says sorry, you can't do this online. You need to call in. I call in. They've got no idea who I am or why I'm calling. I've got to explain it again. They just agree.
Speaker 2:I agree. Here's the other thing that I think about. With this, too, I think I agree with you. I think we're saying the same thing. I think the main AI I agree almost goes beyond the transactional thing to get the real benefit, to get into that hardier-type experience. Again, take online banking. We've been doing online banking. I can do so many things, but even before AI, that I can do. Now I have this AI experience and maybe it's a little bit better, but I still don't see it Again. I hear you, I'm with you on this AI thing For those types of things. We've been doing it for so long. I think, doing it pretty well Overall.
Speaker 2:You go to a Bank of America city bank. You want to check your account balance that's done in three seconds. If you want to trade your money, it's done in three seconds. I think you're right. That's where, for me, this AI thing needs to go beyond that. That's not a wow. We already had this wow conversation last time. It's not like it's a mind-blowing thing, but I think when you get deeper into the funnel, when you get into that agent experience, when you do need an agent and I hear you too, with tying everything together I think that's the biggest piece To know that I was just on this chatbot. It couldn't help me To go to an agent who knows who I am, who already was able to verify me before that because of my voice. To do all of that type of AI-infused technology, I think, is really cool. To be honest, that's the stuff that we don't talk about enough, even getting into the agent assist and the tools that are happening for analytics Because, again, you and I have a transactional conversation.
Speaker 2:Again, maybe I'm not going to get a lot out of it because you need a password reset and I'm an AI chatbot and I do it. My argument there as well is we're losing a lot of analytic data. Again, that's not your problem, because you don't give a shit about the analytic data. You just want your password reset For me. We have a conversation like hey, let me reset your password.
Speaker 2:How's your day going? Hey, it's going well. But hey, by the way, what did you guys do the last three or four times I bought something for me? It's been delayed for three weeks. You get all this anecdotal stuff that's really good to help your business as well. Again, I go all over the place with this because there's so many nuance things instead of just saying, hey, this is how it has to be. I try to think are we screwing that up? Maybe not. Is this helping? Again, I think it does go back to the customer, but there's just so much to this. It goes, I think, just beyond where we're thinking about. I got to get this done without a human being.
Speaker 3:To bring it back to your point about the bank, think about it this way there's a guy at PEGA called Peter Bundyputin and he's one of the world's leading AI experts. I'm not an AI expert, I'm an enthusiast. I'm with you, kid. He understands how it works. I just understand that it works, which is fine. The way he explains AI is with a left brain and a right brain. The right brain is the creative side. That's the thing that we're all seeing at the moment the generative AI, the AI that can create stuff, create new content. That could be audio, it could be images, it could be video, it could be text, it could be 3D models. It's creating now. It's creating content, new stuff. The left brain is the analytic side. That's the stuff that we have been doing for a very long time. It's stuff that Peg has been doing for over 20 years. We've got really good heritage in this. The AI can look at billions of different data points I don't know whether it's billions, lots of different data points and make sense of it and make decisions based on all of those different data points. To bring it to your bank example, let's say AI is looking at your bank account, all of your spending habits and knows that every second month you tend to go out for a meet, a big, expensive meal that costs $200 with your whole family, but it notices now that you don't have $200 in your account. Okay, that AI can figure out all. There might possibly be some sort of problem happening in the future, and this is what we talk about preemptive experience. Now, traditionally that would just get left alone. You'd go out and you'd either become overdrawn or wouldn't be able to pay for it or whatever, and then the bank would have to deal with it afterwards. But you can use AI to look at those things and say and reach out proactively and preemptively. I don't know what the exact message would be, but like dude, you broke, you can't take your family out. I don't think it would say that. You could probably ask chatGPT to write you some good copy for that, but it's getting ahead of problems and making sure they never happen in the first place. So that's a banking example where we can be using AI in a great way.
