In a recent HITT, the rapid evolution of CX technology was highlighted, particularly the growing role of AI automation and cloud solutions. Telarus VP and team shared insights on how companies implementing AI have seen a significant boost in customer satisfaction, with a notable shift towards managing customer interactions without human intervention. The discussion emphasized the importance of integrating AI with existing systems and the need for tailored solutions to meet specific customer goals. Participants were encouraged to engage with clients about their AI strategies and to focus on measurable business impacts when selling AI. Overall, the session fostered great participation and provided valuable resources for advisers to assist customers in navigating the complex AI landscape.
Transcript is auto-generated.
It is time for today’s high intensity tech training. CX technology is rapidly evolving. It’s reshaping how businesses connect with customers, and it’s setting the stage for new sales opportunities as AI automation and cloud based solutions gain momentum, technology advisers must stay ahead of the latest trends in order to remain competitive themselves. Today, we unpack the biggest shifts in UCaaS, CCaaS, and AI driven CX, exploring what’s driving these buying decisions, and we reveal the most effective strategies for overcoming sales challenges.
Wanna position CX Solutions for maximum impact? Look at this lineup. I couldn’t be happier to welcome back to the Telarus Tuesday call at Hit Trading, Telarus VP of CX, Sam Nelson, director of CC and UCC UC Solutions, Meagan Thai, and CC and UC architect, Mike Baillargeon. Everybody happy to have you all here. Thanks for joining today.
Thanks for having us, Doug. Really excited to be here. This is gonna be a really fun session. And that’s the first time I’ve ever heard, Mikey b’s last name be so fancy, by the way. I’m just gonna say that next time.
But I’m only gonna say it I’m only gonna say it with my pinky up every time.
We we have to give them at least one full intro, and then for the rest of the call, it’s just Mikey b.
I love it. I love it.
Alright, everyone. Well, we’ve got a really, really awesome session for you today. Let’s head to the next slide because I wanna dive right into it. You know what’s funny is, I was looking through all the trends, and pretty much every single one had AI in it.
And I was just gonna put AI on this on this slide, but I thought I’d get a little more detailed. So mid year review, the goal of this call is just to kind of chat through what we’re seeing right now, what’s most popular, walk you through a few key concepts around that, and then, of course, end with, like, the tactical stuff. How do you actually go after these opportunities, what we’re pushing there? And for some of you who may have attended the virtual CX Ascend, some of this will resonate with you.
But we wanna make sure that everyone gets an opportunity to see what we’re talking about. So, when I say ECX trends, I’m talking employee and customer experience trends. Right? Because remember, it’s not just about, you know, contact center and what have you.
It’s it’s unified communications. It’s contact center. It’s intelligence as it pertains to employees and customers using it, leveraging it. Right?
And so when we look at the hottest trends that we’re seeing right now, folks, we are in the thick of it.
Everything from, like, the AI driven personal personalization. Right? AI agents. So when I say agents in this context, it’s not an actual person.
We’re talking about actual programs, who that are able to kind of act on their own. Right? So AI agents and automation, and we’re talking AI powered voice, analytics, and then last but certainly not least, generative AI. And so we’ll cover all of this.
But before I do, I wanna give you an update on just some, like, most recent stats from Gartner. So let’s head to the next slide, where I just wanna spend a little bit of time here. So Gartner twenty twenty five, here it is, folks. Like, this is where it’s at.
Money slide, if you wanna take a snapshot of this. I know the session will be recorded, but, yes, the most updated, as of, like, what, like, last month. So it’s clear. Like, the data shows that companies are absolutely incorporating AI, but, like, what exactly are the results?
So here they are. Right? It’s like companies that have implemented AI in their CX strategies have in fact seen a twenty five percent increase in customer satisfaction. And you’re gonna see exactly why, because Megan and Mike, PB are gonna go over some of the key capabilities and benefits of some of these components that are that are ultimately increasing CSAT.
So it’s an interesting one. Ninety five percent of customer interactions are expected to be managed without human intervention within the next year. So that has already started, folks, where, you know, AI is handling a lot of customer interactions now, and they’re, giving, you know, real, like, life human agents, the opportunity to handle more complex issues versus, like, the simple ones. Right? So AI is taking over more of those interactions, to alleviate the workload on those agents, but also give them the opportunity to, really leverage their personal expertise on the interactions that matter or that that actually need human interaction.
