Updates from Xperience 2024: The CX Event of the Year

A Better Way to Work: The Future of Employee Experience

DENVER — Updated Tuesday, May 14, 5:00 PM — There are carrots, and then there are sticks — but sticks don’t work particularly well. Merijn te Booij, GM of Workforce Engagement Management at Genesys, advised his audience to “manage by carrot” and focus on employee learning, engagement and retention strategies. Echoing a theme of the day, he said “AI is not a technology choice, but a strategic imperative.”

Agents are transitioning to becoming knowledge workers, and that involves answering tough questions — some of which may never have been asked before. This is “a different way of working, and that paradigm shift is going to happen very quickly,” added te Booij.

He described what matters most to agents: well-being, meaningful work, and recognition and rewards. And he added that agents want long-term predictability and short-term flexibility. Innovations such as continuous scheduling will empower them to gain more control over their schedules than ever before.

Damon Spurlock, Director, Global Workforce Management and Command Center at TechStyleOS, followed te Booij to describe how his company has used gamification to develop skills, improve KPI performance, increase engagement, and improve satisfaction and retention. He advised starting off in “silent mode” to get a preliminary baseline.

“Don’t try to do too much at once,” said Spurlock. “Continuously have something in your back pocket so your game doesn’t get old.” TechStyleOS shares “bite-sized” corporate information with its employees that helps them understand how their contact center work connect to the overall business — and how they’re making a difference.

“When we build our people, they build the business.”

– Damon Spurlock, Director, Global Workforce Management and Command Center at TechStyleOS

Nathalie DeChellis, Sr. Director of Product Marketing at Genesys, hosted a panel that closed the session with Rebecca Wetteman, CEO and Principal at Valoir; Spurlock; and te Booij. Wetteman described how automation can enhance work by eliminating tedious manual tasks.

“There’s a lot of work that we do that’s rote,” she said. “We can then take that time and focus on having a more empathetic service model.” Technology can now monitor every conversation, so that you can quickly tell — and take action — when an employee is having a tough day, or even a tough hour, she added.

Exploring the Art of the Possible with AI-Powered Strategies

DENVER — Updated Tuesday, May 14, 1:00 PM — Excitement, mixed with uncertainty. The roller coaster inches upward toward the top of the track and it’s obvious that many twists and turns — and at least one sudden drop — lie ahead. That feeling of anticipation — and apprehension — is how many people feel about embarking on an AI journey at a time when everything seems to be moving at lightning speed, said Brett Weigl, SVP, Product Management for AI at Genesys.

“The risks sometimes feel like they’re everywhere,” he said. “None of us wants to be that cautionary tale.”

Louise Phillips, VP, contact centers at Virgin Atlantic Airlines, joined Weigl Tuesday morning for a mini-keynote session how to navigate the new world of AI possibilities as investments soar and expectations are sky-high.

Weigl shared a five-step AI adoption model that involves planning, building, scaling, optimizing and differentiating. And Phillips shared how Virgin has transformed its customer and employee experiences with Genesys Cloud AI.

In the wake of the pandemic, Virgin focused on reducing handle time; with Genesys Predictive Routing, the airline saw a 15% reduction in average handle time. Other results included a 12-point improvement in employee happiness scores; a six-point improvement in first-contact resolution and a 25-hour weekly productivity savings. Forty percent of the airline’s customers now use digital channels and 30% of all social media contact now self-serve.

“Be curious,” Phillips advised the audience. “We drive that kind of culture on my team. Don’t try to do things the way they’ve always been done. Pick something and get the basics right. Start small. Small things really do become big stuff.”

During one of the opening sessions, “The Best Use Cases for Generative AI in Customer Service,” Chris Krystalowich, VP of North America Sales at eGain, shared several ways that knowledge authors, customer service agents and data analysts can harness the power of generative AI. For example, it can provide instant answers (versus a list to search through) to agents to speed issue resolution, auto-classification of interaction types, and author-assist designed to help authors improve knowledge articles. It can also improve the effectiveness of prompts provided to agents during interactions. Krystalowich also reminded his standing-room-only audience that it’s essential to keep an expert in the loop to ensure that generative AI is providing accurate information

Also speaking to standing-room-only crowds in the Expo theaters, experts from Cyara, Deepgram, Parloa, Upland Software, and Genesys shared insight into topics, such as automating call resolution, maximizing large language model potential and improving knowledge management.

The highlight of the evening was the big reveal of this year’s Customer Innovation Awards. Genesys CEO Tony Bates joined Janelle Dieken, SVP of Customer Engagement and Advocacy, and Scott Cravotta, Chief Customer Officer at Genesys, as they announced all the winners. Bates welcomed each winner to the front of the theater to receive their award and capture the moment with a photo.

The awards wrapped with a champagne toast to all of this year’s award winners.