Speaker 3:There's a really good example as well where imagine if AI could look at all of your fixed costs your phone, your TV, your electricity, your gym, whatever and it can go out there and it can find cheaper costs for you. So hang on. You're paying $79 a month for your phone. Did you know that you could get the exact same package for $59 with this person? Or you're paying X amount for your energy. You could get it. So looking through your spending habits, looking through your fixed costs and suggesting ways to bring that, AI could be doing that as well. It's something we've helped banks do at Pegger as well, Again, so AI can go beyond the parlor tricks, let's say, of writing a poem or producing a picture of a unicorn doing a backflip or whatever. Ai can be doing some really, really clever things behind the scenes that are not only good for the business but are really really good for the customers too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny. One of the first things when ChatGPT came out, I took our P&L, just copied and pasted it and threw it into ChatGPT and I'm like, hey, man, is there anything you got for me there? And there were some insights into it. It's crazy how you can, even from that aspect, and how far things are going and how, even again, we talk about ChatGPT as being AI. That's just a piece, but even the connectivity and how we can all play with that stuff now is pretty crazy. I'm trying to get my kids involved with this every day. Again, beyond the cheating on your schoolwork, but understanding outputs, understanding how to prompt In five years what we have to prompt. Probably not, there'll be some other type of tool or at least thought process for that, but I think that even schools not to move into something a little bit different but even how we think and the creativity that there's so much more art to this from the AI, of using it today, in 2023, of what we need to get out of it.
Speaker 3:Well, dude, stick with that, because I was kind of thinking that, like, prompt engineer is going to be the thing of the future. But if you're saying that, where's that going to go?
Speaker 2:I don't know. But I mean, think about how fast we've moved so far. For us to create, like let's just take our AI or our QA example we wrote I mean it's their intense prompts, I mean they make total sense, but there's a ton to it. And so I think to your point prompt, engineer something like that, but think about where that's going to be in five years. I'm not going to have to write that prompt. I don't know what the hell I'm going to have to write, but it certainly isn't going to be this robust thing. I mean, maybe there's an AI that I just say, hey, this is the outcome that I want, and it writes my prompt for me, based on kind of what some of those things are. But I mean I just even from a small company again not a software company being able to figure that stuff out. I just my brain goes what is the company with the 400 programmers, the 2000 programmers that are thinking about the one use case for this and how awesome it's going to be even this year?
Speaker 2:One of the things I've heard, too, that I did do a LinkedIn, is transcripts are going away. The quote that I got from somebody deep in CX1 was and with you guys too. I'm sure it was months, not quarters. Well, we're going to be able to just use voice. So voice for transcripts, for prompts and especially in the CX and the contact center to do QA, to not have to do that stupid transcript that a lot of times it's screwed up and weird anyway, and that's going to happen this year. The evolution of this is happening so fast. It's so exciting. At the same time it's like you got to catch your breath to kind of keep up with this stuff.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, one of the cool things that Pegas got is something called voice AI. So I'm the agent, you're the customer, we're on the call. The AI is listening to the whole conversation. It knows what is who the customer is, knows the customer's history, knows what it is they're trying to achieve. It's pinging up knowledge articles as we go, based on the conversation. Not only is it doing that let's say it's a change of address, let's say we haven't managed to do that for a chatbot yet, but they've called in for a change of address. They're telling me the address I'm not even typing in as the agent.
Speaker 3:It's auto filling the fields. I just have to check it and make sure that it's right and then at the end of the call, I don't need to write up the wrap up, I don't need to write notes. It does an auto summary of everything and it can even kick off cases and get work actually done. And the idea behind that is for the agent. I can then focus giving my full attention to the customer, not having to type this thing in. I'll tap to this, go and type this thing over there, go and do it where I'm not really paying attention to them and I'm trying to do these 7 million things at once. The AI is just listening and making the life of the agent so much easier. Another thing you mentioned as well, which is about this idea of prompting, and I think you're probably right At the moment. You need to get very granular with your prompts to get really, really good outcomes. You probably are right with that. It's going to be able to glean from context a little bit more in the future and one of the things that Pegas got coming in the next release is generative AI workflows. So you'll be able to say and we've got a video coming out which is about Lama rentals. So it's just an example. So you might make me a Lama rental app and it will create it. It will create the workflows, all the data, objects, script, everything. It will create the whole thing and because it's low code as well, you can go in there and just move the little blocks around like Lego bricks if you do want to change it. When we actually did it for the demo and it created Lama liability insurance drop down menus. It creates drop down menus for the different types of Lamas you might want to rent, but it goes away and goes.
