Conversations That Matter, a podcast from Uniphore

When it comes to implementing AI in the enterprise, the focus has to be on the people, not the tech. Here to help is a designer with a passion for human centered services. She has a knack for creating experiences that improve the lives of those who use them. Joining the show this week is Co-author of Conversations with Things, and Chief Design Officer at Grand Studio, Diana Deibel!

Diana joins Host Randy Ksar to share her background with conversation design, and her motivations for helping others in the field. Diana dives into tips for leaders looking to implement AI, examples of AI in the healthcare industry, and the importance of focusing on people.

Takeaways:

• In enterprise applications, the goal of AI is to enhance efficiency and productivity, not to replace humans. Successful implementation of AI relies on prioritizing people's involvement and leveraging their abilities to reduce time-consuming tasks.
• AI has been able to revolutionize the healthcare follow up process. After patients leave the doctor, an AI agent follows up with them to record and triage their symptoms. This frees up nurses, allowing them to focus on patients who need it most.
• Healthcare leaders face numerous challenges in their AI journey, including burnout, staffing shortages, and inadequate integration of tools. Addressing these issues is crucial for successful implementation and improved efficiency in healthcare.
• The biggest question leaders need to focus on answering is what do we build vs buy. While building can allow you to address challenges more specifically, much work over the next few years will be outdated once government interoperability rolls out.
• Multimodal experiences offer enhanced interactions by combining different modes of communication, like voice and visual cues. This has significant implications in healthcare, where AI-driven surgeries and training can be more efficiently facilitated.
• This year's financial challenges have prompted businesses to optimize their limited resources, considering whether AI is the right choice for future growth and preparing for its potential implementation when conditions improve.
• Scripting conversations before designing flows is a crucial step for budding conversation designers. It helps ensure a natural rhythm and anticipate potential issues, ultimately saving time and effort in the long run.

Quote of the Show:

• “If you are going to try to launch AI in the enterprise successfully, it has to be about the people, or it's not going to go well.” - Diana Deibel

Links:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/dianadoesthis
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diana-deibel-8454b64/
• Website: https://www.dianadeibel.com/
• Website: https://www.grandstudio.com/
• Book Link: https://a.co/d/ainm9Zt
• Brave Space Alliance: https://bravespacealliance.org/

Ways to Tune In:

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conversations-that-matter-podcast-for-contact-center/id1525650658
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Xx9G8w6bntQayIpbkgxc5?si=cNeVuJicSHagsftlpL8-tg
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9jb252ZXJzYXRpb25zdGhhdG1hdHRlcnBvZGNhc3QubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M

Over the past 3 years, Conversations That Matter has featured amazing interviews with experts in CX, AI, leadership, and more. We wouldn’t be where we are without our audience, and as we plan the future of Uniphore’s podcasts, we’d love your feedback.

With the link below, you can share your thoughts about the podcasts, and what you’d like to see from future episodes.

https://bit.ly/uniphorepodcastsurvey

AI has the power to revolutionize many aspects of a business, but when you start with the solution, you fail to solve the problem. Joining the show to help leaders focus on finding the problems first is a visionary who helps amplify the voice of the customer. Please welcome to the show, Global Head of Customer Experience at Cigna, John Ward!

John sits down with Host Randy Ksar to explore the role AI plays in elevating the customer experience. John shares his methods for working with other departments, the importance of considering all metrics, and why you need to understand the problem you are facing before trying to solve it with AI.

Takeaways:

While CX leaders tend to prioritize the metrics they are directly accountable for, they need to take a more holistic approach. CX leaders need to understand other metrics, and work with other departments to align on ways they can best help each other.

The importance of collaboration with various teams and aligning on strategies is crucial for driving engagement. Leveraging customer insights and business strategy leads to improved customer experience and satisfaction.

Using AI tools, such as sentiment analysis and natural language processing, can provide valuable insights from customer feedback and improve targeted decision-making. In healthcare, large unstructured data sets can be efficiently analyzed.

Establishing an AI Center of Excellence and partnering with subject matter experts is crucial for leveraging the power of Gen AI to solve specific problems in various environments, such as contact centers and digital contexts.

The biggest risk in the realm of AI lies not in the capabilities, but in users approaching it as a solution without a clear problem in mind. Understanding the most pressing problems to solve and starting with them will lead to effective utilization of AI tools.

