Kerv Experience at Genesys UK&I G-Summit 2022

Published 26/10/22 under:

Renowned for carrying first news of CX and EX trends and innovations, the latest Genesys UK&I G-Summit took place in October 2022 at the Institute of Engineering and Technology in London. Kerv was there to celebrate wins of both EMEA Cloud Partner and EMEA Customer Success Partner of the Year, surrounded by a gathering of visionaries and thought leaders from right across the UK and Ireland.

 Amid an agenda packed with engaging speakers, panel discussions, product information sessions, and a celebrity from the world of sport, customer stories were conveyed direct to the audience. In relating such real-life Genesys-powered tales, executives from industry leaders like Virgin Atlantic Airways and CMO Group set everyone back on their heels with art-of-the-possible insights into cloud-based CX and EX best practice.

 The current CX landscape

This year’s G-Summit happened against a background of businesses and public sector bodies having to cope with inflation, the impact on goods and services, and the fallout from energy and cost-of-living crises. The coming winter may bring further challenges. So, contact centre workloads aren’t declining any time soon. Local government teams, for example, are preparing to deal with worried customers seeking reassurance.

Even if contact centres need to recruit, opening the show Abdul Hamid Ebrahim, Head of Strategic Business Consulting EMEA at Genesys said: “The Great Resignation has made it harder to attract and retain talent, at a time when sales and customer service top the list for employee churn, while disposable income has seen its longest decline for over 60 years.”

A key message was that success in 2023 will require new ways to minimise cost and maximise loyalty. There’ll be a need for more customer and employee empathy to better understand states of mind altered on a never-before-seen scale. Abdul added: “We will rely even more on AI to read the customer’s digital body language.”

Building customer loyalty

So, with empathy baked in, Genesys solutions make everything much simpler. Here are G-Summit examples of how Genesys and Kerv Experience enable empathy:

• Speech and Text Analytics that uncover hidden customer frustrations and opportunities and point the way toward improvements.
• Predictive Routing that intercepts and re-routes distressed contacts to skilled agents with the highest qualified scores for emotional intelligence.
• Workforce Engagement Management tools that closely monitor agent welfare, ensuring they take regular breaks and avoid burnout.

Picking up the thread, Martin Hill-Wilson of Brainfood Consulting, said: “The plan has changed in terms of how we build customer loyalty, because CX is what stays in their memories. We need to get better at minimising experiences that frustrate customers.”

Putting the supplier in the customer’s pocket

Looking at the agent side of the equation, Richard Basset, Digital and AI Sales, Genesys, said: “It costs up to seven-and-a-half thousand pounds to replace an agent. After an unpleasant experience, 82 percent of customers will stop using a brand, so that’s hard evidence we really need to look after our people.”

Outbound messaging is hugely effective, as 98 percent of messages are opened within five minutes. Richard continued: “So, Genesys Cloud Web Messaging places your business in the customer’s pocket and relieves agent stress. Like with WhatsApp messages, they’re not pressured to reply straightaway.”

That last point is telling. Unlike traditional web chat solutions, Genesys Cloud Web Messaging enables a visitor to enter a site, converse with a bot or agent, and return later to pick up the same conversation. According to Forrester, asynchronous messaging also allows agents to be more efficient, with up to 30 percent productivity gains.

Injecting true intelligence

In a similar vein, Merijn te Booij of Genesys spoke about the power of workforce engagement management (WEM). He emphasised 70 percent of contact centre costs still reside in people and, if companies don’t take care of them, they’ll only ever deliver average CX regardless of what’s spent on AI and digital channels.

“For example, we need to grow bots in the right way,” said Merijn. “Not simply replicating IVR-like workflows but injecting true intelligence into the architecture to take account of the way people think. With WEM we can implement continuous forecasting at 15-minute intervals to virtually adjust underlying AI engines in real time and facilitate agent shift-change requests to match.”

Entering the era of the super-agent

Amy King, Business Psychologist and Head of Wellbeing at Sabio Group, took the stage with a keynote address concerning measuring and monitoring omni-channel experiences. Both within and beyond the contact centre, to deliver frictionless experiences maximising customer journey success.

“Blind hope is not an effective people strategy,” said Amy. “With 87 percent of agents saying they’re stressed, agent burn-out accounts for 40 percent of contact centre attrition rates. The human psyche means one bad experience needs three positive experiences to balance it out.”

The contact centre world is entering the super-agent era as empathetic and emotionally intelligent problem solvers. They’re dealing with more stressful situations and need different thinking about the agent experience.

Amy concluded: “To earn their loyalty, we must stop pushing them to the limit, allow them more time to reset, and make them feel energised and rewarded, while making better use of technology to uncover blind spots.”

Case study excerpts

During the G-Summit proceedings major UK customers were kind enough to tell their Genesys stories. Entertaining and powerfully delivered, below are a couple of excerpts.

Ceri Davies of Virgin Atlantic Airways said: “Since moving to Genesys our airline has achieved an eNPS of 87 percent with future plans including offering chat to live queuing customers and predictive engagement.” Now, Voice of the Customer consultants have been appointed to capture more data and cement the value of the contact centre, while creating new content to support agent development.

Nick Fisher of CMO Group said that as the largest UK online-only retailer of building materials, the company has become a disruptor in the construction sector. With a core USP of industry leading, knowledgeable customer service, they chose Genesys as their long-term strategic partner.

“Genesys help us prove our value through innovation,” said Nick. “When we invest in AI, we are also educating ourselves on the art of the possible.”

Intensely motivational close

The foregoing short piece is intended as a concise G-Summit summary. Closing with a plenary session facilitated by Manan Sagar and featuring Nick Fisher, Ceri Davies, Louise Smith, and EJ Cay, here are three selected quotes.

Nick Fisher, CMO Group: “With the assistance of Genesys, we brought siloed data, processes, and channels together, which helped seamlessly integrate new acquisitions into the group. The remarkable thing about Genesys is it never gets too comfortable and constantly disrupts itself.”

Louise Smith, Innovate Finance: “In banking and insurance, digital is helping financial services catch up. There are opportunities to partner around technologies and business platforms to drive real change. It’s a chance to break legacy models and introduce innovation into lending and credit where change will surely help our aging population.”

Ceri Davies, Virgin Atlantic Airways: “The digital AI model will never completely replace human beings. We have a delicate, fine line to walk when humanising digital interfaces like bots, and we must be mindful of customer trust and how the experience can affect that.”

The G-Summit was concluded by Jill Scott, a star of the England squad that won the UEFA Women’s Euro Football Championship in 2022. Closing an intensely motivational address, Jill advised: “Try to capture the emotion of the moment of triumph. Recall that moment and apply it when strength is needed. Remember, you don’t have to be the best, but you do need to give the best of yourself.”