#205 - Nerys Corfield - the Tech space explained

[00:00:00] Hello everyone, welcome to the 83rd Get Out of Wrap TV. It's great to see you October the 29th, Halloween. If you remember last year I did face paint and get all dressed up, but not this year, I promise. This isn't a costume. It's just new lighting.

[00:00:18] So welcome, we have a great show lined up for you today. Waiting in the virtual green room is industry legend Nerys Corfield. She's just doing some vocal exercises I think, ready for a wrap and getting the lasers ready.

[00:00:34] If you are here, let's kick off and say hello. Don't forget as well to network with each other, as well as a comment, you should see a network tab and it means you can connect with people that you might not be connected with.

[00:00:49] But before I forget, I couldn't do this or anything without my partners. So a big, big thank you to DDC Outsourcing Solutions, to EvaluAgent, to Better Outsourcing and to OneCom. Thank you very much.

[00:01:09] Ah, look, the fastest fingers in the West. Danny Ware. I've got to be careful that that has another meaning, Danny, doesn't it? Sorry.

[00:01:18] I meant typing. Deepak is here. Evening, Deepak is joining. Is it New Zealand, Deepak? Yes, good evening, everyone. Let's start with, shall we, our little icebreaker.

[00:01:35] Hello, Katie is here. Morning. Now, I imagine, Katie, you just start the day on 100%, full of energy all the time, right?

[00:01:46] Let's get going. So say hello in the comments. And what's one thing you are grateful for today? Let's start the day with some gratitude, shall we?

[00:02:00] Yes. Hello, Shamim. Hello. It's good to see you. Here he is. Power to the people. Spencer is here. And yes, it is. It's evening.

[00:02:10] So, Deepak, we appreciate you joining us in the evening. Let's kick off and start the day with some gratitude. It's meant to be really good for you, isn't it?

[00:02:20] Our brains are predisposed to focus on the negative, so you've got to consciously do something to kind of counter that.

[00:02:28] And nothing better than gratitude. I'm grateful for all of you spending, giving up some time to join this show.

[00:02:37] But what are you all grateful for today? Let's get going. I'm also grateful for, it's a lovely sunny day.

[00:02:45] I have a relatively free afternoon, and that's always something to be grateful for, less meetings.

[00:02:53] Danny, I'm grateful for a heater in the Shedquarters Baltic today.

[00:02:59] Oh, it's pretty warm here, Danny, where I am. But yes, Shedquarters, if you guys haven't seen it, he's got a great setup as Danny.

[00:03:07] Absolutely love it. Let's start getting some gratitude in. What are you all grateful for? Danny has kicked us off.

[00:03:17] Come on, Katie, Shamim, Spencer, Deepak. What do we think? And anyone else, if you are watching and you haven't ever dropped in a comment, please do.

[00:03:27] Oh, and if your comments are not showing, I promise you I'm not ignoring you. You just need to refresh LinkedIn.

[00:03:34] Don't leave, but just refresh. And then they should show for me as well.

[00:03:41] Sometimes the connection between LinkedIn and the software that I use, StreamYard, doesn't always show everyone's comments.

[00:03:50] There's no quality control, I promise you.

[00:03:53] Shamim says, I've been out of the country for a week, so I'm grateful to be back in the UK and surrounded by my four cats.

[00:04:00] Wow. Now we've got two. We used to have three. Two is enough. Two plus a dog. So four is really something else.

[00:04:08] Deepak says, grateful for a day of like-minded people I can connect with from all parts of the world.

[00:04:13] Truly. Isn't that lovely? That is lovely.

[00:04:17] Oh, Vic Tori is here. Hi, Vic.

[00:04:19] I'm grateful for your wonderful session at the Contact Center Performance Summit.

[00:04:24] Oh, thank you very much. That was one of the value agents and it was a live session.

[00:04:29] I really, really enjoyed it. It was about team leaders.

[00:04:32] All of those sessions were great, including there was one from Rob.

[00:04:36] There was one from Erica Farmer and there were loads.

[00:04:39] There was one on AI at the end from a guy. I can't remember his name.

[00:04:44] Anyway, all of those sessions are on a value agent's website.

[00:04:48] They're well worth a watch.

[00:04:50] There we go. I wondered if this would come.

[00:04:52] Grateful for today.

[00:04:54] His Man United manager just got the boot.

[00:04:57] Well, there you go.

[00:04:59] Certainly of the girls' football training, some of them are Man United fans and there were mixed responses, I'll say, Spencer.

[00:05:05] Some were disappointed. Some were over the moon.

[00:05:09] That's football, I guess.

[00:05:10] Katie is grateful for Tim Tams and Yorkshire Tea.

[00:05:14] Now, we had a whole, we literally had a whole show dominated by Tim Tams, didn't we?

[00:05:20] So, and I've yet to try them.

[00:05:22] I'm hoping if I keep mentioning them enough, I'll get sent them.

[00:05:28] I'm grateful for half term.

[00:05:29] I sense some sarcasm there.

[00:05:34] I think like a lot of people who predominantly work from home, the realization that half term is coming are like, oh, great.

[00:05:42] So, yes, please do keep these coming.

[00:05:47] But you probably don't want to hear from me when we've got a, oh, Marianne is here.

[00:05:52] Hold on, let me just grab this one.

[00:05:54] Morning, everyone.

[00:05:55] Lovely to be here.

[00:05:55] I'm grateful to be here this morning with all of you wonderful and lovely people.

[00:06:00] Here we go.

[00:06:01] Isn't that lovely?

[00:06:02] And this is the whole point.

[00:06:03] It is great to practice gratitude every day because I don't know about you, unless I'm prompted to, I don't.

[00:06:11] And I really, really should.

[00:06:13] But as I was saying, you probably don't want to hear from me when we have an industry legend itching to get on.

[00:06:22] Oh, here we go.

[00:06:24] Barry is here.