In the world of customer experience, there is a common belief that technology will drive the experience revolution. However, a deeper understanding of human motivations and behaviors is the true driving force, with technology merely serving as an enabling factor.

Listening to customers and nailing the basics are key to delivering a great customer experience. While innovation is important, prioritizing customer needs and focusing on foundational elements should be balanced.

Quote of the Show:

“Start with the problem.” - John Ward

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jww194/
• Website: https://www.cigna.com/

Ways to Tune In:

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conversations-that-matter-podcast-for-contact-center/id1525650658
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Xx9G8w6bntQayIpbkgxc5?si=cNeVuJicSHagsftlpL8-tg
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9jb252ZXJzYXRpb25zdGhhdG1hdHRlcnBvZGNhc3QubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M

Joining us for a special episode of Conversations That Matter is someone with a passion for employee experience. She’s a constant innovator with a knack for driving change where it matters most, and has been recognized as one of The Peak’s 2023 emerging leaders.

Welcome to the show, Suzanne Knight! Suzanne joins guest host Kim West for a deep dive into better understanding your customer’s journey. Suzanne shares the most effective ways to innovate and gather feedback, the importance of assessing internal resistance to new initiatives, and why your metrics should revolve around the customer, not the channel.

Takeaways:

• When it comes to better understanding your customer, a survey just doesn’t cut it. The best way to understand your customer is to get as close to the front line as possible, and try to experience what your customer experiences in the way they experience it..
• When stakeholders resist internal changes, it’s usually unwillingness, or inability. If push back is because they are unwilling to change, you need to help bring them along on the journey. If it’s because of inability, you need to help enable them to adapt to the change.
• When driving transformation for the customer, your work needs to be tied to the success of the customer. While it’s easy to fall in love with your solution, it’s important to not let your vision restrict you from truly addressing the customer’s needs.
• As an omnichannel business, you need to avoid siloing your metrics to your channels. By revolving your metrics around the needs of the customer regardless of channel, you create a better outcome for your business.
• The best way to gather internal feedback is to involve those who are operating in the current setup. By closely aligning your development team with the frontline team, you can design both more quickly, and more effectively.
• To improve cross department collaboration, leaders should look to democratize the visualization of work. With increased visibility, it makes it easier for other departments to get involved in projects, and help keep things flowing at an effective pace.
• A unique way to assess your customer’s wants is through their use of the search bar. When a customer searches for a product, they are telling you what they are looking for. Regular searches for a product you don’t offer is a strong indicator of what will sell well.

Quote of the Show:

• “What do we need to do to create willingness and ability to bring people along on this journey?” - Suzanne Knight

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/skknight/

Ways to Tune In:

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conversations-that-matter-podcast-for-contact-center/id1525650658
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Xx9G8w6bntQayIpbkgxc5?si=cNeVuJicSHagsftlpL8-tg
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9jb252ZXJzYXRpb25zdGhhdG1hdHRlcnBvZGNhc3QubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M

Our guest on this week’s episode is an industry leader in providing solutions that solve complex problems in both patient and consumer experience. He’s an expert at identifying key areas of implementation. Please welcome to the show, Chief Operating Officer at Eclipse Telecom, Matt Dickson!

Matt sits down with Host Randy Ksar for an in depth discussion on the challenges of implementing AI in the enterprise. Matt highlights the importance of planning for both the short and long term of your AI, the role different departments play in adoption, and how a bottom up approach to agent enablement can highlight key areas for automation.

Takeaways:

• While AI may take away a few agent jobs, it will also create more productive employees. By removing mundane tasks, agents are able to be more human and focus on being compassionate and understanding to customer’s complex issues.
• Agent enablement helps highlight areas for automation. By decreasing friction around certain tasks, you start to get a sense of which tasks are the easiest to automate. Once identified, remove them from workloads, and prepare agents for more complex tasks.
• The first step of an AI journey is education. Before implementing any solution you need to understand all the ways AI can help your business. With a holistic understanding, you create better compliance and cycles of feedback.
• A common pitfall for companies implementing AI is that they only focus on short term implementation. It’s crucial to also consider the long term goals and growth of a system, otherwise you run the risk of replacing it in a few months.
• While many departments in a company are generating buzz around AI, there are a few key drivers of implementation. Contact center leadership, Chief Experience Officers, and help desk departments are the larger drivers of AI.
• While many jobs in the contact center will stay resilient to AI, there are a few industries that are more vulnerable. Many voice actors and professional narrators are reporting lower amounts of work due to generative voice AI.
• Natural language processing and natural language understanding both require utterances, but contextualize them in different ways. NLP takes an utterance at face value, while NLU uses contextual information to better classify the utterance.

