Proactive customer service can help businesses keep customers more engaged, yet tools to support the strategy might cost more than CX leaders are willing to spend.

A major role of AI in CX has rapidly emerged: better proactive outreach.

In fact, 69% of companies expect customer service to shift from mostly inbound to mostly proactive outreach by 2027, according to Metrigy’s “Customer Experience Optimization 2024-25” global study of 544 companies. AI can identify at-risk customers who stay with the company after a proactive phone call or email to address issues. It can also identify candidates for a new product or service, enable proactive SMS or email outreach, and analyze responses so that organizations know where to adjust.

At this year’s Enterprise Connect conference in Orlando, Fla., a panel of experts shared advice and best practices for proactive outreach. Panelists included Luiz Domingos, Mitel’s CTO and head of large enterprise R&D; Davor Golac, Amazon Connect’s general manager; Mike Harakal, Five9’s head of revenue execution solutions; and Lori Anne Pollock, Verizon Business’s senior director of product management for global VoIP and cloud CX/UC.

Challenges of proactive customer service

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Has customer service gotten worse? Customers and businesses disagree on the answer to that question.

As many organizations begin to increase their spending on CX and AI, customer service leaders must invest in improvements for customer service.

The trouble is that CX leaders may not align their technology strategies with customers’ expectations, according to Metrigy’s “Customer Experience Optimization 2024-25 — Consumer Views” research study of 502 U.S. consumers. These customer service gaps were a major topic at this year’s Enterprise Connect conference in Orlando, Fla.

Has customer service gotten worse?

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As we head deeper into the age of artificial intelligence, the adoption of AI in businesses continues to accelerate at an unprecedented pace. Every year, Metrigy provides a comprehensive analysis of how companies are leveraging AI to drive success, and our latest study, AI for Business Success: 2025-26, brings to light some fascinating insights. This year’s research offers an updated look at how AI is transforming business operations, where companies are seeing tangible results, and what’s on the horizon for the next few years.

  1. AI Technologies That Drive Business Metrics

The study reveals that certain AI technologies are showing clear results in enhancing business metrics. AI tools such as machine learning algorithms, natural language processing (NLP), and predictive analytics are leading the way in improving key performance indicators (KPIs) across industries.

  1. AI and Customer Insights: A Revolution in Understanding Consumer Behavior

Understanding customers better is a major priority for businesses, and AI is at the forefront of this transformation. Metrigy’s study highlights how companies are using AI to unlock valuable customer insights, especially through the use of AI-powered surveys and sentiment analysis. These AI tools not only analyze direct feedback but also infer sentiments from interactions, providing businesses with a more accurate, 360-degree view of customer preferences. This is particularly beneficial for fine-tuning marketing strategies, improving product offerings, and delivering personalized experiences.

  1. AI’s Impact on Revenue: Cost Savings and Profit Generation

A critical question for many businesses is whether AI investments are truly paying off in terms of cost savings and revenue generation.   For instance, AI-powered tools are enabling businesses to tap into new markets, optimize pricing strategies, and create smarter products and services. Overall, businesses that are strategically integrating AI seem to be reaping financial rewards, though the level of return varies based on industry and application.

  1. Real-World AI Use Cases Generating Success

One of the most exciting findings of this year’s report is the increasing number of real-world use cases where AI is delivering success. From predictive maintenance in manufacturing to AI-driven marketing campaigns and chatbots in customer service, businesses across sectors are reporting positive outcomes. For example, some companies have implemented AI-driven chatbots to reduce response times in customer service, which has directly translated to improved customer satisfaction and loyalty. Other firms are using AI to streamline supply chain operations, resulting in cost savings and faster delivery times.

  1. AI’s Impact on Different Employee Groups

AI isn’t just transforming business processes—it’s also impacting the workforce in various ways. Metrigy’s study provides a detailed look at how AI is affecting different employee groups, particularly in contact centers, sales, and marketing. In contact centers, AI is assisting both supervisors and agents by automating routine tasks, offering real-time insights, and enhancing the customer experience. Meanwhile, in sales and marketing, AI is playing a pivotal role in targeting the right audiences and personalizing messages, which in turn is improving conversion rates and sales performance.

Interestingly, the research also highlights that AI is not necessarily replacing human jobs but rather augmenting them. Employees are increasingly working alongside AI systems, focusing on more strategic and creative tasks while allowing AI to handle the repetitive and time-consuming work.