[00:06:25] Morning.

[00:06:26] Sorry, Leigh.

[00:06:27] Grateful for my team leaders today.

[00:06:29] Worked late into the night and showed up raring to go this morning.

[00:06:33] And Barry posted about that in the team leader community this morning.

[00:06:38] His team were there till 11 last night getting ready for, you'll have to remind me, Barry, but it was a regulatory requirement, wasn't it?

[00:06:46] And what a great team you have there.

[00:06:48] But it's because they follow you, my friend.

[00:06:51] Anyway, okay.

[00:06:53] Industry legend waiting in the rings.

[00:06:55] I can see backstage she's currently doing star jumps and burpees.

[00:07:01] So, without further ado, it is time for Isneris, everybody.

[00:07:21] Good morning.

[00:07:23] I've had some tequila in the green room.

[00:07:29] It's great you are here, fully laden up with tequila or not.

[00:07:33] I know it's always going to be interesting.

[00:07:37] But how the devil are you?

[00:07:38] I'm very good, thank you.

[00:07:40] Very good.

[00:07:41] Grateful that in 98 I started my career in this lovely world.

[00:07:45] Grateful for all the friends that I have.

[00:07:47] I'm sure Deepak is there with a glass of red wine over in New Zealand.

[00:07:51] I can absolutely see all of Shemim's cat circling around her.

[00:07:55] They're amazing.

[00:07:57] So, yeah, it's just, yeah, I'm very grateful to be in this position.

[00:08:01] And grateful, without sounding sycophantic, Martin, grateful for you and everything you do for the community.

[00:08:07] Oh, thank you.

[00:08:08] And straight back at you, genuinely.

[00:08:09] Definitely.

[00:08:10] You've helped me loads on my journey.

[00:08:14] You've kept me sane many, many times.

[00:08:17] Hold on.

[00:08:17] Here we go.

[00:08:18] The comments are coming in, Neris.

[00:08:22] Watch her wreck.

[00:08:22] See, it's your rap.

[00:08:23] It's your rapping that people want.

[00:08:25] Rob says, watch her wreck the mic.

[00:08:27] Watch her wreck the mic.

[00:08:29] It's your meme as well.

[00:08:30] Look.

[00:08:30] Hello, Neris.

[00:08:33] Art emoji.

[00:08:34] So, Neris, what are you talking about today?

[00:08:38] Yeah.

[00:08:39] Yeah.

[00:08:39] So, I'm going to just give a very whistle-stop tour of contact-centered tech because I think there's some people, and more often now, we are quite understanding of that world.

[00:08:50] But perhaps just some of the basics.

[00:08:53] And certainly then, in the front line, what it means to you, where tech is going.

[00:08:58] So, I'm going to encourage lots of questions.

[00:09:00] I've got some slides to take us through the journey.

[00:09:04] But be mindful that it is a really complicated world.

[00:09:08] And there's some real experts in their specific field.

[00:09:11] So, I'm just taking this very top line level and ignoring some of the nuances that inevitably sit behind a lot of what I'm presenting.

[00:09:20] But sometimes, I remember when I moved into the tech world, yeah, it was a bit confusing.

[00:09:26] So, I'm just going to sort of demystify some of that and then just chat about, yeah, what you can do in the front line to think about how your tech stack can better serve you and your advisors.

[00:09:38] I'm already thinking how helpful this will be to people in the team leader community because you've hit the nail on the head.

[00:09:44] I can remember even going all the way up to contact center manager when I started to get involved in those projects where we were looking at getting new tech or updating tech and thinking,

[00:09:56] I don't really have a clue how this comes together.

[00:09:59] I don't know the terminology, the abbreviations.

[00:10:02] So, yeah, very welcome.

[00:10:04] Let's have a couple more comments, Nerys, before we jump in.

[00:10:08] Is there going to be an exclusive single release for Barry?

[00:10:14] No, Barry.

[00:10:15] Come on, we'll do some Cythwell singing, Barry.

[00:10:19] Oh, yes.

[00:10:20] At Expo.

[00:10:21] And talking of Expo, you couldn't have set that up better, Nerys.

[00:10:24] Clayton, the amazing Clayton Josti.

[00:10:27] Good morning, Eminem.

[00:10:28] Looking forward to your talk at Expo, Nerys.

[00:10:32] Yeah, well, yeah.

[00:10:33] Well, yeah, that's all about like sanity versus vanity and metrics and how you sort of pick people's metric obsession and understand the unintentional consequences,

[00:10:44] determine what are the right metrics to take your business forward and align with your sort of ambitions.

[00:10:50] Because all too often I go into contact centers and those two are completely misaligned.

[00:10:54] We'll conform with bias.

[00:10:56] It's like, well, this is what we do and these are the metrics that we look at.

[00:10:59] So, yeah.

[00:11:00] In fact, don't bother coming because I've pretty much changed your business.

[00:11:04] Don.

[00:11:05] Wait in.

[00:11:06] I need people to go to Nerys's because we've found that I am following Nerys.

[00:11:12] So, you've got Nerys on day two at 11.

[00:11:17] Yeah.

[00:11:18] Then straight after Nerys, you've got me.

[00:11:20] And I'm not going to be offended that Clayton said he's looking forward to yours but didn't let him go.

[00:11:27] Because as long as he stays in his seat at the end of yours, I'm hoping that I get your audience.

[00:11:33] So, and let's say Clayton has another one.

[00:11:36] Contact center tech.

[00:11:38] You lost me.

[00:11:39] Hello.

[00:11:40] So, he will benefit from this for sure, like a lot of us.

[00:11:44] And Barry said, let's get our choir voices out.

[00:11:49] Right.

[00:11:50] Let's go.

[00:11:50] I'm assuming you're singing this then.

[00:11:53] Yeah, totally.

[00:11:54] Yeah.

[00:11:56] Right.

[00:11:57] You can see my screen.

[00:11:58] We can.