Quote of the Show:

• “I’ve always been a believer that agent experience is what creates customer experience.” - Matt Dickson

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dicksonmatt/
• Website: https://www.eclipse-telecom.com/
• Article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/05/18/seven-mistakes-to-avoid-when-leveraging-ai-in-your-customer-journey/?sh=409b47d6531a

Ways to Tune In:

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conversations-that-matter-podcast-for-contact-center/id1525650658
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Xx9G8w6bntQayIpbkgxc5?si=cNeVuJicSHagsftlpL8-tg
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9jb252ZXJzYXRpb25zdGhhdG1hdHRlcnBvZGNhc3QubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M

When a customer uses a chatbot, they aren’t just looking for a good conversation, they want solutions. Developing proper conversational AI strategies can be tricky, but fortunately we’re joined by a digital innovator who is at the forefront of improving the customer experience for his company. Joining the show this week is CX expert Martijn Franssen.

Host Randy Ksar interviews Martijn to learn more about his previous work, how to provide your customers the solutions they need, and what it takes to build a robust conversational AI team.

Takeaways:

• While technological progress can drive CX, it doesn’t define it. As new technologies come out, you should use them to increase your capabilities. But if you don’t have a strong foundational understanding of what your customers need, you won’t get far.
• Conversational AI will boost revenues when integrated with a strong omnichannel strategy. If CAI can make customers happy, they will spend more. If a chatbot knows when to transfer to a human, that rep can lean on their ability to upsell the customer.
• It’s no surprise that a good leader needs strategic ability and the power to motivate their team, but they also need to be a good storyteller. As problems arise, or you request extra resources, telling the story of how it will help will secure what you need.
• One of the most important voices to include in the design of your conversational AI is someone from customer service. As their day-to-day involves assisting customers, they know what works, what doesn’t, and the pain points that customers go through.
• Instilling a sense of inspiration in your employees will result in better customer experience. Give your employees space to grow, an environment to make their own decisions, and the ability to make actual contributions to work.
• The website for a business is like a storefront, displaying your best products. Conversational AI works like a salesperson, and allows you to find the root of your customer’s shopping experience and solve their problems at any time of the day.
• Generative AI will be able to change every channel in the omnichannel experience. These models will allow companies to provide more proactive service to customers, resulting in a reduction in unnecessary contacts.

Quote of the Show:

• “A good storyteller with a strategic mindset, who knows exactly how to explain why we need to change and in which direction. That’s an important aspect of being a leader within the digital transformation.” - Martijn Franssen

Links:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/martijnfranssen
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mfranssen/

Ways to Tune In:

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conversations-that-matter-podcast-for-contact-center/id1525650658
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Xx9G8w6bntQayIpbkgxc5?si=cNeVuJicSHagsftlpL8-tg
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9jb252ZXJzYXRpb25zdGhhdG1hdHRlcnBvZGNhc3QubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M

In the automotive industry, customer service calls are often fraught with frustration. No one calls a car dealership because their car is working as intended. Our guest this week is a leader who is responsible for making sure customers of his company enjoy their service as much as they enjoy their cars. With an extensive background in contact centers, he understands the challenges agents face, and how to best use technology to support them. Joining the show this week is Manager of Customer Care at Porsche Cars North America, Jeff Newman!

Jeff dials in from the Porsche Experience Center in Atlanta to talk with Randy Ksar about the innovations in customer experience that Porsche is providing. Jeff dives into his strategies for providing proactive customer service, the ways AI can help contact center agents, and the importance of caring for those you lead.