Speaker 3:Ok, what would a perfect app look like for this thing you've asked me to do? Now, in real life, it's going to be mortgage application. It's very boring. Yeah, something you aim like that, not Lama rentals, but it's just being able to supercharge the creation of this stuff. But again, it's just being able to supercharge the creation of this stuff. It is in a place where I can write in a fairly sloppy prompt Make me a llama rental app, and it will go away and kind of figure out what's the best way to do this, rather than me having to say Do it like this brandy this way, include this thing, include that other thing don't include that, so I Think that's going to be something that becomes more and more prominent as well. I think you are right with that hundred percent being able to have AI that you don't need to prompt as well as we do now.
Speaker 2:All right, another, another AI topic, something that's that's come up, I think too, is you know the, the whole concept of the hallucination, right, the whole concept of when AI is wrong. And yeah, and how do you Q a AI? Right, and specifically talking in the contact center, experience in CX, right. So, if that was the biggest question, like I'm just kind of showing, hey, guys, we can kind of do this with, with automation of our forms, and they're like, well, what if it's wrong? I'm like well, well, what if my agent's wrong? Like, but I, but I get you, like I'm gonna get like real defensive, like real quick, right, but but that's a question, right, like is, is do we use AI to? To look at AI, I mean, I'm sure we do.
Speaker 2:And the other thing is, you know the contact center if this happens, right, and this is happening across the board with with all this data? Now, right, so if you have, you 100% of all of your, your QA forms or your quality assurance and I know I keep going back to that and there could be a lot of different examples, but you know were before we would say, hey, we want to, we want to score, you know, three agents per week, per month, right, and now we're saying, hey, I got a hundred percent of all your stuff. What do we do with that data? Right, like, like QA and the coaching aspect has to totally change. The the roles that we're seeing in the contact center. Like I'm trying to think through too, is how does this evolve? Like I don't want to get rid of some of these guys because I think there's other jobs for them. Yeah, right, I mean, where do you kind of see him? Again? That was a I'm asking like 42 part questions for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I get so far, Don't worry man. So the hallucination thing is a mad one, and I experienced it myself when I was buying a new bag. Right, I found the bag that I wanted. It was a little bit more expensive than I wanted it to be. So I went to Bard and I said Find me some discount codes for this website. It comes back with them. I go wicked VIP 10 Uninvalid, damn it. What was it? Summer 25? Invalid damn it. New order 15 Invalid, damn it. So I gave up on that and I searched again and I found another website that was selling it a little bit cheaper. But I was like you know what, I'm gonna see if I can get some. So I went to Bard and went give me some discount codes for this website. And it went VIP 10 and it just gave me the exact same ones again. I might. Oh yeah, you just made them up. What, what so?
Speaker 3:But there are gonna be companies that are gonna let AI loose on their customers without any human sort of buffer in between. They are very, very brave people. It's not how we're suggesting to do it at all, and One of the conversations I had with Don Sherman, who's our CTO, was around what we can do in the marketing space. So I'm in the customer service space, but we've got really cool marketing stuff too. So you'll be able to go make this marketing copy more accessible to millennials and it'll go away and it'll rewrite it to make it better for a millennial. It'll create images that millennials are gonna be more, you know, drawn towards really cool stuff. And I was like do you think we'll ever get to a point where we'll be able to go make this marketing message more appealing to James Dodkins and every single marketing message would be uniquely bespoke, lee crafted based on me, my history, what, what the AI knows about me? And he went no, and I went what? He's like no, that's probably never gonna happen. Or if it is, it will be very, very far away. I'm like why? That's a great idea. He's like yeah, not really. He's like it's not scalable because you would have to Trust AI to create millions of different you know bits of content and send it out. Because it's not scalable. You couldn't get People, you couldn't get enough eyeballs on it to check that it wasn't doing crazy Stuff. So the way we talk about it at Pegar is we still need the humans that you need humans in between the AI creating stuff and then the doing of stuff, just to make sure it's not doing mad things. Now, chances are it would be harmless stuff, but we've seen AI do some pretty gnarly things in the past when Not used properly and not used responsibly and not used ethically. So we are of the opinion that you need the humans there to be able to make sure that it's it's doing stuff properly. And Does that mean that maybe you forego this, this ability to Truly personalize every marketing message for every single customer? Maybe it does. Yeah, I think that's probably the better way to do it.