  1. What’s Working Now and What’s Coming in the Future

When it comes to the practical applications of AI, Metrigy’s research emphasizes that while AI tools are delivering impressive results today, there’s still much to come. The technologies that are performing best right now include customer service automation, predictive analytics, and data-driven decision-making tools. Looking forward, we expect to see rapid advancement, including AI-driven personalization at scale, advanced robotics, and further advancements in NLP that will revolutionize how businesses interact with customers.

  1. AI and Staffing Decisions: Boosting Productivity and Efficiency

One area where AI is having a significant impact is in staffing decisions. AI tools are being used to optimize hiring processes by analyzing large volumes of data to identify the best candidates. Additionally, AI is enhancing employee productivity by automating repetitive tasks, providing actionable insights, and freeing up workers to focus on more impactful and high-value activities. This shift is enabling businesses to get more out of their teams while reducing burnout and turnover.

  1. Decision-Makers and Organizational Changes for AI Integration

As AI becomes more integral to business success, companies are increasingly making decisions about which AI tools to implement and how to organize teams at the executive level. Metrigy’s research identifies a growing trend of businesses restructuring their leadership teams to focus more on AI initiatives. Many organizations are appointing Chief AI Officers (CAIOs) or forming dedicated AI center of excellence teams to oversee the deployment and integration of AI technologies. Additionally, cross-functional collaboration between departments like IT, data science, and business operations is becoming the norm in AI decision-making.

  1. Enterprise-Wide AI Strategy: Who’s Running It?

Another key takeaway from the study is that an enterprise-wide AI strategy is becoming increasingly important. Metrigy’s findings show that companies with a cohesive, company-wide AI strategy are more likely to realize significant business value from their AI investments. These strategies are often led by a senior executive team or a dedicated AI leader who can guide the organization through the complexities of AI adoption. This approach ensures that AI initiatives align with the company’s overall business goals and are implemented effectively across all departments.

Conclusion: The Future of AI for Business Success

Metrigy’s AI for Business Success: 2025 study underscores the transformative potential of AI in today’s business landscape. While challenges remain—such as the need for clear strategies, skilled personnel, and proper integration—the opportunities AI presents for enhancing business performance, improving customer experiences, and increasing productivity are undeniable. As companies continue to invest in AI, the landscape will only become more exciting, with new technologies and use cases driving innovation.

For businesses that are looking to stay ahead of the curve, the key will be not just adopting AI, but doing so strategically—building AI capabilities that are aligned with their goals, improving their customer experiences, and driving measurable business success.

Even customer service agents in the contact center often have upsell quotas. AI provides transformational value for boosting sales.

In the customer experience (CX) world, we hear regularly about how AI is helping companies better serve their customers. We don’t hear as much about how it helps them sell to their customers.

AI for sales is poised to explode – for good reason.

Perhaps the most compelling reason is illustrated in the actual success metrics from Metrigy’s recently released AI for Business Success 2023-24 global research study of 697 companies. Among the 34% of companies using agent assist, 54.1% cited sales increase as a benefit provided by AI. Those companies using agent assist saw a 35.6% boost in sales – not too shabby. What’s more, 70.4% of our research success group (those with higher-than-average business metric improvements through the use of AI) said agent assist increases sales, versus only 47.9% of the non-success group.

Yes, agent assist also improves customer satisfaction scores, slows agent attrition, and reduces average handle time. But actually attributing sales increases to AI? That’s golden.

AI’s adoption in outbound contact centers or even with outside sales teams makes sense. But its use is now spreading to less likely places.

The use of AI is especially fruitful in traditional inbound contact centers where customer service representatives at 54% of companies now must adhere to upsell sales quotas, along with their service key performance indicators (KPIs). Indeed, customer service agents’ jobs are getting harder with bots handling the easy questions, so one way agents can increase their income is through earning previously unavailable sales commissions. AI simply makes this plausible now.

How Companies Use AI for Sales and Service Teams

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For some business leaders who have difficulty finding and retaining contact center agents, AI has stretched an existing workforce. Other leaders have been able to cut their contact center staffing.

One of the biggest selling points of artificial intelligence (AI) is cost savings—and that savings involves automating functions that humans previously handled. In the contact center, AI cost savings translates into compensation reduction, as agents become more efficient with interactions that aren’t handled independently by bots or self-service.

AI’s impact on staffing affects new hires and existing employees—in both negative and positive ways, depending on your position. In Metrigy’s AI for Business Success 2024-25 global research study of 697 companies, we have found the following:

For business leaders looking for technology to drive cost efficiencies, AI is doing its job. For example, average handle time dropped by an average of 29.5% with the addition of agent assist, while each supervisor saves nearly two hours per week when AI helps with scheduling and capacity planning.