Takeaways:

• Many agents worry that AI will eliminate them in the call center. When a customer is frustrated, they don’t only want an answer, they want to also be understood. While an AI can solve a problem, only people can create human connections.
• When a customer calls a car manufacturer with a problem, those problems tend to be more severe than average. Understanding this, Porsche has a higher commitment to customer care, ensuring that frustrated customers see their issues resolved.
• Good customer service is reactive, great customer service is proactive. After you solve an issue for a customer, showing them something new about their product changes the interaction from a fixed problem, to a positive, deeper understanding of their product.
• Use cases for AI in the contact center go beyond chat bots. Live call transcripts that pull up knowledge base articles and highlight cues from customers allow agents to quickly access relevant information, and ensure they address all of a customer’s needs.
• While AI can help agents identify customer issues, it also helps agents highlight customer milestones. If a customer is facing an issue with their new car, AI can help the agent solve the issue and celebrate the customer’s new purchase.
• As a leader, you need to care for the people you are leading. Lead by example and provide your employees with the level of care you ask them to show clients. If you want employees to be welcoming with customers, you need to be welcoming to them first
• When measuring the success of the contact center, it’s ok to keep it simple. While NPS isn’t a perfect metric, it’s a good guideline. When you’re focused on making a frustrated customer happy, the NPS will give you a good insight into your performance.

Quote of the Show:

• “We in our organizations strive for extraordinary. Ordinary interactions and conversations are not acceptable.” - Jeff Newman

Links:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/1rudebro
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreysnewman/
• Website: https://www.porsche.com/usa/

Ways to Tune In:

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conversations-that-matter-podcast-for-contact-center/id1525650658
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Xx9G8w6bntQayIpbkgxc5?si=cNeVuJicSHagsftlpL8-tg
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9jb252ZXJzYXRpb25zdGhhdG1hdHRlcnBvZGNhc3QubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M

In a heavily regulated industry, innovation can often feel stifled, and allowing your designers creative freedom can be a challenge. Here to help inspire teams is an AI expert who is passionate about human centered design. She’s a skilled leader who guides a team of designers and writers on their journey to create more personalized experiences, allowing her company to implement new strategies to best serve customers with AI. Joining the show this week is SVP, Experience Design Director - NLU & Emerging Experiences at Truist, Alex Misiaszek!

Alex shares her tips for establishing better workflows with your product and tech teams, how to find creative freedom in a heavily regulated industry, and what the future of conversational interfaces could hold.

Takeaways:

• A common sentiment around AI is that it is a new technology that is advancing too quickly. In reality, AI powered tools have been in place since the early 1990’s. The increase in social media has allowed people to only recently catch up to speed.
• AI in the banking industry is still a growing technology, which is a double edged sword. On one hand, there is not as much in place compared to other industries. The benefit of this is that it allows you to innovate and be more flexible in design.
• A good northstar for conversational AI in the banking industry is to focus on providing your customers service in the channel they prefer. Instead of trying to get customers to conform to your conventions, meet them where they are.
• Rules and regulations are important for any industry, but you need to allow your designers a bit of freedom. Give them room to design and innovate without them limiting themselves. Once their designs make it further up the chain, then you can scale back.
• In the banking industry, it’s common to inherit a roadmap and need to go from there. If you can partner closely with your tech and product teams, you can provide influence so that future roadmaps are more closely aligned with your current work.
• While it’s useful to draw inspiration from peers within your industry, you can inadvertently end up limiting yourself. By analyzing other industries, you can adapt new and innovative models to a new application, separating yourself from your competitors.
• The general public has readily adopted AI tools like Chat GPT, Siri, and Alexa. When looking towards the future of their conversational interfaces, brands should seek to implement similar tools, creating a sense of familiarity for their customers.

Quote of the Show:

• “We just want to meet clients where they are and enable them to accomplish their task easily and efficiently and in whatever modality they choose.” - Alex Misiaszek

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amisiaszek/
• Website: https://www.truist.com/

Events:

• CXFS: https://cxfinance.wbresearch.com/
• CX BSFI: https://www.cxnetwork.com/events-customer-experience-exchange-bfsi-east

Ways to Tune In:

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conversations-that-matter-podcast-for-contact-center/id1525650658
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Xx9G8w6bntQayIpbkgxc5?si=cNeVuJicSHagsftlpL8-tg
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9jb252ZXJzYXRpb25zdGhhdG1hdHRlcnBvZGNhc3QubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M

Measuring success of conversational AI can be as challenging as implementing it. Even if you have a clear definition of a metric, the interactions behind those numbers offer a different story. To help make sense, we’re joined by a catalyst for growth who offers strategic clarity. He’s an AI expert who drives an excellent customer experience through conversational AI. Joining the show this week is Vice President and Sr. Digital Product Manager of Conversational AI at Citizens Bank, Bill Hawks. Bill dispels some AI myths and explains why AI shouldn’t be looked at as a tool to replace agents, why customer recontact can be a good thing, and how to get your customers to both the right channel and the right agent.