Speaker 3:And the other thing as well is you mentioned about, like the, the role of agents. This is, it's a. It's a bit of a hot topic for me because I started in the call center. It's where I started my corporate career, so I was on the phones. It Tends to be now. You feel free to correct me here, but my experience is Call center.
Speaker 3:Being a call center agent isn't necessarily a lauded job. When you talk to someone if they say, oh, what do you do for a living, and they say, oh, I work in a call center, they don't go. Who wears your Lamborghini? They look down on it as a job, and I don't think that is just in the everyday world. I think it's looked down on in companies.
Speaker 3:You tend to find that call center agents are the least valued, least respected, least Rewarded, least trained people in the entire organization, which is absolutely, absolutely crazy.
Speaker 3:When you think about it, you are taking your customers and putting them in the hands of people that are least valued, least rewarded, least respected, least trained in the organization. That is ridiculous. Now what's going to happen? I don't think this is necessarily what should happen, but I'm saying this is going to happen. Companies are going to be pushing to have less and less agents as they want more and more stuff dealt with by AI and automation, but, as a result, what it's going to leave is almost an elite group of call center agents, the single most elite people that have the best emotional intelligence, have the best relationship building skills, have the best product knowledge that can deal with those more complex, more emotional situations. So I feel that in the future, the job of the call center agent is going to be one of, if not the most respected jobs in any organization, because the skill level you will need to be at to displace AI and automation is going to need to be elite. So that is my opinion on that. I don't know what you will see.
Speaker 2:I can't agree with you more. I will tell you this, and I think in the next three to five years we're going to see NPS scores, we're going to see CSAT scores. They're going to absolutely tank as there's this rush to improper AI, to not understanding what it can do, what it can't do. Integrations are going to be bad. We don't know what to do with our agents. How do we do this QA? Like there's a figuring out process and nobody's going to care. All they're going to see levels are going to say my marketing, your budget for the contact center is going to hear because we're buying this, figure it out. Then I think you're totally right. Then, when we see, all right, we're starting to figure this AI thing out, we're starting to figure out our agents. Our agents need to be now tier three, tier four, because that tier one, tier two, is done, then I think, finally, that's when you start to see that rise again.
Speaker 2:I see it in every single new type of light. When the new technology came out with the internet and you had the bubble with all these companies that just came out, like hey, I got internet companies, internet companies, and they all sucked. They were all terrible and they all went belly up. I think you're going to see that too when it comes to CX and then when we get to that point where that AI is quote unquote mature, whatever that means, but at least this first stage of AI is mature. And then that agent I can't agree more is going to be because you're not going to need it.
Speaker 2:I keep saying, in the next year to two years, 20, 25 to 30 percent of agents that top level, they're not going to be needed. But I think it goes down even deeper as we go down. You're going to be a Tier 3, tier 4 agent, which means you have you're a badass like you know everything and you can interact, you can talk, you're emotionally intelligent where you can understand if somebody wants to get off the phone quick, if somebody wants to stay on longer, if they need to talk, what their issues are. I think it's going to be exciting to see, and I think, as a BPO operator, to navigate that waters too. That's the early thought process that I have as well is again, we got to have this stuff. You can't fight this technology, it's not even a question. Yeah, it's the cost of doing business now, but then let's use all the technology to make these guys as awesome as we can 100 percent, man.
Speaker 3:That's the thing it's going to happen, and people like you, people like me, we're here to just help it happen in the right, best way possible.
Speaker 2:I mean this is good stuff. What else, past the AI stuff has been interesting to you that you guys are doing? Is there any again? And I know it's really hard to talk beyond AI because it's being infused into every single tool that we're utilizing. But is there some other stuff, too that again, I know we beat the AI thing, I think, to death that you'd want to talk about or bring up or we can start?
