Time for a CX Jam Session

I went for a run last Sunday in my futile attempt to counter the dietary impact of the foot-long hot dog and nachos from the previous day.?My mind was not willing to absorb the audiobook I’ve been enjoying (Chernow’s biography of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Titan), so I turned on the shuffle for my downloaded music library instead. As wave after wave of those old familiar songs drenched my brain, my thoughts were set adrift.?

Truly, music is the universal storytelling medium of humankind. It connects the human experience with a vivid thread of genius woven through culture, language, and time. For most people, our music tastes are defined by the music we enjoyed when we came of age and we often find ourselves pouring those old familiar tunes on our turbulent minds as an oil on water.?

It’s common to lament modern music as a lesser art compared to the giants that dwell in our memories from bygone days, but memories can be tricky things. As a Gen Xer, I could wax on at length about how the musical era from about 1977 to 1989 was the pinnacle of musical creativity and genius unrivaled in the annuls of history. I would be wrong, but man… could I sell it with example after example after example.?

Where our memories lead us astray is that our memories have distilled those past decades of music into a tight playlist of our favorite songs. During the 1980s, for example, hundreds of thousands of songs were written in English (my native language), many more were written in other languages, and even more were written without lyrics at all. I challenge fans of 80s music to go back and listen – really listen – to some of the music that is no longer played or remembered. Sure, you’ll find a few forgotten gems, but you will mostly find hours upon hours of unlistenable garbage. The passage of time sifts the discography of an age into a curated selection of the best music that delights the ears and lifts the soul.?

For this reason, too many of us are not willing to wade through the reems of contemporary musical twaddle to find those gems to add to our personal rotation. It’s a lot of work, right? It took me decades to refine my playlist to the pinnacle of musical excellence. Why would I want to go through that pain again? Just roll The Joshua Tree again and leave me alone.?

But we should go through that effort and pain again. Why? Because there is some truly great music being produced today. It will take some work to tune out the noise to hear it, but it’s there. I promise. It’s worth the work to find it.?

The tendency for one’s personal soundtrack to become sclerotic is indicative of our intrinsic human resistance to change. It takes effort and work to try new things. We already know what we like and what works, so why put forth the effort??

Is this not also too often the stance we take with our CX technologies? I know. It may be a bit of a stretch, but is it? We get comfortable with our reports and dashboards; the way we adjust routing; the agent performance metrics; the maintenance schedule; the familiar flow of interactions; the automation we built over time. It’s familiar. It’s comfortable. It works just fine, so leave it alone.?

We’ve forgotten the years of bumpy projects, irregular software patches, stressful go-live mornings, and thousands of hours it took to curate the platform into the perfectly tuned masterpiece that it is. We don’t want to go through that again. Why would we? It works.?

Well, we should because there is some unbelievable CX technology out there that will deliver fantastic outcomes for your customers, employees, and business stakeholders. Things like Conversational AI, big data analytics, intuitive journey orchestration, gamification, AI-infused agent assistance, and more are making real impacts for customers and employees.?

There is also a lot of garbage out there. This is especially true in times of economic stress when companies are willing to over-commit their capabilities out of desperation. It will take some time, work, and even a little pain to sift through the noise to find those gems that will make your contact center gleam. But it is sooooooooooooo worth it. CX technology has made gigantic leaps in the past three years.

The good news is that unlike updating your music collection, you don’t have to do it alone. We at Waterfield Tech spend our days listening to all of the bad music so that we can bring you a curated portfolio of the good stuff. Come talk to us for a CX jam session.??