And then eighty five percent of customer service leaders will explore pilot a customer facing Gen AI solution this year. Folks, this is big. What that tells me is that, like, we need to be part of that conversation. They’re happening now. We gotta be part of it, so the opportunity is absolutely there. Then last but certainly not least, another interesting one, but fifty one percent of customers are willing to use a Gen AI assistant for customer service interactions on their behalf.
K. This is interesting. So that means we, you know, we being, like, the super needy high expectation consumer now, we’re willing to actually use an assistant to handle all of our stuff now. Right?
And so what companies need to understand is not only are they going to be, interacting with customers directly, but they’re gonna be interacting with AI assistants on behalf of customers. Super, super interesting stuff. Right? You now you’ve got AI interacting with AI.
So, that said, like, let’s head to the next slide. This is more of a kind of just visual headache for all of you. I couldn’t even fit the whole graphic on here. But just know the space is insanely crowded.
It’s insanely crowded. Like, there’s literally maybe ten new AI companies that reach out to me on a daily basis of, hey. We wanna be part of the portfolio. And, like, what do think about this?
And it’s, woah. Woah. Woah. Calm down. Time out. Right? And this is where you all, as tech advisers, bring the value.
Right? Is that you’re able to bring these true trusted solutions that have been vetted for you know, from a technical standpoint, from a support structure standpoint, the tried and true AI solutions are in our portfolio. Alright? So it’s a great opportunity for you guys to to get in front of customers.
So with that said, I’m gonna pass it on to the super smart folks on the call, which are Megan and Mike Bayajong.
And so fancy. And they are going to walk you through some of this AI stuff.
That was quite fancy. I’ve never heard it pronounced that way either, but, I couldn’t duplicate it if I tried. But hello, everyone. So, yeah, let’s you know, AI, the biggest buzz, it’s overwhelming for our customers.
Right? Because everyone knows they need it or they think they need it, but they’re not quite sure why. So we like to follow the Goldilocks rules for AI, Mikey and I. You know the Goldilocks story with the three bears where Goldilocks went and tried out three different chairs, and one was too small.
One chair was too big, and the other one was just right. So how do we get to the just right feeling? So you got those where they they looking at AI extremely too too optimistic for for my standards. But it’s the ones where they’re like, you know what?
AI is the best thing ever. It’s gonna solve world hunger. It’s it’s like the the absolute solution for everything. It’s gonna replace humans.
It’s great. We don’t need humans anymore. We need robots. You know, robots do all this stuff, window cleaning and whatnot.
So they’re too optimistic. Not really the right approach. And then the opposite end, you’ve got those who are too pessimistic. Oh my gosh.
There’s so much fear around AI. It’s gonna take over the world. It’s the end of humanity. It’s like Skynet.
It’s gonna go viral, and then just humans will be extinct. Right? Complete opposite. We don’t want that that perception either.
So we’re looking for the just right fit.
And that is understand that AI is really powerful. It really, really is. It’s changing, evolving every day so quickly that Mikey and Sam and I are, like, we’re trying to stay on top of it, guys, to help you understand what’s the latest and greatest, what’s coming out, what’s changing. So we have to understand it is a very powerful tool, but we also have to keep an eye on it, put guardrails around it.
Right? Keep it safe. Keep the data safe and whatnot, and and make sure that it’s doing what it’s meant to do, which is enable, and augment, humans and and not replace it. You know, we don’t want that that pessimistic view.
I don’t I don’t think it’s gonna replace humans. We still need the human touch. And so we’re just trying to find that right fit for AI.
Those are the golden blocks rule. Right, Mikey?
Mhmm. And I think what we can talk about next is I think a lot of our TAs out there want to understand, well, how does AI really play into CX? So, Mike, we’ve got, what, different phases of how AI can play. What what do those phases look like on the next slide here?
Yeah. So when whenever we we approach a client, thank you. We look at the UCCC in three phases. There’s three phases of AI in the contact center.