Speaker 3:Back to something I mentioned earlier, with every process and experience being built in their own individual channel. This is stuff that Pegas well known for, but it's something that I love the most about Pegas. It's. What we do is, rather than have you build everything in each individual channel, build it in one place, one central brain, and then that brain pushes everything out to all the channels, which is really cool because it means if you ever need to make a change, you just make it in the brain and it reflects everywhere at once. If you start talking with me on WhatsApp but then need to call up, the brain doesn't care. The brain knows who you are, it knows the context of why you're calling it. It knows the journey. I mean, that's probably the biggest thing. It's like we refer to it as case management understanding who the customer is, the outcome they need to achieve and then working the case towards done essentially, getting that work done, no matter what channel. It doesn't matter what channel it is. People talk about being Omni-channel. If you're not doing that, you're not Omni-channel. I don't know what you are, some other thing, but it's not Omni-channel. The amount of companies nowadays massive multinational companies, billions and billions of dollar companies where I call in and then have to switch to a chatbot and he's got no idea who I am or what I'm trying to do, or even just moving me between a department, and they've got no idea who I am or why I'm calling Dude. That is bonkers, that's crazy. Yeah, so Peg are really good at that. Another thing we really good because the thing is, again, we're not for every company, we're for really large, complex companies, multinationals. We've got something that's referred to as the situational layer cake. I'll tell you what that is. That's really cool.
Speaker 3:So imagine you are a gambling company, okay, and so you've got a base layer of processes Okay for your onboarding, putting money into your account for complete, whatever, right. But then you realize, ah, there's gonna be variations based on different countries. So let's say you're in Romania, maybe you have to upload a driving license to open an account. Let's say you're in Britain You've got to take a photo of your passport to open an account. Let's say you're in America, and then you've got a bunch of different states that have all got different gambling rules.
Speaker 3:What what this thing does is it allows you to filter through rather than having to build the process a million times. It understands the context and filters it through. But then let's say, oh, actually, we want more people from Belgium to sign up, so we're gonna run a promotion in belt, you can put another layer on. And so as the customer comes through the process, it figures out Okay, they're in Belgium, so we're gonna apply this Offer. And then, because they're in Belgium, we're gonna ask them for this information as they sign up and then as they onboard. That's just a standard process and it filters it through. That's a really cool thing that helps companies.
Speaker 3:So. But I imagine, like a telco, that's like a phone, for example, that's in like a million different countries, tens of millions of customers all over the world. They've got very similar processes across the world. Apart from there are tiny little variations based on geographic location, customer type, offer type, that Otherwise you would have to build over and over and over and over again and then, if you need to make any change, oh, you've got to change it in a million different processes. This layer cake system, it means you just change it one time and it's changed everywhere. So that's cool.
Speaker 2:It's so weird talking to somebody from the UK like you guys are so multi-nat, like you have to be, like I don't know, like it's just. It's so weird like I'm such a bias like an American, like Idiot bias, right, like some meathead, like what do you mean, like, when you're dealing with country after country after country after country after country, like like we're dealing with states, like I can't imagine that the nuance, the changes, the legalities, the all that stuff that would, that would kind of come into play with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's a. You don't think about it necessarily unless You're operating in that space. We get just even like Region to region can have different. So, like in the UK, for example, we've got England, we've got Scotland, got Wales, got Island, northern Ireland, and then you've got Southern Ireland, which is technically not part of the UK United Kingdom it's part. So you've got all this stuff going on and then sometimes Offers will apply to just England, scotland and Wales and not Northern Ireland, and and there's all this mad stuff going on that you've got to deal with and Traditionally you'd have to just build process upon process upon process. Our way is much better. Yeah, build it one time and then just, oh, in this case, this is the variation, in this case, this is the variation, babe, very cool.
Speaker 2:Let's, let me ask you maybe one or two more questions in what we'll go. So let's, let's speak with that. There's a question here about outbound and I think that there's some. Again, we don't focus a ton on outbound, but there's some legality things here that I think you know when you go on tiktok and I'm on tiktok all the time when I go on LinkedIn, facebook and reels and shorts, and you see all these ads for all these Legion people, right, that say, hey, we can generate. You know we'll have an AI, you know, infuse Bought voice bot that's gonna make outbound calls and again, here in the States, that's to me sounds like a glorified robocall, right, like they're doing it totally illegal.