Takeaways:

• With the rise of generative AI, implementing chatbots has gotten more difficult. With any model there is a required amount of training and hand holding from an internal team. With the high level of regulation banks face, their chatbots need more guidance.
• When looking to implement generative AI into your chatbots, consider not just how advanced the tech is, but also your own preparedness. Generative AI works well for brands who have a pre-existing foundation to build off of.
• Chatbot containment is a common KPI, but it doesn't paint the full picture. If a chatbot “contains” a customer with no hand off but doesn’t provide the answer, the customer will still need to utilize other channels, spending both time and money.
• A good omnichannel experience sends customers to the right channel, and the right agent. Sending customers to an agent who prefers and excels at solving those problems results in a better solution for the customer, and a more enjoyable task for the agent.
• Recontact rate is a good metric to track, but it’s not always negative. A customer who locks a lost bank card, and then unlocks it once found has recontacted you, but for the right reasons. Contextualizing your data is crucial to understanding the numbers.
• Omni channel does not mean having multiple siloed channels. To create a truly unified experience, your different channels need to be connected and able to provide context to each other.
• AI is not about eliminating human agents, but rather eliminating repetitive tasks from those agents. By freeing up your agents, you allow them to focus more on the situations that require human interaction and to better connect with customers.

Quote of the Show:

• “I would love to see our contact center continually transform to an advice center and a life event center.” - Bill Hawks

Links:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHawks
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billhawks/
• Website: https://www.citizensbank.com/
• Ego Is The Enemy: https://www.amazon.com/Ego-Enemy-Ryan-Holiday/dp/1591847818

Ways to Tune In:

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conversations-that-matter-podcast-for-contact-center/id1525650658
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Xx9G8w6bntQayIpbkgxc5?si=cNeVuJicSHagsftlpL8-tg
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9jb252ZXJzYXRpb25zdGhhdG1hdHRlcnBvZGNhc3QubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M

When your customers utilize your mobile app to handle their financials, redeem benefits, and book travel, you need to design with intent. This week on Conversations That Matter, we’re joined by a mobile expert with over 10 years of experience. As the head of a team whose products are used by millions of customers, he knows firsthand the importance of a stellar customer experience. We’re eager to welcome to the show, Jose Quesada, the Vice President of Global Mobile Products at American Express. Jose joins host Randy Ksar to discuss CX innovations in mobile apps, how to use AI to proactively provide solutions, and where the best dim sum restaurant in London is.

Takeaways:

• The hardest part of creating a great mobile experience is driving engagement. Because of how crowded the marketplace is, you have a lot of competition. If you want users to use your app, they need to be able to efficiently get to the resources they seek.
• A good north star for mobile apps is customer satisfaction as satisfied customers drive higher revenues. Customer satisfaction is a combination of providing users with the answers they want, through the channels they want to receive them in.
• The utility of a financial app has evolved beyond just a way to pay your bills or check your balance. As users may now check benefits, book travel, or make investments, your customer experience needs to revolve around all aspects of the app.
• A good customer experience means enabling your customers to choose their channel of help. When you are working in a centralized hub like a mobile app, you need self service resources, chat bots, and access to human agents all in one place.
• By training an AI on search and chat data, you get to the core of what your customers want. By contextualizing that data around problems, you can work proactively, providing better solutions to customers before they have to ask for them.
• People are using voice to interact with devices more frequently, and a conversational UI is an emerging element. In the near future, instead of hitting “pay bill”, users may talk with their financial app to navigate features.
• Building a great search feature requires more than just resource docs. You need to provide users with a path to follow to fix their problem, not just provide them the information on how to fix the problem.

Quote of the Show:

• “We try to serve our customers in their channel of choice.” - Jose Quesada

Links:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/JQuesadaM
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josequesadamedina/
• Website: https://www.americanexpress.com/

Ways to Tune In:

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conversations-that-matter-podcast-for-contact-center/id1525650658
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Xx9G8w6bntQayIpbkgxc5?si=cNeVuJicSHagsftlpL8-tg
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9jb252ZXJzYXRpb25zdGhhdG1hdHRlcnBvZGNhc3QubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M