There’s before the agent. Right? You’ll hear words like intelligent virtual assistant, IVA, voice bot. We don’t like to use the word bot too much anymore, Megan, because it reminds us of the too pessimistic person.
Oh, bots are taken over. Right? So we what we now what you’ll hear is an AI voice agent.
K?
Yep.
So before it gets to the to the human agent, then the live interaction or in agent interaction so now the caller or the SMS is with an agent. How can AI augment that experience, help that agent, move forward? And then the last phase of AI is post interaction, post call.
Personally, I think this is the easiest one to sell and to talk about.
So, basically, it takes those all those call recordings and then puts a happy score or a sad score on them. Right? And then and then management and leadership can take a look at that and make changes. Right?
So these are the three phases of AI. So couple things. One, AI without a business strategy is just a two letter word. Right?
So your client’s like, oh, we need AI, mage Megan. Just sell me the SKU. Give me a quote for AI. Megan, is that possible?
Yes. I think the SKU was something like nine two three five six eight two x x I. Did you get that?
There’s no It’s been updated.
It’s x x it’s x x y now. You’ve got a a refresh. Let me write that down. No.
There ain’t no SKU, baby. There ain’t no skew. Right? Every deal is custom. Well, Mike, all these providers, they how they customize it, they they say they are an AI for a company.
Yes. They all have a template or what we call a platform.
It would they have their AI tools. But for every customer, it has has to be tweaked based upon integrations and customization and size and scope. So, yes, all these AI players in our ecosystem, they have awesome platforms, but every customer is different. So, Megan, let’s, let’s break down these phases of AI for for the good folks out there.
Yeah. Let’s talk about the pre, the first phase or the preinteraction on this next slide. So, again, what Mikey was saying, this is all the stuff that happens before it hits a live agent, live human. The IVA, intelligent virtual assistant, we also hear being referred to as, like, a virtual receptionist, virtual receptionist, conversational AI, voice agent, AI agent, all that stuff. Right?
There’s some AgenTik is a hip one now.
Right? AgenTik AI?
Huge. Huge. AgenTik AI. Well, how does it do this autonomously? So this is really what I call, like, the intelligent front door.
Right? It’s it’s it’s customer facing. It’s being able to take that interaction on behalf of the human, with this customer or patient or member, whomever that that person is. And, I think the key thing here for it to help solve some issues and go back and forth and and help the customer out is the key thing was would be to integrate into the CRM, the whatever system of record the customer is using, whether that’s a medical, you know, e a EMR, EHR, whether it’s a finance as a core banking system, that integration piece has to be key.
It has to know if it needs to do any authentication, whether it’s voice authentication, or multifactor authentication. I think the key here, you guys, and you might be seeing a demand for this because we are, from a customer standpoint, is everyone is asking for, hey. How do I do this on the front end and make it sound really human and conversational? Like, really, really human. So Mike and Sam and I, when we’re looking at all these, different vendors and we’re listening to the demos, we can tell which one is is gonna be more well received because of how human it sounds and how intelligent it is. So this is all the preinteraction again, that voice portion of it before getting to a a live human. On the next slide, there’s another preinteraction.
Oh, can I can I can I Yes? So we’re getting a lot of requests for SMB customers. Listen. My my good client, two two chucks in a truck landscaping, they want an AI agent to to make appointments, take appointments, whatnot.
Okay. So let’s be transparent for a moment. We have wonderful IVA suppliers in our ecosystem. Some names you’ve heard of, some you haven’t.
Two trucks and a truck landscaping are too small. So we’re seeing a new trend that our friends on the UCaaS side of the house are now introducing their version of an IVA product that works seamlessly with their UCaaS product. So for your SMB clients, you know, sub twenty employees or whatnot with relatively low volume, we’re seeing a big push with our UCaaS providers in that space. Megan, do you agree with that? With some of the announcements they made?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. It’s and Sam is continually trying to vet out, you know, vendors that will be a really good fit for our portfolio that can address the SMB market because that is a huge gap that we’re trying to to address. Yes. And they call it what?
AI receptionist, I think, is a is a typical Receptionist, assistant Mhmm.
CXA. I mean, we love our marketing people out there. If you’re in marketing, two claps to you. But but stop calling stuff Copilot.
