CX Pulse Podcast | Insights on Customer Experience, AI, WFM, Customer Service, Customer Satisfaction & Contact Centers

Workforce management is a critical component of any contact center operation. It is responsible for ensuring that the right number of agents are available to handle customer inquiries and managing schedule adherence, performance tracking, and capacity planning. While workforce management systems optimize efficiency and productivity, how can they benefit the entire organization?

In this episode, Amelia talks with Sean Ilenrey, Vice President of Support at Dutchie. Sean is an award-winning executive with over 20 years of experience in the Customer Relationship industry (Customer Care, SaaS, Sales, Retail, Real Estate, Restaurants, and Pharmaceuticals). He has built and managed several departments domestically, in Latin America, and in the Philippines.

Having worked for several Fortune 500 accounts at the Director & VP levels, Sean talks about how to build a successful relationship between contact center operations and workforce management. He also speaks about the ultimate goal of workforce management, its impact on the entire organization, and the top four factors that influence net promoter scores.

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This last part of Amelia's favorite moments from the previous episodes features episode 18, where she tapped into the knowledge of Donna Fluss, Founder and President of DMG Consulting. Here, Donna shares the specific findings of her research, which spanned over seven years and revealed contact center and servicing priorities and investment plans for 2022.

To know more about the DMG report, Customer Experience, Contact Center and Servicing Priorities and Investment Plans, tune in to CX Pulse Podcast episode 18, Top Contact Center Investments in 2022.

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This second part of Amelia's favorite moments and thought-provoking takeaways from her CX Pulse conversations highlights how AI made its way into contact centers and why organizations should embrace AI. In episode 15, Contact Center and AI: Making Real-World Progress, Keith Dawson shed light on the best practices and opportunities for contact centers, from making agents' jobs more streamlined to providing solutions for marketing and sales.

Tune in and listen to episode 15 of the CX Pulse podcast to learn more about the impact of AI in contact centers and the many ways AI can be used in the future of the contact center industry.

Keith Dawson is the Vice President & Research Director, Customer Experience at Ventana Research. He leads the expertise in Customer Experience technologies (CX), covering systems that facilitate engagement and allow businesses to influence and optimize their customer-facing operation.

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This episode is part one of the 3-part bonus episode where Amelia sourced some of her favorite moments and thought-provoking takeaways from the previous episodes. In Episode 21, Omer Minkara, VP and Principal Analyst at Aberdeen, talks about the Building Blocks to Boost Agent Retention & Performance. Passionate about all things CX, Omer explains how many channels agents can be responsible for and why agent retention should be a major focus, even as we become increasingly digital.

Tune in to learn more about why prioritizing agents is the best action to make it through the most turbulent shifts of the great resignation and simultaneously strengthen the contact center’s approach to digital transformation.

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Digital transformation is top of mind for companies across industries as they seek to remain competitive in an increasingly digital era. For many, this means turning to automation to unlock new efficiencies and drive better customer experiences (CX).

In today's episode, Wayne Butterfield sits with Amelia Rose Earhart to talk about all things automation. They take a big picture view of the technological advancements and how to unlock new opportunities in CX.

Wayne Butterfield is an automation pioneer, initially starting as an early adopter of RPA in 2010 and creating one of the first enterprise-scale RPA operations. As the Global Head of Intelligent Automation Solutions at ISG Automation, Wayne is responsible for helping organizations leverage Automation Technologies, such as RPA, NLP, OCR, and Virtual Agents, for creating efficiency and improving the customer/employee experience.

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In a highly competitive business environment, organizations must keep up with the ever-changing customer journey. To stay relevant, proactive CX has become a focus of attention. That means taking measures to prevent problems before they occur instead of waiting for customers to come to you with complaints. But how can organizations take proactive CX to positively impact all aspects of customer service?

Melanie Turek joins Amelia in today's conversation. Melanie is the VP of Research for Digital Transformation and Connected Work of Frost and Sullivan. Today, Melanie talks about what proactive CX is, how companies use it, and how organizations can take proactive steps with their data.

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Data is increasingly becoming a key differentiator for brands. Today, a new breed of "data rich and famous" brands is emerging, and these brands are using data in innovative ways to create exceptional customer experiences. With the advent of big data, how can brands organize, leverage, and harness the power of data to transform the CX landscape?

In this episode, Omer Minkara joins Amelia for the second time. And today, Omer talks about Aberdeen Strategy & Research's recent study on the "data rich and famous," what makes a business "data rich" and savvy, and what the six building blocks are for organizing big data.

Omer Minkara is the Vice President & Principal Analyst of Aberdeen Strategy & Research. In his role, Omer is tracking and reporting the key trends and best practices in customer experience management, contact center, and e-commerce. Through a combination of prior experience, skills in financial and data analysis, and passion, Omer helps organizations build and maintain profitable customer relationships and reduce unnecessary costs.

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The recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have led to the development of conversational AI, which is responsible for powering chatbots and other similar technologies. This technology is revolutionizing how we interact with computers, making more natural and human-like conversations possible. What are some use cases of conversational AI, and how is this technology revolutionizing the CX industry?

In this episode, our guest, Craig Kennedy, discusses why conversational AI is gaining traction and attention, how the CX industry has adopted this technology, and where conversational AI is heading in the future.

Craig Kennedy is the Sr. Director of Research at Aragon Research. He is also the Lead Analyst for conversational AI and digital operations, including areas like security cloud infrastructure. Aragon Research provides research and advisory services to businesses and IT executives ranging from startups to some of the largest enterprises in the world.

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In today's world, consumer expectations evolve tremendously. Businesses go above and beyond to keep up with the challenge and create a memorable customer experience. One way they do this is through journey orchestration, a process that creates personalized, real-time customer experiences across all channels and touchpoints. How can companies design, manage, and optimize the customer journey to create the best possible experience?

In this episode, Amelia talks with Julio Hernandez about journey orchestration. Julio discusses customer orchestration, how orchestration fits into a company's CX strategy, and the core capabilities companies need to support this practice.

Julio Hernandez is the Global Lead of Customer Center of Excellence and US Customer Advisory Practice Lead at KPMG. He focuses on helping organizations think about how to engage the marketplace and attract, convert and keep customers to fuel profitable growth. He also works with businesses from across the globe to help them design and deliver relevant customer experiences that drive engagement and result in sustainable customer relationships.

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It's been shown time and time again that happy agents lead to happy customers, and happy customers lead to increased loyalty and customer lifetime value. As the customer experience is the new battleground for companies, agent experience is just as important to a company's overall success. So what does it take to create a great agent experience?

In this episode, Amelia is joined by Blair Pleasant, President & Principal Analyst at COMMfusion. Blair will share her expertise about why agent experience is essential to a company's overall success, what motivates agents to deliver their best, and what organizations can do to improve employee experience and engagement.

Blair Pleasant is an independent industry analyst with over 20 years of experience, providing market insights and analysis on business communications markets and technologies for end-user and vendor clients. At COMMfusion, Blair provides insights, analysis, and consulting services to help the vendor and end-user clients develop ongoing strategies and tactics in the evolving business communications arena.

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