AI is providing companies with compelling automations to CX staffing and management, and Metrigy’s latest research documents significant, measurable improvements. Join Robin Gareiss, Metrigy’s CEO and author of the new AI for Business Success global study, to learn:

• How is AI affecting new hires and layoffs? What new positions are companies adding?
• How does AI affect after-call work?
• Where are supervisors seeing WFM improvements, and how extensive are they?
• What are the real-world improvements for agent assist, in CSAT, sales, AHT, and more?

AI Masterclass Ep. 1: How to Make AI Impact Staffing and Management

Presented by: Robin Gareiss, CEO and Principal Analyst, Metrigy

Date: February 27, 2024
Time: 11:00 am ET

Any business process outsourcer (BPO) that hasn’t yet adopted AI technologies and AI-empowered automation and/or considers AI to be a low-priority investment, needs a strategic reset. In Metrigy’s research, those BPOs that have already embraced the use of AI report significant revenue growth, increased agent efficiency, and improvements in customer ratings—the value cannot be understated!

Join Metrigy’s Robin Gareiss, CEO and Principal Analyst, and Tom Stanley, NICE BPO Regional Vice President, for research-backed insights on how BPOs are employing or planning to use AI and automation to advance operational success. Discover what’s working well, and what needs improving.

You’ll come away with key insights on:

• Which AI technologies are having the greatest impact on CX success
• The value in taking an AI-powered approach to workforce management
• The use of workforce automation for improved agency efficiency

AI & Automation: Setting the Stage for a BPO’s CX Success

Presented by: Robin Gareiss, CEO and Principal Analyst, Metrigy
Tom Stanley, NICE BPO Regional Vice President

Date: February 22, 2024
Time: 11:00 am ET

As companies look to improve the agent experience, develop strong customer relationships, and otherwise optimize around customer experience (CX), the increasingly common assumption is that artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are givens. Today, companies leading on CX understand this to mean, specifically, the adoption of generative AI capabilities. They’re drawn to the technology for its promise of enabling them to streamline processes and offload cumbersome tasks for everyone involved in customer interactions. Those companies that haven’t yet explored the use of generative AI could quickly find themselves on the wrong side of the gap between the technology haves and the technology have-nots.

To keep ahead on CX advancements, companies should:

• Get up to speed on generative AI, vetting vendors not only on their specific product plans, but also on how they use customer data, which Large Language Models (LLMs) they use, how they’re cultivating trust, and how they’re charging for generative AI.
• Identify where processes are breaking down and creating pain points, such as lack of insight, agent inefficiency, and prolonged time to resolution. Think about applying generative AI to address these pain points, and plan proofs of concept.
• Educate agents, supervisors, and customers on how they’re using generative AI and how each role is benefiting. Focus too, on data privacy and trust, and response accuracy.
• Establish processes that enable the ability to capitalize on generative AI capabilities as they become available. Account for budget, usage policies, security and privacy, rollout, continuous improvement, change management, and so on.

Download full report at cresta.com.

Innovation will be swift, causing some necessary breaks for consumers to catch up.

With all the hype around artificial intelligence over the past few years, you’d think we would be tired of AI and moving on to the next big thing in customer experience (CX) by now. However, per our sneak peek at Metrigy’s upcoming research study, AI for Business Success 2024-25, 2024 will be a banner year for AI in terms of company acceptance of the technology.

Though 2023 also was a huge year for AI, particularly generative AI, it was more educational than transformational with 18% of companies citing it as their turning-point year. That’s not to say they didn’t use AI in 2023 or before then. In fact, more than 80% already use AI for their customer interactions to some extent. But for many, it not widely accepted or aggressively promoted. That’s poised to change in 2024, as nearly 83% said business leaders say they have begun to recognize the value of AI in the workplace.

In AI for Business Success 2024-25, the preliminary response shows about 39% of IT, CX, and business unit leaders say 2024 will be the turning point for their company’s acceptance of using AI for customer interactions. Another 20% say that will happen in 2025.

So, what does that all mean, practically speaking, for 2024? A lot, including increased spending on AI in both customer and employee experience. Here are some of the specific areas of growth for 2024:

Agent Experience Will Expand

Agent experience will become a bigger focal point, as CX leaders have recognized that with happy agents come happy customers. According to our research, they will implement or expand AI in virtual assistants for agents, transcription, translation, quality management, training, sentiment analysis, and predictive analysis.

Business metrics will improve because of the focus on using technologies to improve both agent and supervisor effectiveness. Sales, for example, will increase because of virtual assistants that leverage predictive analysis. Customer service will become more efficient with technologies such as transcription and translation. And all contact center agent performance will improve with quality management, AI-powered coaching, and sentiment analysis. The result of all of these technology improvements will be better customer satisfaction.

Self-Service Focus

Continue reading at nojitter.com.

AI, hybrid work, and security are key focus areas for the next year.

Amazingly, 2024 is upon us. And while the year is certain to be noteworthy due to global events, there are a number of trends related to workplace collaboration that are top of mind. Here are my top five technologies to watch in 2024 (and perhaps beyond?).