In addition to making agents and supervisors more efficient, AI-enabled self-service also is automating customer interactions so fewer even require live agent attention.

More than 80% of companies are increasing their AI spending in 2024, and the top reason, cited by 75.4% of those companies, is that they recognize the efficiencies AI brings. They’re investing in the technology—a move that is reducing total compensation for 37.8% of companies. That means lost jobs and fewer new hires in the contact center for many companies.

Filling the Staffing Gap

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Agent assist helps agents drive revenue—and solve customer service issues.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is making waves in many areas of business, but one of the most significant is in customer service. Agent assist, virtual agents, and sophisticated analytics are catalysts for significant changes in the role of contact center agents—both virtual and human.

CX leaders are focusing on a few key goals as they fine-tune their AI strategy for human and virtual agents: making processes more efficient, boosting customer satisfaction, and ultimately, helping companies grow. Virtual agents can more efficiently address more simple issues, offloading some of the agent workload. But AI also plays a profound role for interactions that require human attention. Not only does agent assist help customer service reps resolve issues, it’s also helping them sell products and services to customers—elevating the contact center to a revenue generator vs. a cost center.

Virtual Agents: Automation Taking on the Basics

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In the ever-evolving landscape of customer experience, organizations are constantly striving to improve their interactions with clients. Metrigy’s recent Customer Experience Optimization 2024-25 research study sheds light on the state of customer interactions and reveals key factors that differentiate successful companies from those lagging behind.

Metrigy asks all research participants a series of quantitative questions that measure the success of companies when they use various CX technologies. For example, how did the use of virtual agents affect customer satisfaction or revenue? If it increased or decreased either, by what percentage? Companies with the most measurable success were placed in a research success group, while those with the lowest measurable success were placed in a research non-success group. This enables us to compare behaviors of both groups.

Based on that analysis, here are a few areas CX leaders should consider to drive more success in business metrics.

People vs. Technology: Striking the Right Balance

One of the key takeaways from the study is the debate between the importance of people and technology in delivering successful customer service. The majority of companies still prioritize people over technology, with 77% saying the former is more important. However, the success group was more favorable toward technology. About 45% of the success group said technology plays a crucial role, while only 18% of the non-success group said the same. The top technology that helps to improve customer service is AI, underscoring the measurable value successful companies are already realizing with the technology.

Agents Need a Break!

Another area of focus for the success group when it comes to improving customer service is being attentive to agent experience. One of the big things the success group does is leverage AI to identify when agents need breaks during the day. Overall, 43.9% of companies are addressing the increased complexity of agent interactions by providing more 15-minute breaks each day. The success group is giving four more 15-minute breaks per day (in an eight-hour shift), compared to the non-success group, which is providing two more breaks. Adequate breaks not only prevent burnout but also ensure agents remain attentive and effective. Without these mental breaks, companies see higher turnover rates—and that affects customer service overall with fewer, experienced agents and more newly (and often inadequately) trained agents.

Transforming Customer Experience

The technologies and operational practices to manage an effective CX organization are ever-changing. That’s why so many companies are regularly engaged in CX transformation projects. We define CX transformation as the application of new or existing technologies to improve the agent and/or customer experience, ultimately driving measurable business value.

More than 60% of companies have completed, are in the process of completing, or plan to start a CX transformation project in 2024. Among those already finished, 61% say their projects were successful. The projects generally fall into three buckets: Apps and channels, foundational projects, and worker-focused projects. The research success group not only has completed more transformations than the non-success group, it’s also 83% more likely to have a successful outcome of their project.

Successful companies are focusing on the following projects significantly more than the non-success group: Adding or improving agent assist applications; adding or improving voice of the customer programs; improving CX security; moving functions to carrier networks; moving from on-premises to cloud platforms; improving agent hardware; and automating scheduling and capacity planning.

Metrigy’s research underscores the evolving nature of customer interactions and highlights the need for companies to regularly adapt their strategies. By addressing the aforementioned areas, businesses can increase their likelihood of driving more success, whether in the form of higher revenue, better customer satisfaction, or lower costs.

Delivers market insights for 12 CX technology areas in 2024

May 13, 2024 – Research and advisory firm Metrigy released its Customer Experience MetriCast 2024 market research study of 12 key technology areas driving successful customer interactions.

