Brian Blackader: Tell me a little bit about your background, how you got involved in conversational AI, and what specifically brought you to Parloa.
Chris Silver: I have been in the customer experience, conversational AI, and CCaaS [contact center as a service] spaces for just over a decade, working with some of the largest global enterprises in the world. Over the past five years, there has been a significant shift with a major adoption of these technologies by larger organizations. Typically, large organizations are a bit slower in the adoption phase, but due to the increasing impact and maturity of the technology, the adoption has been happening at a large scale.
What was particularly exciting to me was witnessing the future of this field and the rapid pace at which both our customers and their customers were adopting the technology. This revolutionary shift in customer experience is something I knew I had to be a part of.
Brian Blackader: What advantage do European organizations have over others in the conversational AI market?
Chris Silver: European organizations have an advantage in understanding the importance of regulations to be successful from the outset. They must comprehend how they are servicing their customers and navigate the varying regulations from country to country. When this understanding is integrated into the core of your technology, data handling, regulatory compliance, and necessary certifications, it sets the foundation for easier scaling and servicing of global enterprises. This is in contrast to organizations that focus on a single country, which may not have the same level of regulatory insight built into their platform.
Brian Blackader: What are you hearing from your clients as they explore the opportunity for agentic AI in conversational AI?
Chris Silver: Many of our conversations revolve around not only the art of the possible but also the know-how of how to achieve it. It is not solely about deploying the technology or understanding its features and functionalities; it also involves the necessary internal process changes to make the technology effective. Evaluating success is another critical aspect, as significant changes are required to deploy conversational AI.
Ultimately, the key to success is the adoption by our customers’ customers. They need to embrace the technology during their interactions to realize the intended impact.
Brian Blackader: What do you think rewiring the customer call center will look like?
Chris Silver: When rewiring the call center, agentic AI transforms one-directional branch-logic conversations into more dynamic and interactive dialogues. It provides the ability to predict and proactively address customer needs, even before the customer is aware of them. This shift in the service industry allows for more effective customer experience management. Additionally, within the same conversation, agentic AI can identify opportunities to convert a service interaction into a sales or profit conversation. By offering dynamic alternatives, it can turn a call or chat into a cross-sell, upsell, or renewal opportunity, providing the customer with additional value.
Brian Blackader: A recent McKinsey survey found that 31 percent of organizations are still stuck in single-point pilots. What are some of the steps you see as critical for organizations to get past this challenging hump?
Chris Silver: Something I observe frequently is that companies seeking to implement AI technologies often begin with low-complexity use cases. These do not truly provide the confidence needed to envision a large-scale application across various topics.
What we recommend is focusing on medium-complexity use cases. This approach allows for early indications of return on investment and provides a more natural progression for future developments. It is crucial to avoid starting too small, as that can make it difficult to determine the next steps. Starting with a medium level, on the other hand, makes the path forward clearer and leads to quicker success.
Brian Blackader: We hear a lot about AI not being empathetic or nuanced. Do you think this is true? How can leaders overcome this hypothesis about automation taking the human understanding out of the equation?
Chris Silver: The intriguing aspect of agentic AI and current technologies is that it goes beyond mere deployment. There is an art and a psychological component to it. This is particularly evident in how these prompts are constructed. Consider the AI agent as a human entity that needs to be guided and shaped in its thinking.
This is achieved through various methods, not only through the language used in the agent's actions but also through the technology's ability to interpret sentiment, tone shifts, and changes in the pace of the conversation. These elements serve as indicators that allow the AI agent to form hypotheses about the customer's emotional state.
Brian Blackader: How do you think AI is driving the opportunity for call centers and customer care to shift from cost savings to revenue-driving business partners?
Chris Silver: Companies must adapt internally to prepare for this integration. Traditionally, there is a clear division between customer experience, service, and sales, which needs to be bridged. A level of comfort with this integration will be essential moving forward.
Profitability in customer interactions can be enhanced by leveraging the technology and its integrations to identify trigger events. Once the initial issue or problem is resolved, the customer is in an ideal position to consider additional offers, such as upgrades, new purchases, or service renewals, ensuring continuous revenue.
Brian Blackader: What does the future of customer care look like to you?
Chris Silver: The future of customer care will see a convergence of all channels and interaction points. Consumers desire a cohesive experience and do not want to encounter different experiences based on the reason for their interaction or the channel they use.
They also do not want to navigate multiple routes to engage with a company. This unified, multimodal experience will be key to the future of customer experience, influencing how platforms and technologies in this space operate. It will understand the customer’s identity, history, and preferences, and proactively provide resolutions, whether through inbound or outbound interactions, to minimize the customer’s focus on their dealings with the company.
AI technologies should not be viewed as isolated solutions. Instead, they should be considered as foundational platforms that will impact every aspect of technology as we know it today.