[00:11:59] We can.

[00:11:59] Okay.

[00:12:00] Okay.

[00:12:01] Right.

[00:12:01] I'm going to whistle-stop tour this, but I never started as an advisor and I never started as a team leader.

[00:12:07] I went in in 98 in the world of outsourcing and started managing customers.

[00:12:12] So, I managed, I worked in six different outsourcers, all with different tech.

[00:12:17] And within that, also had different tech point solutions coming in.

[00:12:22] And to Martin's point, it was quite confusing.

[00:12:25] And it really wasn't what you were bothered about.

[00:12:27] What you were bothered about was your advisors, no show, no call, where you were, attrition, what all of those things that drive an operation.

[00:12:35] And tech really only surfaced in my operational experience when it was falling down and or when it was super frustrating.

[00:12:44] Whether that was a dialer or your contact center telephony platform.

[00:12:49] Just going to talk about that a little bit more.

[00:12:51] But then in 2015, I decided to set up on my own.

[00:12:55] And now I go around doing contact center discoveries and I work with vendors and resellers.

[00:13:00] And we'll have a little distinction and overview of what the difference is for them.

[00:13:05] And I work directly with customers as well.

[00:13:09] Vendors, tech, yeah, loads of things.

[00:13:12] So, I've been in about 200 contact centers and done about 100 discoveries.

[00:13:16] And it's all about trying to determine whether it's a police force or whether it's a charity or whether it's a big utilities organization.

[00:13:25] It's trying to discern how the tech can better align itself to the vision of the customer experience and the employee experience.

[00:13:32] And then I do loads of judging as well.

[00:13:34] Like, loads of judging.

[00:13:36] So, please put some questions in the chat.

[00:13:40] Martin, I think I can't see them.

[00:13:42] I will go through them.

[00:13:45] But both questions and just kind of, you know, expressions of love for you.

[00:13:52] So, this is an incredibly significant industry.

[00:13:56] And it's really interesting because so often lots of people say, oh, what, my telephony platform.

[00:14:04] And actually, the evolution of what that has now become and how those technologies can serve you is so much more different than just, you know, a physical handset on your phone.

[00:14:16] And what was quite, yeah, rudimentary technology in the background.

[00:14:21] But it all started back with the Canadian, Alexandra Graham Bell, back in 1874.

[00:14:27] And then in 1910, a manual PBX or what we just call a PBX where it was routing telephone calls internally.

[00:14:38] So, it was routing telephone calls internally.

[00:14:40] Yeah, I need to speak to Bob, right?

[00:14:42] This clever technology, this PBX is going to find Bob.

[00:14:47] And then what happened in 1973, Robert Herval decided, actually, well, Continental Airways said, well, we don't need it going to Bob.

[00:14:58] Because actually, we've got 100 Bobs in Continental Airways that can answer the same question.

[00:15:05] So, we need it to route to any of those Bobs.

[00:15:09] So, then sitting next to the PBX was the automatic contact or call distributor, as it was called back then, which was distributing calls to all the Bobs in the island that was the contact center.

[00:15:24] So, that is then the evolution of how that ACD started.

[00:15:30] So, PBX, ACD.

[00:15:34] The ACD, that fits within the organization, just within the island of the contact center.

[00:15:40] But then, in 1999, Mark Benioff started as a service.

[00:15:44] So, through Salesforce, he created the very first globally available software as a service.

[00:15:51] And what that meant was, historically, all of your TIT was in server rooms in your corridors on premise.

[00:16:00] Some of you might still have that, right?

[00:16:02] There's about, I don't know, 50, 40% of all contact centers have still got their stuff in corridors in server rooms.

[00:16:12] But, more often than not now, people are moving to the cloud, which means it's as a service, which means it's a subscription.

[00:16:20] So, instead of just paying a massive chunk of money at an upfront rate and amortizing that over time, then it means you just subscribe to it.

[00:16:30] So, you pay per advisor per month.

[00:16:33] And the advantage of that is it can scale because it goes back and forth when you need it to if you've got surge requirements because your volume traffic goes up because of Black Fridays or something like that.

[00:16:45] And it also means, just like when on your phone, that updates happen as and when those vendors have created those software updates.

[00:16:55] So, it means that that's where the expression evergreen comes from because it's constantly updating themselves because those software vendors are now really focusing in on that R&D and giving you the best solutions possible.

[00:17:10] So, PBX became unified communication and then when video came in as well, that became a much richer experience.

[00:17:19] So, Teams, Zoom, BlueJeans, there's loads of them that are now UCAS vendors, O-Ring Central, 8x8.

[00:17:28] So, they are all about communicating across the organization.

[00:17:33] And then the ACD went up into the cloud and became a contact center as a service, right?

[00:17:39] So, the confusion now is that we're seeing an emergence of these two coming together.

[00:17:45] So, vendors like Zoom sell CCAS and UCAS.

[00:17:49] So, you have one vendor doing both.

[00:17:51] But we won't get into that because quite frankly, we don't have time.

[00:17:56] Oh, off it's gone into the cloud.

[00:17:59] And it's such an amorphous term, cloud.

[00:18:01] It's like, what does that even mean?

[00:18:03] And it means that the servers just aren't sitting in your server room to all intents and purposes.

[00:18:08] And there's two distinct flavors of cloud.

[00:18:12] And within that, there's loads of nuances.

[00:18:15] But fundamentally, you can have your stuff, your applications, and your databases sitting within a private environment.

[00:18:24] Or you can put it into a public multi-tenanted environment where everybody shares loads of resources.

[00:18:31] But you've got the key to your own data and your own databases.

[00:18:35] And there's some really famous multi-tenant cloud providers, AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure, to name but the top three, really.

[00:18:44] So, that's the difference with cloud.

[00:18:47] So, who creates all this stuff?

[00:18:50] Well, back in the day, they were called manufacturers because they were creating physical pieces of tin.