Can’t you say that? Right? We have, like, four vendors that offer Copilot, and none of it is Microsoft Copilot. Anyways, I’m off on a tangent.
There. That was a No.
But good point. So if you have any SMB opportunities, TAs out there, come to Mikey and I. We’ll help you figure it out.
Yeah. For sure. Sorry.
Yeah. No. All good. That I think that needs to be said. The next preinteraction AI is a chatbot version.
Right? So this is all on the website, and it’s all pretty much ask a question, it’ll get an answer. Very good for FAQs.
Again, integration is going to be key. But I think the difference here between this and the previous one that we talked about is this is all based on text, right, or context. Right? You’re typing in information, you’re prompting it, you get an answer. That’s pretty much it. It’s not, like, truly conversational like you would expect out of the voice one that we we previously talked about.
So what is the next phase?
Now we’re gonna get into what the during an In agent.
Yeah.
In agent. Yeah. K.
Yeah.
This What does that look like?
Yeah. So my opinion, this is probably the last next slide, please. Thank you. This this one may be the last that gets adopted.
If I said the post call is number one, the IVA is number two, it’s probably number three. So picture this. You work from home. You’re a call center agent.
You’re literally one month on the job, and you’re getting ready to take your first phone call. And you’re you’re a little nervous. Right? So you get that first phone call, and don’t you know it’s something that you weren’t trained on.
So now you’re working from home. You look to the right. There’s the cat. You look to the left.
There’s the dog. They’re not gonna help you on this question. So what do you do? Right?
Well, you could put the the caller on hold for twenty minutes until you found somebody to talk to. You could swivel your chair, go to Teams until somebody responded, or you can have AI listen to that call, get the intent, surface up some of the knowledge base or FAQs to help you walk you through that call. That’s what in agent or agent assist is really about. And, here’s the thing.
Megan, this is the third time in row row that starts off with CRM integration. Do you think that’s important with AI?
Yeah.
I think integration we say CRM, but I we’re talking about any Data.
Yep. Any any software applications that they’re using that we have to pull data from push and pull from. Yep.
Good data equals good AI experience. Bad data equals bad AI experience.
Megan, if there was only if someone would invent, like, a AI checklist or an AI document that that could talk a TA through some of the key questions about seeing if a customer’s ready for AI, like a data readiness guy, wouldn’t that be amazing? That person, I would I’d buy them a coffee if that was available. Sam, do we have anything like that available? Can I give you an action item?
Action item received.
Alright. Perfect. So I I kid here, but I think Teleris here at Teleris, I think we do amazing job at educating our TAs on all things, but for Megan and I, definitely, on the AI space. We have four or five educational documents that are on Teleris Hub for you to download, a checklist, a data readiness, a conversational starter, who’s who in the AI zoo.
All of this is downloadable. Get it, look at it, and, and read it, and then come back to Megan and I. We can kinda sharpen your, your axe to take down the big trees as Patrick says. Next slide, please.
Okay. Post h a I, I think my my personal favorite. I I I started my, professional career as a call center agent and back in the days where they record my calls on tape recorders. Some of you out there might be too young to even know what a tape recorder is. But, basically, how can I ingest a thousand calls a day and put a score on?
Sam Nelson taught me something many years ago. I don’t know if she remembers this, but she taught me that only three percent of all calls that are recorded get recorded, listened to, scored, and feedback provided. Only three percent of all calls. So how do you tell your good agents from your bad agents?
Because, Sam, my boss, might listen to one of my calls, and I was a rock star, but the other nine hundred ninety nine calls I took were horrible. Where Megan is a rock star, and maybe Sam just listened to the one call where she was sub rock star, and she gets dinged for it while while everybody think, oh my god. Mike, yeah, a hundred percent of that call. You’re amazing.
I’m like, yeah.
Fake it till you make it. Right? So I love this tool. This is a tool that can be sold with a contact center product or over the top as well.
Typically, it’s a minimum fifty agents, but come to us as we have a few options. But the idea is listen to every call. The company creates a rubric, and that based upon that rubric, the the AI scores each caller based upon, did you validate their name, their address, their date of birth, etcetera? Did you upsell them?
I just love this tool. It’s really personally, for me, this is my favorite phase of AI.