In the Customer Experience MetriCast 2024 study, Metrigy analyzes buy-side market data provided by 1,566 IT leaders from 10 countries and 42 industries with operational and/or procurement responsibilities. Metrigy looks at technologies in use, providers, spending, ratings of the providers, and relative success using the products. Metrigy also examines the percentage of companies that are changing or planning/evaluating a change in providers, what’s driving them to leave, and which new providers they are considering in the following categories:

Among the study’s findings is that 36% of businesses are now using cloud-delivered contact center service, or CCaaS, in some capacity. “The majority of respondents indicated they were keeping CCaaS spending flat in 2024 with spending growing in 2025 and 2026. The growth in CCaaS spending is predominantly from additional seats being added, as businesses continue their migration to the cloud,” says Diane Myers, Metrigy principal analyst. “While AI is growing in importance, it is not yet a top criterion in contact center platform vendor decisions.”

For additional key metrics from the research study, please see our MetriSight podcast series.

The MetriCast study is part of Metrigy’s MetriCast Service, which also includes market forecast and shares across select customer experience and workplace collaboration technology categories, with quarterly updates; MetriRank vendor ratings across select categories; and the annual MetriStar Awards for vendors earning top customer sentiment ratings and whose customers achieve top business success. For more information, visit www.metrigy.com.

Customer Sentiment and Business Success Define Award Program

April 24, 2024 – Research and advisory firm Metrigy announced winners of its 2024 Customer Experience MetriStar program in 12 key technology areas that drive successful customer interactions.

CX, IT, and business leaders rated their vendors’ performance and provided associated business success across the CX technologies, resulting in 51 MetriStar Top Provider Awards.

Metrigy determines these results based solely on insights from 1,566 CX, IT, and business leaders with decision-making, operational, and/or procurement responsibilities for specific technologies in our Customer Experience MetriCast 2024 global research study. The MetriStar Award’s value is that it is based on customer ratings of providers, as well as quantitative metrics correlating the use of a vendor’s products and services with measurable business success.

“MetriStar winners have performed where it matters—with their customers,” says Robin Gareiss, Metrigy CEO and principal analyst. “Metrigy conducts extensive, primary research to determine customer satisfaction, as well as business success derived from using select vendors. We gather and scrutinize customer feedback to ensure the best possible data set.”

Metrigy’s MetriStar reports cover the following CX technology areas:

Each report features three recognitions, as follows:

Customer sentiment analysis: Using a 1-to-10 scale, research participants rate providers on a variety of key performance indicators, including technical features, response time to problems or questions, reliability, security, AI capabilities, value, innovation, and more. Those with an overall mean score that is at or above average achieved “Top Customer Sentiment.”

Business success analysis: Study participants provide data on changes to their business metrics, such as revenue, average handle time, agent attrition, and customer satisfaction, among others, resulting from the specified technology initiatives. Metrigy then calculates the average of each providers’ customers that were at or better than average for each area. Vendors with at- or higher-than-average percentage of their customers with successful metrics achieved “Top Business Success.”

Those providers that are top in both of the metrics are awarded a MetriStar Top Provider Award. For more details, please see our MetriSight podcast announcing the results.

This year’s MetriStar Top Provider winners (in alphabetical order) are as follows:

Another 61 vendors won awards for either customer sentiment or business success.

Metrigy’s MetriStar Top Provider reports help companies choose the best provider for each respective category. Metrigy clients have access to the reports, and they are available for purchase on our website at www.metrigy.com.

Contact centers that invest in agent assist technology can help their agents become more productive and eliminate tedious tasks to make their jobs easier.

Contact center leaders can uncover measurable success with agent assist technology, as it can make agents more productive and improve customer satisfaction.

Agent assist includes various types of software that use AI to give agents advice, information and context to provide the best customer service in real time. Proper agent assist strategies may also include ancillary products or services. They can incorporate various AI-powered technologies, including natural language processing, sentiment analysis, speech and text analytics, transcriptions and workflow analytics.

Agent assist was a major topic at this year’s Enterprise Connect conference in Orlando, with a session hosted by Metrigy titled, “Agent Assist and Virtual Assistants: How are Companies Supercharging their Agents?” CX leaders in the audience agreed with Metrigy’s research, which said 2024 will be a big year of growth for agent assist.

How agent assist benefits the contact center

Agent productivity is a growing priority among contact center leaders. In 2022, most CX leaders prioritized customer satisfaction over agent productivity, according to Metrigy’s annual MetriCast study. Under 15% of survey respondents in the 2022 report said they prioritized agent productivity. That percentage has grown 20% since, according to Metrigy’s upcoming report, as organizations began to realize that improving agent productivity and happiness can improve customer satisfaction in turn.

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