[00:18:55] And now, more often than not, they're called vendors because they're creating software.

[00:19:00] Even though, right.

[00:19:02] So, vendors are like Nike and Volkswagen.

[00:19:08] So, if you wanted some Nike trainers, you can go to a Nike store and go to the vendor directly.

[00:19:13] But, of course, when you go into the Nike store, you ain't getting any Adidas or anything like that.

[00:19:18] You're just getting Nike.

[00:19:19] So, you can buy it from just Nike.

[00:19:21] Same with Volkswagen.

[00:19:23] And I suppose, interestingly, the vendors have very different models as to how they want the end users to consume their technology.

[00:19:33] Some, like Cisco, will only work with partners.

[00:19:37] So, you'll never be able to buy it direct.

[00:19:39] Versus those that have a hybrid.

[00:19:40] Some organizations can buy it direct.

[00:19:43] Some buy a partner.

[00:19:44] And then some really focus on just doing it themselves.

[00:19:48] There's all these different types.

[00:19:50] And it depends on sort of, yeah, the size of your organization.

[00:19:54] But, by and large, the vendors don't want to sell direct.

[00:19:58] They want to amplify their sales opportunity globally by using partners who are accredited.

[00:20:05] So, we'll just go on to the partner landscape in a little minute.

[00:20:08] But the vendor world, it's been around for a very, very long time.

[00:20:13] Since the 1970s, the ACD vendors.

[00:20:17] So, the oldest established ones are Aspect, which is now Alvaria and very much focuses on Dialer world and WFM world.

[00:20:25] And then Mitel, who's interestingly just created a global partnership with ZOO, so they can offer UC and UCAS.

[00:20:33] And then, within that, there'll be names that you recognize.

[00:20:36] But what you should also note is the size of some of these organizations in terms of their turnover.

[00:20:43] So, Cisco.

[00:20:45] These are probably about 18 months out.

[00:20:49] But 58 billion turnover.

[00:20:51] The likes of Nice and Genesis, which are sort of determined as the Coca-Cola and the Pepsi of the CCAS world.

[00:20:58] They're turning over 2 billion pound each.

[00:21:00] So, these are very significant organizations.

[00:21:04] And this is done by Richard Pennington, who's a lovely Welsh guy from Calabrio.

[00:21:09] Oh, now, just one second.

[00:21:12] Shamim, I don't know if you want these, but the slides are not showing moving as you tell the story.

[00:21:18] Do you want the slides?

[00:21:20] Yes, definitely the slides need to move.

[00:21:24] Which slide can you see now?

[00:21:27] The Google page.

[00:21:28] Oh, my gosh.

[00:21:32] What an absolute disaster.

[00:21:36] Hang on one second.

[00:21:37] Let me end this show.

[00:21:39] Let me try and share again.

[00:21:41] Get this loads of slides.

[00:21:44] What I'll do is I'll do present.

[00:21:47] Slide.

[00:21:48] I have no slides.

[00:21:50] Present.

[00:21:51] Super late.

[00:21:51] Don't worry.

[00:21:52] We're pretty much starting again.

[00:21:54] And, man, it's all recorded, as you know.

[00:21:58] Thanks for me.

[00:21:59] Am I just got caught up in Nerys' prose and storytelling?

[00:22:04] Hang on one second.

[00:22:05] Share.

[00:22:07] Now, come on.

[00:22:08] It's weird, Jordan.

[00:22:09] Oh, here we go.

[00:22:09] I will bring you back in.

[00:22:12] Ready?

[00:22:14] Okay.

[00:22:15] There we go.

[00:22:15] Do you see anything now?

[00:22:16] Yeah.

[00:22:17] What can you see now?

[00:22:18] British Gas, Volkswagen.

[00:22:21] So these are all the clients I looked after in the 17 years that I was in outsourcing.

[00:22:26] This is my world now and all the customers and vendors that I work with.

[00:22:30] This is the history slide that shows the sort of evolution of going from Alexander Graham Bell right down to those sort of vendors that we talked about.

[00:22:41] This is...

[00:22:42] Thank you, Shanine.

[00:22:42] God, that would have been a disaster.

[00:22:44] This is the slide that shows that move from PBX to UCAS, UCAS, UCD to CCAS.

[00:22:51] It's still in thumbnail mode, not presentation.

[00:22:55] Yeah, I know, but I'm scared.

[00:22:57] Right.

[00:22:58] There we go.

[00:22:59] That's better.

[00:23:00] That's perfect.

[00:23:02] I know.

[00:23:03] Okay, right.

[00:23:04] As Rob says, I was totally immersed in Nerys' commentary.

[00:23:08] Slide Celestia Borton.

[00:23:11] As Danny says, it all makes sense, though.

[00:23:14] So don't worry.

[00:23:16] Okay, fine.

[00:23:17] I mean, you're captivating Nerys.

[00:23:21] Okay, tell my son that.

[00:23:23] Right, okay.

[00:23:24] So this is that whole on-premise, hosted private flag, multi-tenant.

[00:23:29] I find this visual really, and I always think about multi-tenant public clouds like this.

[00:23:34] I always think, yeah, so you've got your own key to your front door, but you're in a block of flats, basically.

[00:23:39] Whereas hosted private clouds is...

[00:23:43] Sometimes you might share databases, you might share an application, but have your own database and vice versa.

[00:23:49] But a lot, it's much, yeah, it can be a lot more security conscious having a private cloud.

[00:23:56] There's a lot of people that'll be like, no, Nerys, you're absolutely wrong, as you spend so much money, for example, on security.

[00:24:03] Manufacturers.

[00:24:04] So these are...

[00:24:05] That is that slide.

[00:24:06] And then this is the slide where, yeah, there's images of where everybody came in, those contact center vendors, and how their turnover.

[00:24:16] As you can see, some of them will be out of date, some of them don't share their turnover specific to the contact center component part, because they might offer a much broader set of technologies.