GENERATIVE AI

As I mentioned in last month’s No Jitter post, it is no surprise that 2023 has been the year of Generative AI. In 2024 I see three key areas to watch:

1. Adoption: Our data shows significant interest in adoption of generative AI companions, assistants, or copilots, depending on whatever terminology you like. But, there are significant buyer-side concerns over cost, ROI, and security. 2024 is likely to be a year where the majority of companies kick the tires, so to speak, on generative AI and figure out benefits versus costs, and how to ensure security and compliance. Ignoring generative AI isn’t an option for companies. Those that do are likely to find that employees have found their own way to use it for their needs.
2. Pricing: In 2023 we saw the emergence of two distinct pricing models: Free versus monthly cost. Free models certainly aren’t free for the vendors giving away their generative AI assistants. It costs money to train models and support queries. While it’s understandable that vendors in competitive markets would utilize a free model to gain share and adoption, it’s likely that we see evolution toward a freemium model with free services offering base-level functionality and usage caps, and additional paid tiers of service for those who need/want more.
3. GenAI Ops: While much of the attention around generative AI has been focused on personal assistants, to me one of the most exciting areas for gen AI is in improving the ability of IT teams to manage and support apps. I found Cisco’s demo of its AI assistant for Control Hub at its recent Cisco Live event to be especially compelling. As a former network engineer, I can attest to the time and management cost savings that would spring from doing network admin tasks such a configuring a network, troubleshooting networking, and managing those networks via conversational UI instead of a command-line interface or drop-down menu.

MEETING ROOM EVOLUTION

Continue reading at nojitter.com.

Metrigy’s research shows 45.7% of companies using AI today, with a third having it on their 2024 roadmap for deployment or evaluation.

I kicked off 2023 with a post titled “Employee Experience: AI on the 2023 Agenda.” As I stated then, I’d expected to see increased use of artificial intelligence (AI), across a variety of use cases, to improve employee experience (EX). I wouldn’t call myself particularly prescient, but I wasn’t wrong.

With the rise of generative AI into mainstream consciousness (thanks in large part to release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT publicly available conversational search tool), the cloak of mystery around AI has been lifted. Vendors are adding AI—generative and otherwise—to all sorts of products, and many companies are jumping on board.

In Metrigy’s Employee Experience: 2023-24 global research study, conducted in June-July 2023, 45.7% of the 499 participating companies said they were already using or planning to use AI/machine learning (ML) or generative AI for employee experience use cases in 2023. As the following chart shows, 19.2% have adoption of AI/ML planned for 2024 (or beyond) while another 12% were evaluating the technology at the time of the survey.

AI’S TOP VALUE: PREDICTING CHANGES

For most companies (58.7%) already using AI for employee experience, the top value is the ability to predict changes in key business metrics. This is the role of traditional AI/machine learning—i.e., predicting change on a given set of data and then, optimally, act on it.

Consider, for example, the variety of AI capabilities companies could use alone or in tandem to sniff out changes in key factors such as employee satisfaction. This includes, but is not limited to:

Continue reading at workspace-connect.com.

Generative AI is getting all the attention, but there are other key shifts, like vendor rationalization, which will reshape UC in the months to come.

It has been a transformational year for unified communications and collaboration. Key trends such as rationalization, security and compliance, and support for hybrid work were indeed paramount in 2023. Looking ahead to 2024, these concerns — and others — will reshape the market. Here are my top five UC trends for 2024.

1. Generative AI

Generative AI became the buzzword in 2023. Just about every vendor in the UC (and contact center) space introduced some form of generative AI assistant (or companion) with features ranging from meeting and chat summarization to personal feedback and content creation assistance. Metrigy’s “Customer Experience Optimization: 2023-24: Consumer Perspective” study of more than 500 end-users found that almost half were using generative AI tools as part of their daily work efforts. Going into 2024 I expect two significant areas of focus:

• Defining the business case: Some vendors, like Cisco and Zoom, are giving away their generative AI assistants to existing customers. Others, like Google and Microsoft, are charging extra. For companies to invest in these tools they must analyze the ROI. Typically this will be through measuring gains in productivity, revenue or cost minimization.
• Ensuring security and compliance: Generative AI, as the name suggests, generates content. Examples include the automatic creation of meeting transcripts and summaries, documents, emails and much more. Companies using these tools must manage this content in accordance with governance policies. Regulated companies must ensure appropriate retention while international organizations must adhere to data location requirements for the countries in which they operate.

2. Rationalization

Continue reading at techtarget.com.

UJET CEO Anand Janefalkar shares his unique perspective on generative AI, AI innovation, and the AI-empowered future of CX.

As vendors rush to bring generative AI companions to market, significant differences are emerging in features, functionality, and perhaps most importantly, pricing. But what are buyers saying about Generative AI? Are they willing to pay for it? Do they see value? In this webinar we’ll share insights from Metrigy’s latest research on how collaboration leaders view Generative AI.

Generative AI Reality Check: What are Buyers Saying?

Presented by: Irwin Lazar, President & Principal Analyst, Metrigy

Date: January 16, 2024
Time: 11:00 am ET