Speaker 2:And I just my question is do you think that there's going to be some, some nuance or some changes to that? You know, as we get better with this, like there's a lot of questions, I think here and in a lot of the groups and a lot of the Conferences that I go to as well, like kind of talking some of that through, especially these Legion companies, these debt collection companies, right, that things might change because of this AI and how we can have that experience instead of a robocall. Like seems like you kind of have your mind already made up kind of how that works, but yeah, I asked a question the other day and it was so.
Speaker 3:It was a reporter that was writing an article for a magazine and she said she was at a conference recently and they asked the question about when you are like, should companies disclose when you're talking to a bot versus a human, as the lines get blurred and it becomes, you know, indistinguishable, should they disclose it? And I was like, well, yeah, and she was like yeah, but some people said no, no, what do you mean? No, like what does it matter? Why would you take that extra little bit of time to tell a customer that they're talking to a bot Versus a human if they can't tell the difference anyway? And I'm like I don't, I don't know, but you have to like you can't, you can't, not, surely you? Maybe there's something about a disclosure in there, but again, that wouldn't work.
Speaker 3:If you get a phone call and go by the way, I'm not a human, let's talk about you, it's, it's. I don't know, it's I? I don't know if that's just an emotional reaction from me. I don't know what I really care. If I'm Like maybe it's just, you do it with the icons, like when I'm talking to a chat bot, I know I'm talking to a chat bot, because there's a little picture of a robot person. Cool, yeah, he's. Invariably. I don't know how to deal with that very simple thing.
Speaker 3:You've asked me to do, so I'm gonna pass you to Gary who Now? Could Gary just be a better bot? But for me, the big thing is trust, and this is gonna become such a massive part of the way we do business moving forward. I think it really started become more, to become more prevalent during Covid, but for me, trust is now one of, if not the most important currencies between companies and customers, and Trust is something like For price you you will quite happily give up speed for a lower price. You might give up Quality for a faster service, but what are you gonna give up for trust? Trust is non-negotiable.
Speaker 3:Yeah and I think it's probably the only non-negotiable. And when I think about trust, it comes into two elements Do they want to do well and can they do well? So, to put it into perspective, if I do a trustful exercise with my daughter she's four, right for do a trustful exercise she immediately will fall back and I'll catch her. And she falls back with no hesitation. Now the reason is because I've ticked two of those, but she knows that I want to catch her. My intention is good and she knows that I'm capable of catching her. Now, if we were to switch places, I Might know that she wants to catch me. But is she capable there? I mean, she's four. So Probably not.
Speaker 3:And I think when it comes to trust, you need to tick both of those boxes. Does this company want what's best for me and Does the come? Is the company competent at doing the thing that it says it's gonna do now? Do you need to Like my bank, for example? Do I think they've got my best interest at heart? Not really, but do I think they're competent? Yes, do I think they? They, they will do what they say they were. Again, they're gonna do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's why I like capitalism over socialism. I don't really get into it too much, but, like, do I think socialism has got my best interest at heart? Probably, yes. Do I think it's capable of providing the things it says it's gonna do? No, capitalism, do I think it's got my best interest at heart? No, definitely not. But do I think it's capable of providing stuff? Yes, I do. That's why I'm a capitalist, so it's gonna, it doesn't? There's a lot of elements to trust that are gonna be quite stretched as we move forward and if companies aren't open and aren't honest with the way that they're using AI and bots and Almost like spoofing other humans, I think there's gonna be a degradation of trust and I don't know if it's ever gonna be Recoverable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you know, I wonder as well. You know where we would say certain companies here in the States. Would you know they would shout in their ads? You know 100% your USA customer support. You know when everybody was maybe in, like the Philippines or India or it's just a chat about name Bob.
Speaker 3:That was built in America.
