Barry has worked in various senior roles in the telecommunication industry for over 30 years gaining huge experience nationally and internationally in contact centre operations, outsourced solutions and sales operations.
Presentation Title: Don’t Press for Service
Synopsis:
My presentation focuses on the hypothesis that customers prefer to have their problems dealt with speedily and easily rather than trying to navigate their way through traditional complex Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR) systems. More often than not customers end up frustrated by not getting to speak directly to anyone and if they do get to speak to a live agent they invariable have to repeat everything. I argue that speaking to a computer (a virtual assistant) that answers immediately and can actually help is a far better outcome for the customer and the organisation can benefit by being more cost effective with the added bonus of improving customer satisfaction scores. I suggest that companies should seek to automate high volume transactions, typically handled by contact centre agents around the globe, as an alternative to satisfying labour arbitrage ambitions. The opportunities presented with the advancements in Natural Language Understanding (NLU)/Natural Language Processing (NLP), Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) together with an increased focus on Robotics Process Automation (RPA) combine to open up many new possibilities for customer service organisations.