[00:24:28] But this is quite an interesting slide to understand the evolution and the acquisitions.

[00:24:34] There's acquisitions going on all, like all the time.

[00:24:38] So puzzle last week for a point solution, all the time.

[00:24:42] So this is the slide that Richard Pinninton did to demonstrate how many contact center tech vendors, contact center tech or CCAS, there are available.

[00:24:57] And there are so many.

[00:24:59] And it's quite interesting because what you'll see here, if you're, and if you're a global organization, you will know these analyst firms quite well.

[00:25:08] There's Gartner and Forrester and Frost Sullivan.

[00:25:11] And they're sitting outside that, there's hundreds of other analysts.

[00:25:14] Now, I am very cynical about the analyst world because I believe it drives unintentional consequences for the buyers.

[00:25:21] I've written articles about it.

[00:25:23] But for example, to get onto the Gartner quadrant, you have to be amazing for a start.

[00:25:29] You have to offer all this functionality and vision, but you also have to have a certainly significant chunk of revenue globally.

[00:25:38] And you have to have feet on the street in South America.

[00:25:40] I don't care if I'm a, you know, wielding society in Yorkshire, if I have got resources in South America that are sales.

[00:25:48] And also it means that oftentimes a lot of these vendors will just buy more point solutions and they won't knit them together neatly in the background.

[00:25:59] But they're ticking that box that Gartner need to see that increase of revenue.

[00:26:04] Anyway, Shamim and I debate this for hours and this could be debated for hours.

[00:26:08] But the reality is analysts exist and they serve a purpose, but they are not the be all and end all, especially when you're in Europe, because they are very focused on the North American market.

[00:26:22] Rob said second point.

[00:26:23] Now that's a slide, all vendors.

[00:26:26] Rachel says exactly she's in agreement with you.

[00:26:30] And Deepak says plus she paid to get on Gartner.

[00:26:33] Well, you don't pay explicitly, but you pay in terms of time and effort and energy.

[00:26:39] It is an inordinate amount of time.

[00:26:42] The general top line is you pay to play, but nobody's actually handing over physical money to Gartner as much.

[00:26:50] But it's murky.

[00:26:53] And there's a lack of transparency as well in the criteria.

[00:26:57] So, yeah.

[00:26:58] Yeah.

[00:26:59] Deepak.

[00:26:59] I mean, it's a funny thing, isn't it?

[00:27:01] It's like everybody knows and then that nobody is brave enough to say it sometimes.

[00:27:07] So, this is how I...

[00:27:08] He says, yes, we do debate it for hours.

[00:27:11] Sorry.

[00:27:11] Yes, we do.

[00:27:13] Vendor categorization.

[00:27:14] This is how I think of it, right?

[00:27:16] So, you've got all those old guy and women, those old vendors that are still very much knocking about.

[00:27:23] They're still selling tickets.

[00:27:25] They're collabing with other people.

[00:27:26] So, we heard about Mitel.

[00:27:28] So, this is like a buyer, Mitel, Cisco.

[00:27:30] They have got extraordinary volumes of accumbency because they were the games in town back then.

[00:27:39] A lot of the CCAS vendors are now trying to steal a lot of their on-premise deployments.

[00:27:46] So, CCAS players.

[00:27:48] You've got this sort of like a buy model.

[00:27:50] So, you get what you're given.

[00:27:52] There is an opportunity to do customization around it.

[00:27:55] But fundamentally, they've got Zoom, for example.

[00:27:59] Billion pound is what Eric Wang has dedicated to R&D on their contact center platform.

[00:28:05] So, you've got super clever people with huge, huge bandwidth to develop technology that is going to service the end-user market.

[00:28:13] And they're global and they're selling loads of tickets.

[00:28:16] And then, you've got the build players.

[00:28:19] So, this is the likes of like Bonage and Twilio, whereby they're sort of like the network rail basis.

[00:28:30] So, they're delivering APIs so you can channel a lot of contact functions.

[00:28:35] So, SMS, video, and you can build around it.

[00:28:39] But just like these guys, A, you've got to put it together within your organization.

[00:28:43] And you've got to have a Simon Cowell team of people around it.

[00:28:47] So, some organizations love that.

[00:28:49] DevOps, but well, some organizations are just like, do you know what?

[00:28:52] I'll just go for a CCAS solution because I don't have the smarts internally to help to build it on myself.

[00:29:00] Then, you've got the specialist players.

[00:29:02] And these are players that I always think of as like inches wide and miles deep.

[00:29:06] So, that's all they do.

[00:29:07] So, whether that's the AI players like Kodviji and Core AI, that's all they think about.

[00:29:12] Whether it's the Dyna vendors, like we talked about Alvaria, Noetica.

[00:29:17] Whether it's the WFM players, so IEX from Nice and Calabria, as we talked about.

[00:29:23] But that's kind of, they're bleeding out, but fundamentally their DNA and their core is within those specialist subjects.

[00:29:32] And then you've got the augmenters to help, you know, make sure that you sound good and you look good if needed.

[00:29:38] So, that's kind of how I think about the vendor landscape.

[00:29:41] How am I doing for time, Martin?

[00:29:43] Conscious that I had to do a bit.

[00:29:44] No, this is great.

[00:29:46] Keep going.

[00:29:47] Let me just pick up.

[00:29:49] You've got a lot of, love this slide.

[00:29:52] Spencer has asked a couple of questions around accessibility.

[00:29:57] I don't know if you want to pick that up now or towards the end.

[00:30:01] Spencer, I can definitely pick that up now.

[00:30:03] The vendors have got within Europe a framework called WCAG2, which has 13 basic principles that they have to align to.

[00:30:12] And it sets, it's sort of four areas that they really have to think about.

[00:30:17] So, that's all around like operability, understandable and robust.

[00:30:21] So, that means there's loads of different functions then that the vendors offer.