Speaker 2:Right, I just wonder now if it's gonna be, you know, like 100%. I think there's going to be companies that will. I don't say 100%, but we have the option for 100% human support. Like I don't know if that's good or bad, depending on how good we get with this thing, but well, the way I think about it is think about when you fly.
Speaker 3:So when you fly, plains have got autopilots, right. We've got big fancy systems that help the planes take off, fly and land really, really safely. However, if they didn't have any human pilots on there, I ain't gonna step foot on that plane, right, I thought. But also the inverse is true even if it's got human pilots, when it's a big commercial aircraft, if it doesn't also have the fancy computers to make it not crash, I'm also not gonna step foot on that plane. And I think that's what the future of business is gonna be.
Speaker 3:Customers are gonna refuse to do business with companies and again I'm talking big companies, I'm not like talking about like a bakery Big companies. Customers are gonna refuse to do business with big companies that don't have both elements there, that don't have AI and Automation there, that autonomy to get easy stuff done lightning fast. But they also won't do business with companies that don't have humans there as a backup to deal with the complex emotional issues, that have the AI and automation helping them deliver those outcomes in the best way possible. For me, that's the future of business.
Speaker 2:I think that's right and that's kind of that, that hybrid kind of middle model, and they're just a pendulum right and organizations are gonna have to choose kind of what way that pendulum goes, maybe more human or more more to that technology piece. But I think I think that makes sense, all right. Last question Okay, we, when you, when you were, you know, back in the day I know you're with Peggy now, but when you were doing kind of the, the consulting I don't want to say the freelance stuff, but when you're doing your classes and, and have you thought about that? First of all, do you miss that? And second of all, how would you change that? Like, how would you have evolved that class? Maybe I'm putting you super on the spot right now Like, is there things that that you think From what you taught, like how you would evolve? What makes kind of that that real customer experience type person?
Speaker 3:Not really no, because the way that I talked to customer experience, it wasn't about Things that you do, it was about ways that you think, and the ways that you think are still. The first step is understand who your customers are. Understand them at a deep level, understand them at a psychographic level, understand who they are as people, their beliefs, their values, their influences. Really understand them beyond traditional demographics. Once you understand who they are as people, then understand what is their successful outcome In a particular scenario. What is the thing they are trying to achieve? What's the goal or target they're trying to hit? What's that thing we need to deliver to them? Then, once you understand that, what are the needs, what are the customer needs that need to be fulfilled in order to achieve that outcome? Then what is the experience that needs to be delivered to deliver the needs that deliver the outcome?
Speaker 3:Then technology Technology comes last. Even though I work for a technology company, technology still comes last every single time. What are the capabilities we need to make that experience happen that delivers the needs, that delivers the outcome for that specific person in that scenario? That doesn't change. We now know that AI exists and can do stuff that becomes in the mix. That model has never and arguably will never change Understand the customer, understand their outcome, understand their needs, understand the experience. Then understand the technology that makes it all happen. For me, I'd maybe say AI a bunch and show some funny videos in the training, but other than that it stays the same.
Speaker 2:That's all. What a great question. I just asked for the last one. I'm proud of it.
Speaker 3:Fantastic question, loved it.
Speaker 2:Hey, james, as we go here. First of all, that hour went like that. Granted, we are probably late 10 minutes, but again, I think most people know where to find you. But if you want to again throw your socials out, throw a peg out. You got the next 30 seconds, all you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. Connect with me. I'm on Instagram as well. At the CX Rockstar. I'm on TikTok, too, at the CX Rockstar. If you are from a large, complex company and you want to talk about more about how Pegger could help you deliver amazing experiences to your customers using AI and automation, hit me up too. I can talk to you about that or put you in touch with smarter people than me.
Speaker 2:You're just the pretty face Basically. Yeah, all right, brother, it's awesome to talk to you. We got to catch up again. Are you going to be at anything? I mean any kind of shows, any kind of. I mean it's almost this year is kind of winding.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, it's the answer to that.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 3:Some in the UK but, yeah, none over in the States.
Speaker 2:All right, brother, thank you so much. And guys, if you missed any of this, this is going to be everywhere and, as always, I'll be chopping this bad boy up so we'll get some highlights out to everybody as well. But again, thanks, man. Good talking to you, that was awesome.