I just think that any size customer can really use it. Megan?
It’s a huge demand. It’s a huge demand. I think you’re right, Mikey.
And I think as we were talking about the pre, the in, and the post agent interactions for AI, these can all be sold separately in different phases, just so you Megan, what happens if I have, like, a, like, a, an Avaya on prem contact center, and I’m not ready to rip it out for a CCaaS platform?
Can I put any of these can I put phase one and phase three in front of and behind an on prem contact center?
Yep. Absolutely. And so there’s only some that can do that, though. Right? So Mike and I are here to help you figure out who those vendors are.
But, yes, absolutely, you can.
Perfect. Next slide.
Yep. And I think, Sam, just going back to you to talk about a little bit about GenAI.
Yeah. For sure. This one’s interesting because the and this is where we start tapping into the employee experience. Right?
And I know many of you probably on this call have used some form of of GPT. Right? Whether that’s ChatGPT or Gemini or, like, you name it. Some kind of large language model or LLM.
And so what companies are facing now is this challenge of, you know, enabling their users to actually use generative AI, but securely. Right? And on top of that, they need to be able to leverage GenAI with the knowledge base that they currently have. Right?
With the documents that fall in line with company policies, etcetera. Right? Not just what’s generally available, on the interwebs. You don’t want someone, you know, just using Gen AI willy nilly, not protecting customer data, putting insensitive customer data, and then, it’s all exposed on the web.
Right? And so, here’s really what’s going on here with regard to to enabling employees to to use Gen AI. Right? It’s the security.
Right? Especially around sensitive data. It’s, also securely using AI across multiple applications within a company’s business. Right?
If they have applications that they’re using, it’s actually leveraging those the data within those applications as well, but securely. And then, more importantly, the companies want more control sort of, like, right over what exactly is, is being accessed, and that can be done with tools now. And then, also, they wanna know, like, how much, are, like, employees actually using this stuff?
And so let me give you an example. Okay?
Let’s say I am a financial adviser. My day to day is advising people on what they should do next with their financial portfolio.
I take a screenshot of a customer’s financial portfolio. Shows me all the numbers. It shows me all the investments they’ve got in different buckets, and I want to know what the next best action that I should recommend this customer take on their financial portfolio based on their data. I screenshot that, and if I send that out to ChatGPT, I have just exposed all that customer data to the interwebs. Right?
No good. Zero zero guardrails, not secure at all. Now imagine if there was a tool, right, that the company was able to use to monitor and protect customer data, where instead of me dragging that screenshot into ChatGPT, I could then drag it into a window that looks very similar to ChatGPT, but it’s, it’s put there by my company. And one of these solutions is called Liminal. It is in in our portfolio.
And I drag and drop that port that, that screenshot into the Liminal interface. It looks just like ChatGPT. Alright? And I ask it, okay.
Tell me the next best step for this customer based on their financial portfolio. What this solution will do is it will redact all of the sensitive information. It’ll take off, you know, the customer’s name, Social Security number, address, like, you name it, any form of PII. Right?
It will then fish out that it’ll cast out, I should say. It’ll cast out that data and collect all from all different LLMs. I believe there’s, like, fourteen plus LLMs. Right?
It will then condense that data and then pop the information, the private information back into the use case and then present it to the financial adviser who could then say, okay, customer. Based on your financial portfolio, here are the top next recommendations you should make based on all of this information out there, and they were able to fish that but securely. Right? And so that said, guys, this is available right now.
It’s literally a plug and play. So I highly recommend you check it out, but this is the next evolution because it’s not just about enabling users to use Gen AI capabilities, but it’s doing it securely, and it’s also doing it in a way that companies can actually monitor and audit the usage. Right? Because if you if if any financial company found out that their financial advisers were willy nilly just screenshotting and sending stuff to chat GPT, think about all the financial ramifications around that.
Very, very expensive. Right? We’re talking multiple lawsuits everywhere. So folks, like, this is huge. Finance, health care, like, retail, you name it.
The name is Liminal, so it’s on here. You could see it. Liminal. Others who play in this space as well include Expedient, really around the data conversation.
So folks, like, this is a huge opportunity on how, like, how do companies leverage AI? They usually start with their employees, find out how they’re leveraging it, and then take the conversation from there. K? Alright.
