Yesterday I took a trip to the big smoke for the annual Call & Contact Centre expo at Excel, here are my thoughts on day one of the show…

The hot topic on every stand and in every seminar is… you guessed it AI

Everyone is talking about how AI and Generative AI (there is a difference) is currently revolutionising the customer experience and providing massive productivity gains to contact centres who embrace this new technology.

Looking at this AI hype from my sceptical point of view I feel it’s a case of keeping up with the Jones’… head of contact centres or procurement manager looking for a new CCAS solution are likely to want some AI ‘type’ functionality if not on day one certainly in the not to distant future, so every big player in the industry (8x8, TalkDesk, Nice, RingCentral etc) HAVE to offer AI just to be considered.

I wonder if businesses are paying for something (AI) they’ll never or very rarely make use of. There’s no doubt that AI is evolving faster than ever so who knows what will be available in 2 years time?

Across all the keynotes I attended there were two common themes:

Human to human voice conversation is here to stay – it’s still the most efficient way to assist customers with complex enquiries and vulnerable customers.

In most cases the benefits of rolling out AI sit with the contact centres (cost reduction, contact deflection etc) and not with customers. Sometimes the use of AI improves the customer experience but it has to be implemented in the right way.

Kylie from Poly AI put it best…

“It’s not about tricking people into thinking they’re talking to a person.

“It’s about enabling people to forget they’re talking to a robot.”

The award for most entertaining and interactive presentation at the expo goes to Martin Teesdale from Get Out of Wrap.