K-Summit Brings Winning CX Strategies to Life for Kerv Customers

Published 23/10/24 under:

Returning to the Japanese-chic of Nobu Hotel in London’s Shoreditch, this year’s K-Summit opened clear daylight between technical hyperbole and on-the-ground practicality. Showcasing real-world contact centre use cases, lessons learned, and best practice, a packed agenda featured insightful speaker stories, and panel discussions, enlivened with product demos. 

Thriving community of Genesys innovators 

Automation is seven times more likely in digital channels compared to voice and Gartner believes AI-powered bots will account for a quarter of all customer interactions by 2027[1]. Opening the day, Julian Barrow, MD of Kerv Experience, said “Kerv is preparing for these rapid shifts to ensure customers receive the very best guidance and support when making crucial AI and digital investment decisions.” 

“Today’s K-Summit is a great example of a thriving community coming together, sharing ideas and knowledge to help each other get the most out of the very latest Genesys Cloud and product developments,” added Julian.

Is Gen AI ready to make that impact? 

Kerv Senior CX Consultant, Paul Cox, uncloaked the mysteries of Generative AI, a subject never far from the headlines. 12 months ago, views varied from contact centre workers putting their feet up to Doomsday and wide-scale job losses.  

Based on Kerv’s firsthand experience and Gen AI deployments to date the reality is somewhere in between, with Gartner predicting 80% of real-life customer service and support functions using Gen AI by the end of 2024[2]. That said, sense checking with human in-the-loop intervention is strongly recommended to protect against so-called AI hallucinations and plain mistakes. 

“The future isn’t quite here yet,” continued Paul, “but Gen AI is already proving great at text translation, generating content, and analysing data. This year’s killer feature is automatic conversation summaries with Genesys Agent Assist and Copilot using Gen AI to release agents from note writing – while ensuring key interactions are recorded in precisely the right format – each and every time.” 

The role of AI-powered experience orchestration 

Paul Akister, Programme Director at Genesys, described how AI-powered experience orchestration was being applied across all stages of the customer journey (see Figure 1) – from determining intent and automating conversations to assisting agents with knowledge, vital next-best steps (based on customers’ needs and prior actions) and wrap-up tasks. 

Figure 1. Applying AI-powered experience orchestration across all stages of the customer journey 

Today, around 40% of Genesys users globally are actively using embedded AI features. In terms of maturity models, many contact centres have successfully achieved Levels 1 (menu-based navigation) and 2 (predefined dialogue automation).  

To assist with the next step (Level 3 system-generated conversations) Genesys offers the following complementary AI-based solutions: 

• Predictive Engagement – Determines customer intent when engaging with websites and mobile apps. 

• Virtual Agent – Easy-to-build voice and chatbots complete routine tasks and identity and verification checks (where necessary combined with seamless escalation to human agents). 

• Predictive Routing – Optimises KPIs by matching each interaction with the available agent best able to handle it (based on previous results and performance data).​ 

• Agent Copilot – Picks up the intent and presents the agent with a corresponding script, augmented with real-time knowledge (thereby also reducing training needs). 

• Work Automation – Automates and reduces errors in manual back-office tasks like reporting and agent evaluation, training and development. 

• Journey Management – Analyses, measures, monitors and orchestrates customer journeys for better experiences and outcomes. 

• Workforce Engagement Management – Drives results and employee satisfaction through automated forecasting, call and screen recording, quality management, speech and text analytics, gamification, and more. 

Results regularly achieved through a Genesys experience orchestration approach include major improvements to self-service containment rates, first contact resolution, schedule adherence, and average handle time.  

“When it comes to capturing key events – and pain points – right across the customer journey no other platform has the breath of capabilities that Genesys Cloud now has, all in one encompassing security and compliance envelope,” concluded Paul. “Not just from Genesys components, but also combined with CRM, ERP, marketing automation, billing, other business-critical apps.” 

Kerv customers benefit from greener contact centre operations, too, with carbon footprint reducing from 64.5 kg (operating on-prem systems) to 1.2 kg CO₂ eq per agent[3] (with Genesys Cloud). 

Genesys: What’s coming next 

Kerv Principal Solutions Consultant, Sean Lindsay provided a sneak preview of forthcoming feature releases for Genesys Agent Copilot (see Figure 2). 

Figure 2. Genesys Agent Copilot roadmap 

 

Other recommended product developments to look out for include Genesys Email Parking and Preview enhancements (enabling agents to postpone email and supervisor actions to reassign as required) along with a new Customer-First callback option (Genesys Cloud automatically dials and only routes the call to an agent when the end user is actually on the line). 

CX innovation in action 

Hosted by Katrina King, Chief Customer Officer at Kerv Group, a thought-provoking panel discussion put best practice in the spotlight. 

The first panellist, a leading estate agency and property company, chose Genesys Cloud to modernise customer service and develop a centralised knowledge base. Deployed by Kerv in just eight weeks, the solution has eliminated challenges like ‘multiple systems of truth’, data sovereignty concerns, and poor service provider support. Results within the first 10 months included a startling 63% uplift in net promoter score (from 3.0 to 4.9) plus improved agent efficiency and effectiveness using Genesys Communicate. 

The second panellist had placed Kerv and Genesys Cloud at the heart of its digital transformation strategy. Connecting around 3,000 users, the new solution is enabling a renowned airline to harmonise customer service globally across in-house and outsourced contact centres. A challenge that involves translating data in 45 languages and unifying previously fragmented processes. Several months on and early wins include improved understanding of customer journeys (recognising airlines have many touch points) and reducing call volumes and agent workloads with much more effective chatbots. 

The final panellist, a local council serving 280,000 residents, previously struggled with inconsistent quality of service and loss of expertise due to an ageing workforce. Working with Kerv Experience it is evolving from 300-plus manual processes relying on time-expired data buried in multiple spreadsheets to largely automated tools (Genesys WEM, QM, reporting, and so on), bots, digital channels, and AI-assisted agent support. Sentiment analysis enables the Council to better understand why customers are making contact, how they’re feeling, and what they could do to make a better impression. Future plans include migrating email to Genesys, enabling customers to attach pictures for property maintenance issues, while also integrating website communications and content, such as FAQs. 

Seeing is believing 

Bringing down the curtain, live demos from Kerv consultants offered ideal opportunities to view Genesys Agent Copilot and Predictive Engagement propositions in close proximity. 

If your CX needs some assistance, get in touch to see how we can help. 

[1] Press release, July 2022.
[2] Press release, August 2023.
[3] Genesys presentation, Nobu, October 2024.