HITT Series Videos

HITT- The Importance of AI in CX- A Midyear Review- June 25, 2025

June 25, 2024

Introduction
Hey, everyone. Sam Nelson here, VP of CX at Telarus. Welcome to today’s high intensity technology training. Today, we’re gonna do a CX midyear review.

Can’t believe it’s already the middle of twenty twenty four. Where has the time gone? Today’s session, we’re just gonna focus on a few key items to be aware of, some innovative technology that is really propelling the CX technology space forward just to make sure that you’re aware of what’s going on, what’s most relevant, and what you can talk about with your clients. So with that said, let’s start with the first one, AI powered personalization at scale.

AI Powered Personalization at Scale
Folks, if you’re not on the AI bandwagon yet, it’s time. Analytics, machine learning algorithms, they make all the difference. So let me give you some examples, and some of you have heard me give these before. But, for example, if you’re going through your Facebook feed, your Instagram feed, LinkedIn, Reddit, whatever it is, and you start to see some ads.

And you think to yourself, gosh. I was just talking about that with someone. Or maybe you were googling it or doing some research on a pair of shorts or a T shirt that you thought about buying, and all of a sudden, you see ads in your social media feeds. I’ve got news for you.

That is not by mistake by any means.

It’s all very calculated. You’re spending anywhere from three to five seconds engaging with that ad, whether that’s watching a video or maybe you click something in that ad. Guess what? The company is going to take that data into account and actually start advertising to you more based on your preferences.

In fact, they’re gonna start taking that data and applying it to similar demographics as you. They’re going to look at others with your profile similarities here and there. They’re gonna start targeting those folks as well with potentially the same types of ads or messaging that works well. So analytics, machine learning learning algorithms, everyone’s taking advantage of them.

And, yes, we do have technology in our portfolio that you can offer to clients around this type of trend. So, again, personalization at scale. Jump on the AI powered personalization at scale bandwagon immediately.

Conversational AI and Intelligent Virtual Assistants
The next trend, conversational AI and intelligent virtual assistants.

It’s essentially the robot that is answering the line. When you call and the robot asks you how they can help you, that’s the conversational AI and intelligent virtual assistant or IVA.

And, primarily, what they do is well, they handle queries.

Right? They can complete some very basic transactions.

And guess what? They’re sounding more real every single day. Well, I hate to say every single day because it’s more like every few minutes. Right? These, these bots are getting really good at mimicking natural sounding voices like us as humans, and it’s actually really important. So I want you to take note, of this right here.

Why is it super important, that companies implement conversational AI aka IVAs. Right? It’s so that human agents are available to help with more complex inquiries. So let me give you an example.

Let’s say you call your bank and you want to check your balance. If you’re not using the app, maybe you’re in a pickle and you need to make a phone call in. Something like an IVA can verify you, as well as tell you what your balance is. No big deal.

Very simple task. Now let’s say you call your bank with, a fraud charge on your credit card. That is way more urgent. You want to speak to a human immediately, and so, you go directly to a human.

Well, that’s great because that human is available to talk to you, because they don’t have to deal with all of these mundane tasks such as checking your balance. So, essentially, what these conversational AI bots and IVAs are doing for companies is they’re freeing up human agents, to handle more complex inquiries, and also more urgent inquiries. Right? And us as consumers, we do appreciate that, because when we do call in, we want to get to the right person especially for our urgent matters.

So that’s conversational AI and IBA.

Now the next trend.

Omnichannel Engagement and Unified Customer Journeys
This has been around for some some time, but it’s more important than it ever has been before. We’re talking about omnichannel engagement and unified customer journeys. Now why these are important? It’s all about customer journey orchestration.

We as humans and consumers, we love consistent experiences, especially when they’re good. And so let’s say, you know, we’re starting here. We’re making our way through an interaction with a company. We actually expect it to be exactly the same, if not identical, right, to the experiences that we’ve had with that company before.

So let me paint this picture for you. Let me give you an example of orchestration.