Let’s head to the next slide. So I wanna make sure that we enable everyone on how to start the AI conversation. Mikey b, Megan, any any thoughts on this one?
Yeah. I think Mikey does a really good job when he’s speaking with customers to say, hey. Do you have strategy? Do you have an AI strategy? What is it? Where are you at in that strategy?
And oftentimes, I personally hear is, well, we know we need to offload some of this stuff from our humans. We wanna automate some more before it touches the human. So we have to talk through that. I hear a lot more and more every day about how to how they want to improve the workflow, how do they want they wanna automate some of the processes, again, to offload, the workload from from their humans.
But I think any of these questions are good to just start the conversation. And, Sam, like, to your point with the liminal, I think we get that asked from time to time with customers who have a strategy in place, and they wanna take it to the next level to say, hey. How do we secure it now? Right?
So that’s a good question to ask. But any one of these easy questions could be, you know, have you thought about it? What are some of the things that you want to automate, you know, processes within your organization? That’s kinda like the low hanging fruit, and then just get them to open up and and talk.
Right, Mikey? What are some of the other questions that that you’re finding some traction with, when you’re talking to customers? It’s it’s very open dialogue, I feel.
Yeah. The number one thing holding, contact centers back is churn. Right? Attrition. So, what we my talk track is always, hey.
Listen. AI is not to replace people, but it’s to augment or right staff you. You you just told me that you lose fifty percent of your staff every six months. Right?
That’s really not sustainable. What if we could have that AI voice agent upfront to kinda right staff you on those easy, dare I say boring questions, but not in the questions. Where are you located? Where are your hours of operation?
I’m working with the health care system. The the their two biggest questions are, when is my appointment, and where are you located?
I’m sorry, but if I can get a real sounding human like AI agent to handle that, that’s a huge win. Right? Because this health care facility, they average thirty minutes of call queue time because they can’t hire enough people. So right?
AI is not taking jobs. It’s right staffing. Feel free to use that. That first one’s free, folks.
I’ll charge you for the next one.
But that that’s one of my favorite talking points of that. And the other talking point is if you have a client that is a food manufacturer, is a auto parts manufacturer, is a manufacturer of any type that is subject to recall, they absolutely need the post call AI analytics.
Why?
True story. Not all my stories are true, but this one actually is. So many, many, many years ago, I was telecom admin at a BPO, and, Nestle Foods was one of our, clients. And Nestle Foods, you have no idea how much food they actually make.
It’s crazy. Anyway, they they make pet food. And we were getting these random calls that said, hey. I I gave the pet food and may my dog is sick, and the this agent making seven bucks an hour.
Like, yeah. I’ll send you out some a coupon for some more of that good dog food. Sorry to hear that. Right?
It took us three weeks to understand that there was actually a problem, like, a recurring problem with the same type of food.
If you add AI to that, I can find that problem in one day. So rather than waiting three weeks to announce a recall, which could have devastating financial and emotional ramifications, what if I can find that recall in one day? Hey. This part is defective.
We’ve gotten ten calls about it today. Hey. This food is defective. We’ve gotten ten calls about it today.
If you have a client in manufacturing, this is what I want you to do. I want you to reach out to them and say, hey. I was on an AI call today, and I really think there’s a piece of AI that can really help your business around recalls. I’d love to talk to you about it.
See what happens. Meaghan?
Yeah. No. I think that’s great. I think a lot of the stuff, like Mikey saying, but it can be uncovered as you’re talking about their use cases.
And Sam has a upcoming slides here that’s gonna talk about outcome. So I think it’s gonna really be beneficial to you. You turn that information around, convert it to a question, and you can start the conversation. So I’m gonna hand it back over to Sam.
Yeah. Thank you. So, yeah, what happens after you ask the question and you start getting down the rabbit hole, essentially. Right? Let’s head to the next slide, because this is where something like outcome based selling is very, very powerful.
And what you need to understand with AI is both Mikey b and Megan mentioned earlier is that you cannot just go buy a box of AI. Like, there’s no skew for AI. Right? And so you have to be able to basically custom build a solution here.
