The Evaluagent Contact Center Performance Summit 2024: Our Highlights

On the 16th of October this year, The Contact Center Performance Summit brought together industry leaders and innovators for a day filled with insightful keynotes, engaging panel sessions, and invaluable networking opportunities in the contact centre market.

The event showcased an impressive array of discussions aimed at enhancing contact centre performance, diving into essential aspects such as people management, process optimisation, and cutting-edge technology.

Most importantly, the summit focused on strategies to continually delight customers in the upcoming year and beyond. Lets explore the key takeaways and expert insights from the event…

AI Will Only Get Better From Here

Erica Farmer, Co-Founder and Business Director of Quantum Rise Talent Group, kicked off the summit with a thought-provoking statement: “AI is at its worst right now.“

This bold observation captured the excitement and anticipation surrounding artificial intelligence, especially in contact centres.

As companies like Microsoft and OpenAI rapidly release model updates, it’s clear that we’re just beginning to scratch the surface of AI’s potential.

“We need to get into a space where we embrace these changes,” Farmer urged, “and also recognise the opportunities and creativity required to work with AI effectively.”

This perspective highlights that AI is not a magic solution but a collaborative tool that can automate routine tasks, improve decision-making, and empower employees to focus on complex, rewarding customer interactions.

If contact centres invest in both technology training and workforce development, they will be able to fully harness the potential of AI as a valuable new “colleague”.

In a Competitive Market, Embracing AI is Essential

Another key point Farmer made was how crucial it is for companies to get on board with AI technology, especially in today’s cutthroat market. She warned: “If you’re not doing this stuff, I guarantee your competitors already are.”

With everyone scrambling to stay ahead, it’s vital for contact centres to keep innovating and weave AI into their operations to stay relevant and meet customer demands.

AI can be used right now in contact centres by taking care of repetitive tasks and boosting data processing, which means teams can focus more on meaningful interactions with customers, which is essential for building brand loyalty and trust – two things that take time to cultivate but can be lost in a flash if not managed well.

She stressed that “we have to be clear and consistent” when explaining AI’s role in customer interactions to both employees and customers, pointing out that transparency is key to maintaining trust.

Contact centres that embrace AI now will be the ones ahead of the game, creating stronger connections with their customers and locking in their competitive edge in the market.

Anticipate Customer Needs Before They Have to Ask

According to Ben Cave, Product Director of evaluagent, contact centres are increasingly shifting their focus towards predicting customer needs rather than simply reacting to their inquiries.

As AI technology continues to advance, contact centres are automating routine tasks, such as compliance checks, and empowering their QA teams to delve deeper into customer intelligence.

“We are starting to see forward-looking contact centres assign their QA team to digging into customer intelligence,” Cave explained.

“Increasingly, what they are doing is they’re taking that time that they would have been filling in those forms, and they’re looking at things like, what were the reasons for contact?”

Using AI, contact centres can now predict the reasons for contact, enabling their QA teams to proactively address potential issues and improve customer satisfaction.

This shift towards proactive customer service is transforming the role of QA professionals, who are becoming “investigators, journalists, data scientists, and analysts” within their organisations.

All Customer Experiences Will be Unique

Cave also highlighted the importance of personalised customer experiences. He emphasised that AI can be trained to provide tailored responses based on the behaviour of top-performing agents, ensuring that customers receive the best possible assistance.

Additionally, incorporating human expertise into the training process can further enhance the capabilities of AI-powered chatbots and voicebots. “We want them to give the A-star answer to the exam,” Cave said. “And that’s what an evaluation, our predictive metrics, are allowing chatbots to do.“

Human Agents Will Soon Become a Premium Service

As AI continues to automate many aspects of customer service, Cave suggested that human agents may soon become a premium offering.

“We think that in the future, as the work of QA becomes fully automated through systems like evaluation, that people will start to switch over to that conversation intelligence side, and will begin driving the kind of added value which businesses increasingly expect to see from their professionals within the contact centre,” Cave concluded.

Call Centres Spend too Much Unnecessary Time as “Friction Finders”

Katie Stabler, Founder & Customer Experience Expert of CULTIVATE, began her talk by highlighting a common customer service challenge: call centres often waste time identifying endless customer problems without ever getting to the root of certain issues – and cautioned that this reactive approach can often hinder innovation.

“Buried beneath fixes, we miss opportunities to innovate,” she warned. Instead, Stabler urged contact centres to become proactive “insight drivers and experience enhancers,” focusing instead on improvement and progress.

Prioritise the Customer Experience

Stabler also emphasised the strategic importance of prioritising customer experience, and that all of the most successful call centre companies in the world have made this a top priority.

“This prioritisation enabled them to invest in customer experience and adopt a future-thinking approach,” she noted. “They focus on solutions that enhance customer experience and disrupt the industry.

Stabler stressed the need for businesses to understand the benefits of customer experience and demonstrate its ROI. This is crucial – not just words on a page, but a cultural imperative.”

You Cannot Deliver a Great Customer Experience Without Providing a Great Employee Experience

In her concluding thoughts, Stabler emphasised the connection between employee and customer experience: happy employees often lead to happy customers – and the right tools can empower teams to create exceptional experiences and foster a culture of excellence.

Beyond the keynote speeches, the summit featured a range of workshops and panel discussions that delved deeper into specific topics.

One such workshop, led by Rob Wilkinson and Simon Poland from evaluagent, focused on how to lay the foundations for a successful AI roll-out. This session provided attendees with practical guidance on implementing AI solutions effectively.

Another highlight was the keynote by Martin Teasdale, who explored the evolving roles of team leaders and agents in the AI-driven contact centre and offered valuable insights on how to support employees during this transition.

A panel discussion moderated by Michelle Dinsmore, also from evaluagent, addressed the future of the contact centre beyond 2025. And finally, Scott Stephenson from Deepgram delivered a keynote on “Unlocking voice insights: The key to call centre transformation.”

His presentation emphasised the importance of leveraging voice data to drive improvements in customer experience and operational efficiency.

As the event came to a close, the key takeaways were clear –

• Contact centres are using AI to automate routine tasks, improve customer satisfaction, and gain valuable insights from customer interactions, with first movers already seeing an advantage.
• Training employees on its effective use can transform mere business call centres into more efficient, customer-centric powerhouses.

For more event highlights from thought leaders like these around the world, as well as the latest call centre and BPO reports, specialist whitepapers and other interesting case-studies don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter.

Author: Stephanie Lennox
Reviewed by: Xander Freeman