[00:30:26] And it's quite interesting because that is super nuanced.

[00:30:29] So, I'm not going to go into it an awful lot.

[00:30:32] But, of course, it's like, do you mean it's accessible on a UI front for the advisors?

[00:30:37] Is it accessible for the back end?

[00:30:39] So, the system administrator, there's loads of different nuances within WCAG2.

[00:30:43] But, I can tell you that the vendors are very keen to align to that or the Disability Act in the US as well, which is slightly different.

[00:30:54] But, there is a framework that they should be aligning to ensure from the end user's perspective, so the advisor's perspective, team leaders, and then the customer's perspective as well.

[00:31:05] Danny says quickly, Nois.

[00:31:07] I'm guessing specialist players are only halfway there and living on a prayer.

[00:31:11] So, nice, Danny.

[00:31:15] Very nice.

[00:31:16] Love it.

[00:31:17] But, this is that interesting thing, right?

[00:31:19] I think the frustration for me always is the CRM vendors who are massive behemoths.

[00:31:25] So, Salesforce, for example, compared to the CCAT vendors have stolen a march because they sit on the desktop.

[00:31:33] So, you've got these massive piston engines trying to drive interactions, the ACDs, which have been owned over years.

[00:31:42] And, everyone just defers to them as the, well, oh, right, oh, do you mean our Temelefony platform?

[00:31:48] It's like, no, it snams so, so much more than that.

[00:31:52] But, because what sits front and centre on the desktop oftentimes is the CRM, nobody really has that brand association with the likes of the other vendors.

[00:32:04] But, to give you a crystal stop tour of what the CCAT vendors should be able to offer you in their entire stack.

[00:32:11] And, you know, there's, I've worked on, I work both sides of the fence.

[00:32:16] So, I work with vendors when they're trying to respond to customers and help them, you know, be practical and authentic in their responses.

[00:32:24] And, I have worked on RFPs that have had thousands of questions, like thousands, especially in the Netherlands.

[00:32:33] They really go all in.

[00:32:35] And then, I've worked on the other side as well, helping customers find the right tech vendor.

[00:32:39] So, it's very, there's so much to it.

[00:32:42] Anyway, fundamentally, you've got your interaction routing, whilst automatic call distribution, now automatic contact distribution,

[00:32:51] because it is that funnel that can, and in my opinion, should, be taking in calls, emails, digital channels, everything,

[00:33:02] in order to distribute it out to the contact centre advisors in a really equitable way.

[00:33:08] All your MI is really standardised because your one solution is routing this in.

[00:33:14] The reality is, oftentimes, your CRN, your sprinklers, your sales forces, all of those, your Zendists, because, yeah, are routing a lot of the digital stuff.

[00:33:25] And then, it's having to hook together in the back end with your CCAS solution, which is also doing the call recording and allowing you all of that.

[00:33:33] Then, you've got your workforce engagement management tools.

[00:33:36] So, that's your WFM side of things.

[00:33:39] So, you're forecasting, you're scheduling, and your real-time management.

[00:33:42] And then, your gamification is included in that.

[00:33:44] And then, your performance management suite, your real-time dashboards, your historic reporting, all of that lovely stuff.

[00:33:52] And in an ideal world, in an absolute ideal world, you'd have the joiner between whatever applications that you've got and a single interface on the desktop.

[00:34:02] This is such a fascinating space now, because I believe, soon, are we really going to be typing?

[00:34:09] Are our advisors really going to have to type?

[00:34:12] Because there's so much now speech-to-text technology that's getting higher and higher in its accuracy.

[00:34:18] And obviously, since the advent of Gen.AI, that was launched into the world last year, we're seeing much.

[00:34:25] That is just getting so much clever.

[00:34:27] So, what I need on my desktop as an advisor, I need my schedule.

[00:34:31] I need to know when I'm doing a good job.

[00:34:33] I need my next best action.

[00:34:34] I need my knowledge management.

[00:34:36] That's all.

[00:34:37] You see, Cass Vendors.

[00:34:38] But what Salesforce and the others are seeing is, well, we should be taking some of that license because, well, they spend more on us.

[00:34:45] So, we'll just steal a lot more of that.

[00:34:47] So, anyway, the reality is what used to be bedfellows, they now should see themselves as arch enemies.

[00:34:53] But the end users, they have to come together and pretend they like each other and integrate effectively together.

[00:34:59] So, and then you've got AI infusing itself over all of that.

[00:35:03] And then you've got integrations going on.

[00:35:05] Yeah, lots of other functions.

[00:35:10] Resellers.

[00:35:10] So, if I want to buy some Nike trainers, I can go to Nike, but I can also go to JD Sport, right?

[00:35:16] And JD Sport will offer me, I can have some trainers from Nike and I can have some Adidas trousers and New Balance T-shirt.

[00:35:23] So, I can get a real selection of what suits me.

[00:35:28] I mean, actually, none of those things suit me, but whatever.

[00:35:31] At the same point.

[00:35:32] Same with, like, resellers of cars, right?

[00:35:36] So, you go to these resellers and they're called all different names, but they call them channel partners, value-added resellers, system integrators, distributors.

[00:35:48] And I'm, there's loads of them and I've worked with a lot of them and I just want to, I'm working with OneCom at the moment.

[00:35:55] They are, you know, as Martin said, they are one of the sponsors of Get Out of Wraps.

[00:36:00] So, as an example, OneCom sell contact-centered technology and they have partnerships with, well, they've got partnerships that are quite old with 8x8 and Mitel.

[00:36:11] And then there are 5x9 and then there are Zoom partner.

[00:36:15] So, that means that they've got resources, cloud consultants, tech experts, service managers that are all accredited within those vendors' technologies.

[00:36:26] And they can offer you that fully managed service, whether you take a bit of this and a bit of that and a bit of this, as long as it's within their portfolio.

[00:36:36] And if it isn't, they might consider putting it in.

