Issue #55

A New Wave of Work Is Coming to Contact Centers

Epiphanies can come from the most unexpected sources.

My wife Kirsten and I recently spent some time in the London area. It was to be a quick business trip, but seeing that it fell on my birthday, we decided we’d add some personal days—with the goal of trying a new experience each day.

Our week included:

A Premier League football (soccer) game at Selhurst Park, where Crystal Palace played Manchester United to a 0 to 0 draw in front of a raucous full house. (Selhurst Park, built in the 1920s, is where the Ted Lasso series was filmed.)
ABBA Voyage, an ABBA concert that features a live band alongside the four “stars” of the show—avatars (“ABBAtars”) that play the part of the band members as they were in the 1970s. Kinda blew us away how realistic they are.
Frameless, a museum that brings iconic paintings to life. Walking into one of the museum’s large rooms is like walking into a living work of art—e.g., you can kick the (digital) leaves in Claude Monet’s garden in Giverny.
Flying in a Spitfire, a single-engine fighter that was part of the British Royal Airforce and saw action in 1943. (I wrote about the Spitfire’s lessons on innovation in the last Edge of Service newsletter.)

As I reflected on these seemingly unrelated experiences, I realized they all had something very much in common—they were enhanced or made possible by AI. That’s obvious with the museum and concert.

But the game? The plane? Yep. Many fans at the game were both watching the action while engaging in AI-enabled stats, conversation, and replays on their devices. And the plane—I had to book months in advance given the interest from younger generations who are flying AI-fueled flight simulators and watching TV series such as Masters of the Air, made possible by the (very realistic) AI-enabled action scenes.

Much of the conversation on AI has been around the work it can do and jobs it might displace. And yet...

Did you know?

Among those who reported having familiarity with their enterprise’s GenAI strategy, 83% say that their enterprises either have plans to invest in GenAI or have done so already. (Gartner, 2024)

75% of knowledge workers now use AI at work (as of June 2024). Yet, 60% of leaders worry their organization’s leadership lacks a plan and vision to implement AI. (The 2024 Annual Work Trend Index from Microsoft and LinkedIn)

70% of CX leaders say that generative AI has led their organizations to take a step back and re-evaluate their entire customer experience. (Zendesk, 2024)

See More Stats

More Insights from Brad

One of the most popular arrows in the quiver of a customer experience professional is the customer journey map. And for good reason…it’s a straightforward, effective way to visually depict a customer’s relationship with your organization.

There are countless ways to map a customer’s journey, but the goal is the same: define a specific customer persona, and visually document their experience—the end-to-end journey.

The impact of employee engagement is incredible. Engaged employees are four times more likely than non-engaged employees to go beyond what’s expected of them according to the Temkin Group, a US firm focused on customer experience.

Other studies show that when employees are engaged, quality improves, customer loyalty goes up, and employee turnover goes down.

Last Month's Edge of Service

Powerful Lessons in Innovation

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