The CC/CX Industry Update - Vol 14

Hi Everyone,

It's here the Disrupt 2023 special edition!

Just like when I attend GSummit 2022 I will dedicate this edition to what I perceived the key takeaways from the event were both from the presentations and chats I had on the floor, this is not a blow by blow account of the day. If you attended I'd be keen to hear your highlight from the day and if you didn't get a chance to attend I would definitely recommend you do in 2024 but I hope you find this entertaining nonetheless!

Scene 1:

Scene: (A dystopian vision of the future? Economic turmoil. War. Natural Catastrophe. People breaking down in anguish.)

Nope it's not a Netflix trailer it was the opening video to Disrupt 2023 which looked like George Orwell had a hand in it. Very striking!

Stuart Dorman from Sabio was a fun, brave and engaging host for the opening segments of the event. This is the 6th year of Disrupt and they clearly wanted to set the context for the discussion of CX and AI within this current period of turbulent history we're experiencing.

Key topics in the first hour were reducing friction, seamless handovers between customer journey points, true digital transformation not infrastructure modernisation, extracting value from existing tech and that voice is very much a digital channel. The clear overall message is the benefit that AI working in conjunction with a human can bring to CX works for the customer, the agent and the employer but it starts with getting your transformation right. Looking back to the data organisation, cloud facilities and then into AI.

ChatGPT and OpenAI

I doubt anyone would have bet that this wouldn't make an appearance at Disrupt this year. Seb Reeve from Microsoft gave an excellent presentation to explain the journey so far to reach the current state of ChatGPT, what it can and cant do and a little bit of what MS will be bringing to Teams very soon (I'm personally very excited about this bit!). Nuance also has some interesting bot building innovations coming out which could create small waves in that jobs market.

Worth mentioning here that Loveholidays gave some very impressive stats about what they have achieved in their call centre using conversational AI over the last 3 years. Great work and I'm sure though provoking for companies in the room. I thought Eugene Neale brought the rose tinted history of great face to face customer service into a modern AI driven reality well by highlighting what's achievable now with conversational AI.

Disruption of the Workplace

Bruce Daisley the author of Fortitude gave an excellent presentation which covered remote working, building a company culture and the power of top talent to influence workplace trends. As a recruiter I have seen what he was describing play out first hand.

The average person saves 72 minutes per day working from home - Bruce Daisley

The pandemic period naturally forms the catalyst for a lot of the CX transformation happening right now and this talk made it clear that those who understand people and business culture see this "new normal" as something we need to adapt to and become comfortable with. The takeaway here is that regardless of what those with a vested interest have to say, WFH is here to stay.

True Disruption at Disrupt

If I'm truly highlighting the takeaways from the event then I cant ignore a moment of truth and disruption that happened midway through the panel discussion section. A panel discussion on Diversity in Technology was held by five white women, of similar seniorities in business. This did not sit well with two members of the audience who, I think bravely and respectfully, made this clear when the time came for questions after the panel.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with what the panel discussed and when I discussed this incident with my wife later (she works in technology) she said that it was encouraging to hear so many successful, senior women in technology given this platform to talk about their challenges and journeys.

However does that panel represent diversity and inclusion?

Tech Track (Sorry People Track)

Right up until the event I couldn't decide which of the early afternoon groups to join and my decision was only made by speaking to a friend who waxed lyrical about the quality of speakers on the Tech Track (he was right!). However apologies to the People Track as in truth I would loved to attend either/both.

The team from Sabio and Makepositive discussed various points including

• business readiness for CC/CX transformation
• alignment of employee experience with CX and ROI for the business
• the do's and dont's of CRM implementation
• what AI /agent assist may and may not replace

Overall it was a session supporting good discovery and analysis (great news for the BAs reading this) which leads to a productive partnership with your chosen supplier/vendor.

"Playing the unplayable piano"

I'm a fan of Tim Harford OBE podcast Cautionary Tales so I was excited to see him speak. As you'd expect from Disrupt he was here to challenge people/businesses to disrupt their comfortable, normal, boring processes to see if this would force them or inspire them to find better ways.

The enemy of creative work is boredom - Brian Eno

He's a gifted story teller so using anecdotes from various sources inspired us to engage with disruption, as it will come anyway, rather than shy away from it. However we need to accept up front that being disrupted feels uncomfortable and we may not think we're doing our best work even when we are so proper measurement is key. This feeds in to the change to a WFH culture, digital CX, AI agent assist and so many other topics from the day.

When considering your CX transformation, are you disrupting your processes and feeling uncomfortable?

A rightly emotional ending

We started with Michael Bays video explosion showing the end of the world unless we get customer experience right. Some excellent presenters reassured us that proper planning, good discovery, reviewing/disrupting and improving processes will all mean correct implementation of AI to a problem rather than technology itself being the end goal. ChatGPT cant take over the world because it hallucinates (unless you ask it not to). On a few occasions I thought there was too much reliance on old school NPS and CSAT to illustrate customer sentiment and we should be moving to more contemporary methods but that's a small point. There was true disruption and emotion.

After a huge amount of thought provoking content it was nice to see Andy Roberts from Vice-Chairman from Sabio wish his wife a happy 20th wedding anniversary (congratulations both!) on the stream and although in other events this may have felt out of place here where so many people spoke truthfully and about truth it was a rightly emotional point.

Well done to the marketing team at Sabio and I look forward to 2024.

Turkey and Syria

When I wasn't enjoying this event I was stunned at the unfolding events in Turkey and Syria. If you, like me, want to help then I have used this space to provide a link to the Red Cross fundraising appeal. Please give what you can.

Thanks for reading and sharing. James