Right? And and that starts with selling based on measurable impact. The second you start saying, oh, AI can do this. AI can do that, but it’s not relatable to what exactly gets that champion paid or, you know, doesn’t move things forward for a company based on very specific outcomes, you completely lost them and you just become another supplier out there.
And I say that because, yes, tech advisers, guess what? Suppliers are saying the exact same thing. Right? They’re saying, hey.
Look at all these features. Feature. Feature. Feature. It looks so cool. Right? You could use it.
But what, you know, what I think we we need to remember is that you have to get to the root of why exactly something is so relevant with regard to AI. Right? Because these AI solutions can sound really, really abstract. So here are the three things to remember around outcome based selling that you need to understand is, one, understand the outcome.
What is it exactly that they want to achieve? What do they want? Right? Two, the impact.
Why does that matter? And then three, then think of the solution. So you need to work your way backwards. Let me give you an example.
Okay? Let’s say I’m in the revenue organization. I could be the CRO, you know, SVP of sales, director of sales, whatever it is. Right?
One outcome would simply be generate x percent fifty you know, generate hundred fifty percent revenue. Right? Let’s let’s get lofty here. A hundred fifty percent revenue by the end of next year. Right? Okay. Great.
Why does that matter? Well, revenue. Right? I need to grow it, and that’s my job, and that’s how I get paid.
So what is the solution here? You work your way backwards and say, okay. So, you know, customer, considering that revenue generation is an outcome for you, what are the specific KPIs or key performance indicators that contribute to that outcome? Is it maybe churn rate? Is it number or percentage of conversions? Right?
Is it upsells, cross sell percentage? Right? And once you figure out what those KPIs are, then you can match AI solutions that bolster those different KPIs and help grow them. And that’s the secret behind outcome based selling.
Because as as long as you understand what the outcome is, if a deal starts to slip, you can always come back to the outcome because you have officially sunk your teeth in or your free claws in, right, to say, hey, customer. You told me, right, that revenue generation was a big impact was a was a really big goal for you this year. You told me these are the KPIs that are gonna get you there. What’s changed?
Right? This allows you to challenge your champion in ways that you’ve never done before. Right? So outcome based selling is the way.
Let’s head to the next slide because, guys, when you go into a conversation, use a template. Use a template. Use the a template with the outcome, impact, metric on there. Right?
Understand how these outcomes are impactful and how they’re measured, and then map it to an AI solution. Right? Map it. Guys, use this template.
You can use it for any persona out there. I’ll sit with you and talk through this. Right? If you have a champion, I’ll I’ll sit with you and talk through what the outcome of what the outcomes are with that person, why it matters, what potential metrics, right, might come up.
But this is just an example of, say, someone in operations, or someone in the contact center specifically with these outcomes, the impacts, and the metrics, and then potentially what AI powered solutions can impact that. So this is another screenshot slide, folks. Take another screenshot here. But I use this template every single time I’m talking to a customer, and I am literally live writing down, okay.
What’s most important to your customer? Why does that matter? Oh, it gets you paid. Okay.
That makes a ton of sense. Let’s what’s the impact on the business? And then how is it measured? Right?
Cool. So when we at the end of the day let’s go to the next slide. At the end of the day, folks, like, AI doesn’t sell itself. Business impact does.
If you lead with a business impact, then you’ve got your lever to going in and selling more AI and really leading the AI conversation and securing your seats at the table, not just now, but for life. Because guess what? AI is not going anywhere, and AI is something that you constantly have to watch. It’s constantly evolving, so you will always be relevant.
Right? So, next slide here is just a quick quick resource for you. It’s the AI adoption road map. It’s, just your starting point for kind of building tailored AI journeys for customers.
Highly recommend you check this out if your customer has no idea where to start with AI as well.
This kinda talks through, like, what the foundation would be, the potential expansion, like, in different phases that you could walk the customer through. But as Megan and I can be mentioned earlier, folks, the phases can be in all different orders. Right? It just depends on what exactly that customer has put, first as a priority and then working your way backwards from there, to figure out what exactly they need.
So I think that concludes our section. And I know Doug has some announcements here, but, yeah, hopefully, y’all enjoyed this. I’m seeing a lot of activity in the chat.
So yeah.
Great participation from the, attending advisers today.