[00:36:38] So, that's how these organizations work.

[00:36:41] They're sort of like the experts elevate that vendor with extra bits around it and a fully managed service around it.

[00:36:49] So, to conclude, and before we get into any questions, I have done some articles in NoJitter and Call Center Helper about how to choose the right vendor that seek ads versus CRM and the importance of vision.

[00:37:04] And we could go on about those for hours.

[00:37:06] But I think what's really important, and whether I'm judging best deployment of technology, best deployment of AI, or going out and doing my contact center discoveries,

[00:37:17] I'm always heartened by the organizations that have got the frontline users as either super users right from the outset

[00:37:29] or a very strong continuous improvement process whereby generally these continual improvement managers now are coming from the frontline, which is amazing.

[00:37:40] And then they're trying to bridge that gap because some of these vendors are deploying functionality at lightning speed.

[00:37:48] Some every Wednesday, some, you know, 90 new bits of functionality a month.

[00:37:53] You need, like to your point, Martin, you need resources to determine, does that align to what we're trying to achieve?

[00:38:00] Should we pull that down as a new bit of functionality or should we not bother?

[00:38:05] So, I think it's really important to understand your contact center tech stack, just a visual representation, who your vendors are.

[00:38:12] Understand who supports your tech stack.

[00:38:14] More often than not, it will be through a reseller.

[00:38:17] And then understand who, what your team looks like, whether it's a telco manager, system administrator, project managers.

[00:38:23] I speak to loads of different people who are part of that team.

[00:38:29] And then understand your roots internally as how you highlight pain and how you really detect, like, highlight what you would love.

[00:38:38] Because I sit next to so many team leaders and advisors and that sort of, yeah, normalizing of inefficiency, I tend to call it, is so endemic within all contact centers.

[00:38:52] Because you just get used to doing something and it's not until someone goes, that seems a weird way to do it.

[00:38:57] You go, oh yeah, it does seem a really great way to do it.

[00:39:01] So, you're the frontline.

[00:39:03] You're taking 50 to 70 calls on a daily basis.

[00:39:06] The team leaders are living and breathing this technology.

[00:39:09] You need to find your roots to say, I hate this or I absolutely love this and I need more of this.

[00:39:16] So, that's my sort of...

[00:39:18] Amazing.

[00:39:19] Amazing.

[00:39:20] I wish I'd have had you come and talk to me 10, 15, 20 years ago.

[00:39:26] It would have made such a difference to understanding what is a very, very crowded world, isn't it?

[00:39:35] But crowded with great things, great opportunities.

[00:39:40] Yeah.

[00:39:40] Brilliant.

[00:39:41] Amazing.

[00:39:42] Like, really fundamentally changing technologies are happening now.

[00:39:47] Every facet of the contact center can be infused with incredible technology to support the advisors better, to support the customer experience better.

[00:39:56] So, I think that we've talked about it a lot and a lot of the technology has been there for a long time.

[00:40:02] But now, it feels like it's coming front and center.

[00:40:06] So, amazing.

[00:40:07] Do you think, in your experience, in the time you've been doing this, the speed of development and change and improvements, is it faster now than it has been ever?

[00:40:20] Yes.

[00:40:21] Yes.

[00:40:21] A hundred percent.

[00:40:22] Yeah.

[00:40:23] Yeah.

[00:40:23] A hundred percent.

[00:40:24] Because Gen AI facilitates that and because it's, you know, it's a rich pie.

[00:40:31] If there's still 40% to move from on-premise to cloud, 17 million advisors globally, that's a lot of money.

[00:40:39] When you're, you know, your average, I guess your average price per agent per month for your software is going to be around 60 pounds.

[00:40:47] You can go up to 130, but that's per advisor per month.

[00:40:52] So, and of course, they've made the software.

[00:40:56] So, the margins are really rich, which is why you see some of them spending eye-watering amounts of money on marketing.

[00:41:03] Don't I forge by just marketing?

[00:41:07] They don't spend it in my direction though, Nerys.

[00:41:10] You are.

[00:41:10] Right.

[00:41:11] I'm blaming.

[00:41:12] Let's catch up on some comments because you've got loads.

[00:41:15] Thanks.

[00:41:15] Rachel Nerys, love your clarity.

[00:41:17] You speak my language.

[00:41:19] Vendor side and solution integrators, et cetera.

[00:41:26] Spencer, in relation to vendor categorization, I observed the presentation does not include any reference to a well-known person with a disability.

[00:41:34] Why is that?

[00:41:35] This raised some questions for me.

[00:41:36] Now, before you answer that, Danny, whilst we've been chatting, has said, Elton John has a disability.

[00:41:43] Spencer is epileptic.

[00:41:44] Paul McCartney is dyslexic.

[00:41:46] I don't know about any others from memory.

[00:41:49] I was thinking Spencer's comment meant why wasn't his name in the presentation.

[00:41:54] Well, we can pick that up again.

[00:41:56] Clayton says, Nerys, you are the oracle.

[00:42:00] Definitely agree with that.

[00:42:03] Thanks, Clayton.

[00:42:05] I'm definitely not.

[00:42:06] But I do a lot to try and make sure when I recognize this, I think over the years, now I'm nearly 60, I go, actually, I don't know what I'm talking about there.

[00:42:17] And I think I'm pretending that I do.

[00:42:19] So then I spend a lot of time investing in pods.

[00:42:23] There's amazing podcasts out there around contact center technology, even Bloomberg technology, which is my dog walk.

[00:42:30] But thank you.

[00:42:31] But there are true oracles out there who really understand, like, a lot of the nitty gritty going on in the background.

[00:42:38] But I'm just all about what does it mean for the customer?

[00:42:41] What does it mean for ops?

[00:42:42] What does it mean for the advisors?

[00:42:45] Deepak says, really worth staying up for, Nerys.

[00:42:49] Which is lovely.