Okay? Let’s say I visit a company website, and I’m looking for dog toys. Right? Because you all know love my dogs. And I’m looking for dog toys, and, I’m a fairly loyal customer, and I put a few things in my cart.

Let’s say I get distracted by a phone call and I completely forget about that.

The company may send me an email or a text reminder reminding me that, I’ve put a couple of things in my cart, and my dog is very impatiently waiting for the dog toys.

And, you know, maybe I should go back to my cart and make the purchase. Right? And, of course, I do. Right?

And so, another, sort of orchestration move there of getting a consumer to buy, can actually involve multiple channels. So when we talk omnichannel engagement, we’re talking about communicating with customers whether that’s via text, via phone call, maybe an email, maybe something on social media. And so the power of unifying a customer journey looks kind of like this, where, let’s say, I visited the website again to search for dog toys. But now I’m on Instagram, and the same company that sells those dog toys shows up in my feed, and I click that. I think, oh, that’s really interesting.

And then maybe, from there, they’re sending me text reminders again about the cart where I put the toys in. And so at this point, my entire journey has been mapped. I have visited the website. I’ve put things into my cart.

The company has reminded me, via whether that’s email or text message as well as on social media. So they’ve been been able to actually create an entire profile of me as a consumer, within their system. And, again, making these points of orchestration where it looks like the cart was left open and there are toys in there. Why did she stop?

Was it because she truly got distracted? Was it because maybe she didn’t think the the products were worth it?

Were the products not going to get there in time? Why didn’t she complete the purchase? Right? And these are all really important data points that allow companies to make these data driven decisions that are crucial to success.

And all of our suppliers in our portfolio, contribute greatly to the consistent CX or consistent customer experience, that we crave, but also that orchestration component that a lot of companies, also use to, be successful and hit those numbers. So that’s omnichannel engagement and unified customer journeys.

AI QSA and Technology Adviser Support
And, of course, wanted to point out that the AI QSA is here.

In other words, the quick solution assessment, we want to make sure that you’re able to ask the right questions around artificial intelligence.

Essentially, this tool is going to match your client’s needs with the best fit AI solutions and really take out the guesswork, to give you the knowledge, to have these conversations around artificial intelligence.

We’ve got a lot of AI stuff going on right right now. We’re really in the thick of it, and the majority of companies still don’t understand how to use it. And so before you, you know, you even dive into the tool and your if your customer is implementing AI, my very first question to that customer, as a technology adviser today would be, how do you envision AI working in your technology stack? Right? What are you looking to accomplish with AI? It could be as simple as that.

You know, how will AI contribute to x y z goals of yours? Right? It’s really important to understand the outcome, before you start pitching the capabilities of AI. And in a lot of times, for those of you who have attended one of our CX Ascend, events, you’ll know that we talk about outcome based selling. A lot of times you have to start with the outcomes to understand and work your way backwards as to what solutions you can, put into that. But even more importantly, clients, especially around the topic of AI, are looking for you to help them actually generate these outcomes.

And so, with that said, here’s the QR code directly to, Telarus University about how to use the AIQSA.

All of our technology advisers, y’all need to use it. Jump right in. Get to know it. Play with the tool.

Familiarize yourself with the questions, and you’ll be more confidently ready to have these conversations. And, of course, we’ve got our amazing solution engineering team. Reach out to your regional folks as well as your three dedicated CX and AI solution architects. We’ve got Jason Lowe, Megan Tsai, and Mike Belarjian at the ready.

And then last but certainly not least, if you haven’t checked out the CX track and the AI track in Solaris University, please go check it out.

Solaris University and Skill Development
Feel free to reach out to admin at Solaris University dot com as well should you need some assistance. This is a great opportunity just to upskill, with regards to CX technology as well as, learn some fundamentals around AI. Think one zero one, two zero one, three zero one. We did take a very modular approach, so don’t be intimidated when you see a lot of information on there.

That’s on purpose. You can skip around, and do as you see fit throughout both tracks. So go check it out. We’re here to help you.

Feel free to ask questions in the chat in today’s session as well, but we are here to help you all go beyond. Have a great rest of your week.