A lot of good questions in there. Thanks for some of the answers that have already been put in there.
Megan, this is a great resource, the AI adoption road map. There were also a couple of others that were cited, in the chat. Wanted to make sure that we had a chance to go over those as well. There’s the, data readiness ebook and then the publication how AI solves today’s business challenges. Anything that any of you want to, mention to our advisers about those additional, resources?
Teleris Hub, Teleris University, one stop shop for all the knowledge. And then Megan is amazing. Definitely, the smart one, as I would say, up here in New England on this call, and I try to keep up. Megan?
Mike is a fast typer. I tell you what, the the the speed in which he can answer these questions. Now I was gonna say, think these these documents too, do we not have some that are cobrandable, I believe. Right?
Our TAs could put their logos on there as well. Some of them are internal use only. Some of them might be customer facing. I think we’ve got different documents.
But per MyQB, the the hub has everything you need. And if you can’t find anything, just hit up one of us or your SPDM, and we can help you find it.
And as a follow-up, if oh, so, breaking news. I’m getting this from the marketing team. What? Everyone will receive a link to all the documentation as a in a follow-up email. Nice. You, marketing team.
Sam, my favorite quote, and I always pick the odd ones, but when you said, I’d like to buy a box of AI, I mean, I that impression just hits me from so many advisers and their clients especially as they go around. You know? How do I get started with this as though it’s some sort of a tool that you purchase off of the shelf, plug in somewhere, and it’s instantly doing everything you’ve ever dreamed for your organization.
So I I loved the phrase, but as advisers are meeting with their clients, really, what are the one or two or three things that they’ve got to ensure that the clients understand and are doing first?
Folks, you gotta understand that AI is a custom solution.
Okay? No matter how many suppliers say, yeah. It’s out of the box. It’s super easy.
The reality is you have to be able to tailor AI to what exactly the customer is looking to achieve because so many people miss the mark on that. They and that’s why you see so many customers who have installed some version of AI or installed AI capabilities, and they’re not seeing the results they want. Right? Because they thought, oh, I could just buy the box of AI.
Right? And, Doug, I’m gonna do it here. But, you know, when to when, TAs come to me and they say, hey, Sam. Who are the top AI players right now?
I’m gonna give them this face.
There it is.
There it is. That’s the same face I made last time I was on this call. Because, folks, like, that is there’s a ton of great AI players out there, but in respect to what? Like, what exactly is the outcome? You gotta tell me.
Because we can’t navigate you down the AI rabbit hole until we know exactly what the customer is looking to achieve.
Mhmm. Yeah. I I think, Sam, you’re right. I think it’s we know everyone’s asking for AI, but they don’t understand why.
We know AI can solve some of these problems. Right? What they’re trying to accomplish, but you’re right. What pieces of it?
They’re asking for the technology, but really what they’re asking for is I need help solving some of these issues, these problems. So we have to help our TAs uncover those use cases and those problems that we’re trying to to solve for.
And then maybe AI is the right fit. Right? It may not be the right fit out of the box, but that’s that’s what we’re here for is to help uncover that.
Not to date myself, but back in nineteen ninety nine, we all partied like it was nineteen ninety nine.
Although, I did spend twenty four hours in the PBX switch room testing sixteen sixteen hundred d DIDs for y two k. So I party with warm beer and cold pizza. But, anyways, moving on.
IVRs can do a data depth. Right? And and can read back information.
That’s not AI.
So if your client’s like, yeah. You know what’d be great is if a caller calls in and they type in their account number and it reads back their their, their information.
We’ve been doing that for thirty years. Right? So be careful. Right? AI is a ubiquitous term, and maybe there’s some non AI solutions, that are a little out of the box that work.
So be careful. Not every right? It’s kinda like not every mushroom is a truffle. Right?
So not every mushroom you find is an AI mushroom, so be careful to not to oversell it.
That’s I think that’s the next phrase you’re gonna use. Not every mushroom is a truffle without.
Oh, well, you guys were talking about mushroom coffee if for anybody who joined us earlier. So I thought I’d just keep on that theme.
What?
Oh, that’s true.
I pay attention to these things, people.
Yes. You do. Megan, Mikey, Sam, terrific presentation today.