[00:42:50] Thanks, Deepak.

[00:42:51] Marianne, really beautifully and simply explained is what people need.

[00:42:55] So thank you.

[00:42:57] Thank you, Marianne.

[00:42:58] One of my first managers.

[00:43:00] Rob says, such an ecosystem, a living organism.

[00:43:03] Love that.

[00:43:05] Yes, it is with some of them eating each other.

[00:43:09] Gary, Gary Gormey says, good point, Nerys.

[00:43:11] We do talk a lot about it.

[00:43:13] I think some still need a clear strategy.

[00:43:17] Yeah, some people still very much by functionality.

[00:43:21] And not outcomes.

[00:43:22] And it's such a trite thing to say.

[00:43:24] But it's so true.

[00:43:26] It's like, to what end?

[00:43:27] Why do you need that?

[00:43:28] What are you going to do with it?

[00:43:29] You know?

[00:43:30] And what about all around it?

[00:43:31] I worked with the European Commission for a long time.

[00:43:34] And they were desperate to put in a bot.

[00:43:36] And we just pulled back and were like, but what's it going to mean?

[00:43:39] To the rest of everything else that's going on around.

[00:43:43] Yeah.

[00:43:46] Margins are still too rich, in my view.

[00:43:48] Bring down the cost to access.

[00:43:52] I'm sure that is going to happen, Gary.

[00:43:56] I'm sure it is going to happen.

[00:43:57] But, you know, there's some interesting publicly available intelligence on how much some of these vendors.

[00:44:05] 300 million a year on marketing, in my opinion, is obscene.

[00:44:10] A million pounds for a sales guy in commission is obscene.

[00:44:15] Yeah.

[00:44:15] And yeah, agreed.

[00:44:16] What's the one thing every good contact center shouldn't be without in the next 12 months?

[00:44:22] Great question, Rob.

[00:44:23] Great question, Rob.

[00:44:25] A plan.

[00:44:25] A real clear plan because the world has changed now.

[00:44:28] We are in true transformations.

[00:44:30] What is it we want to achieve?

[00:44:32] How much low-hanging fruit have we got that has got high volume, low value?

[00:44:37] You know, all of that side of things.

[00:44:38] So there's that path.

[00:44:40] And then technology-wise, which I'm assuming you really were asking about.

[00:44:43] I think auto-summarization is amazing, absolutely amazing, as long as the WFM team don't then use it.

[00:44:53] They really are considerate of what it means in terms of giving a breathing space.

[00:44:57] Because let's face it, ACW is oftentimes that, okay, before the next call and the next call.

[00:45:03] So I do think auto-summarization is incredible.

[00:45:06] I think that what's happening in knowledge bases is so valuable, so, so, so valuable.

[00:45:12] But of course, the onus is on the organization to make sure their knowledge assets aren't sitting in some dusty old share point that hasn't been dusted off for years.

[00:45:20] They've really got to amalgamate that knowledge now and make sure it's feeding those real-time support for the advisors.

[00:45:28] And I think auto-QA is pretty cool as well.

[00:45:30] Like, really cool, which is what Gary talked about last week.

[00:45:36] Question.

[00:45:37] Will AI dispense with many agents and some tech?

[00:45:42] Yes.

[00:45:47] Danny says tech speed is ridiculous.

[00:45:50] Nerys must have to sprint just to stand still.

[00:45:53] Well, exactly.

[00:45:54] And this is why I just don't feel like any analyst can have their arms around every solution.

[00:45:58] So there's a, this, you should guide yourself by what the analysts and the technology that they think.

[00:46:03] But you've got to think about your use cases and make sure they're downing specifically against your use cases.

[00:46:09] Because buyer's remorse, when you've spent like eye-watering sums of money on getting the right solution, is a horrible feeling.

[00:46:19] So, and it is at lightning speed.

[00:46:21] And I can't keep up.

[00:46:23] And so it's very hard unless you're in the guts of one solution all day, every day, and you know what their roadmap looks like.

[00:46:32] It's really hard.

[00:46:33] So you've just got to get that, you know, top line layer.

[00:46:36] These are good at this.

[00:46:37] This is good at this, you know.

[00:46:39] Which you've helped us with today.

[00:46:42] Oh, thanks.

[00:46:43] Well, I learned in time.

[00:46:43] And Barry says, brilliant.

[00:46:46] Let me just, before you go, pick up.

[00:46:48] Spencer says to Danny, I'm specifically talking about individuals with physical disabilities like myself.

[00:46:54] For instance, the lack of accessibility in call centers has not adequately supported consumers with disabilities worldwide.

[00:47:02] The increasing use of AI bots has made life even more challenging for everyone.

[00:47:09] And Spencer, as I always say, I think it's thanks to you that we are all more aware of those types of challenges.

[00:47:19] And, you know, you'd like to think that it's a really important consideration for tech companies that as technological advance doesn't leave people behind or make the gap bigger.

[00:47:33] It should be used to bring everyone together.

[00:47:37] But, Nerys, amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing.

[00:47:42] I just think the recording of this will be so helpful to people starting in their journey or people like us who've been in it far too long.

[00:47:50] So thank you very much.

[00:47:52] You, of course.

[00:47:53] No worries.

[00:47:53] You are at the Expo.

[00:47:56] You are all over LinkedIn.

[00:47:58] And I'm sure people will want to catch up with you and ask you further questions.

[00:48:03] But thank you so much for joining.

[00:48:06] And we will see you in November.

[00:48:09] Great.

[00:48:10] Thank you, Martin.

[00:48:12] Okay.

[00:48:12] And thanks.

[00:48:13] You might as well stay while I do the end credit.

[00:48:16] Do the game show wave.

[00:48:19] Thanks, everybody.

[00:48:20] Hold on.

[00:48:21] Let me just get it ready.

[00:48:23] But thank you all very much.

[00:48:24] See you next Tuesday.

[00:48:26] Bye.