Steve Morrell of Contact babel has been conducting research in our industry for 23 years.
This week he came on get Out of Wrap TV to share some key area's we as contact centre professionals should be focused on.
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of Get Out of Wrap. Do you have team leaders in your contact centre or would you be interested in helping team leaders by sharing your experience? Two years ago now I created the only and the first online community for team leaders. It has everything a team leader needs to be able to thrive in their role and enjoy it too.
[00:00:28] If you are interested in adding your team leaders, your aspiring team leaders or maybe you'd like to join yourself, all you need to do is email me at martin at getoutofwrap. Now let's get on with the show.
[00:00:43] Hello and welcome to episode 209 of Get Out of Wrap. This week I was lucky enough to have the awesome Steve Morrell of Contact Babel on Get Out of Wrap TV.
[00:00:58] I'd asked him to come on. As you know, we go through his decision makers guide pretty much every week. It always generates a load of discussion. It's a brilliant, brilliant resource.
[00:01:11] And I asked Steve if he could come on the show and just bring with him a few key things that he thinks contact centre leaders should be mindful of and be really thinking about to have the biggest impact.
[00:01:26] So what you are going to hear now is Steve taking us through the things that he's identified and of course your comments and your questions to him.
[00:01:39] It was a fascinating half hour and I hope you enjoy it.
[00:01:50] It's Steve Morrell of Contact Babel. Welcome, Steve.
[00:01:54] Hello. Thank you for having me.
[00:01:55] Oh, well, no, we have used your excellent research as a key part of this show since it began.
[00:02:03] So it's brilliant to have you on the show.
[00:02:07] You are going to be taking us through some of the things from your research that stand out for you.
[00:02:14] But I would welcome everyone, I would invite everyone watching to fire in some questions for Steve.
[00:02:21] I've got a few.
[00:02:23] I've got to know Steve well and wonderful.
[00:02:26] You're a wonderful human being doing a great job for our industry.
[00:02:30] But I just want to ask, when did it all start for you and why did you start doing it?
[00:02:36] Well, I was an English Lit graduate and I wanted a job writing.
[00:02:40] So obviously became a computer programmer.
[00:02:43] I was a fairly mediocre computer programmer though.
[00:02:46] So what I did is kind of shift away from actually doing the hard stuff to writing about it.
[00:02:51] So I got a job writing about technology, enjoyed that.
[00:02:55] And in 2001, I thought, you know, I quite like to do this for myself.
[00:02:59] So yeah, started up Contact Babel, built it.
[00:03:03] My idea was, right, rather than kind of making stuff up like, you know, maybe some analysts have been known to do.
[00:03:08] It's like, let's get as much hard primary data as you possibly can.
[00:03:13] So that way, even if I'm wrong in the future, I can say, well, to be honest, I had the data.
[00:03:17] It looked right to me.
[00:03:18] So, you know, that's kind of a key selling point of Contact Babel.
[00:03:21] We just deal in, you know, hard beta.
[00:03:23] They're facts.
[00:03:25] Can you remember the first one that you did?
[00:03:32] Blimey.
[00:03:32] I think it was just some market sizing or something like that for the UK.
[00:03:37] And when I look back at that, I think it was about maybe a fifth of the size that it is now.
[00:03:41] So it was like, wow, this is a big industry, isn't it?
[00:03:45] Nothing to worry about it again.
[00:03:48] And you have gone on and done that now then for 23 years?
[00:03:53] 23 years at Contact Babel.
[00:03:55] I had three years before that at another analyst.
[00:03:57] So yes.
[00:03:58] Wow.
[00:03:59] Walked in my quarter century last year.
[00:04:01] Wow.
[00:04:02] So you are the man really to go to, to ask about how things have changed, what some of
[00:04:08] these trends might be telling us, what things should we focus on, what things should we ignore?
[00:04:14] And hopefully we will jump into that a little bit.
[00:04:17] Oh, here we go.
[00:04:18] You're like this from Rob.
[00:04:21] Please just tell Steve for his autograph.
[00:04:24] Biggest fan right here.
[00:04:25] Yeah, you wouldn't be able to read it.
[00:04:27] I haven't.
[00:04:28] I tried to pick up a pen a few days because I've just been typing for 25 years.
[00:04:32] I can barely write anymore.
[00:04:35] So Rob could just do it himself and that would be...
[00:04:38] Completely, yes.
[00:04:40] Knock yourself out.
[00:04:42] Now let's have a look then.
[00:04:44] We're going to add, in the read-along style, we're going to add your presentation in here.
[00:04:50] And as a throwback to pandemic times, I will be guiding the slides.
[00:04:56] So expect to hear Steve say, next slide, please.
[00:05:01] Okay.
[00:05:02] So yeah, just for those of you who don't know much about Contact Babel, as I said, we interview
[00:05:07] 400 contact centres, 2,000 customers a year in the UK.
[00:05:10] We also do the same in the US.
[00:05:12] So we kind of mirror our research as much as we can because it's interesting to kind of
[00:05:16] compare and contrast.
[00:05:18] This means we can put out more than 50 reports a year.
[00:05:22] Pretty much everything's free.
[00:05:23] It's downloadable from the website.
[00:05:25] So go on, fill your boots.
[00:05:27] And it's, as you would hope after 23 years, it's getting increasingly widely known, read
[00:05:32] by more than a thousand UK organisations.
[00:05:35] So we cover pretty much every element of contact centre in CX.
[00:05:38] Having said that, we talked to some people at Expo and they gave us some very interesting
[00:05:42] ideas about new areas to explore with things like business processes, higher up the funnel
[00:05:47] before it actually gets to the contact centre.
[00:05:50] And also something that really kind of piqued our interest was how to deal with vulnerable
[00:05:54] customers.
[00:05:55] This isn't something, you know, I'm ashamed to say it's not something we've looked at
[00:05:58] before.
[00:05:59] So we'll be looking in the new year about how we can kind of develop that.
[00:06:03] So if anybody has any kind of bright ideas about the things we need to know, things that,
[00:06:06] you know, the industry would find useful.
[00:06:08] So, you know, there's meant to be ways to contact me.
[00:06:11] So, you know, I would be very interested to hear about that.
[00:06:13] Well, the viewers of this show are super smart.
[00:06:17] They really are.
[00:06:19] So I'm expecting big things, guys, in terms of some ideas.
[00:06:23] And indeed, Steve, you said some people came to the stand and referenced that they'd
[00:06:28] seen the stats and enjoyed them on this show as well.
[00:06:32] Yeah, absolutely.
[00:06:33] It's a nice kind of cross-pollination between us.
[00:06:37] Exactly.
[00:06:38] So can I just ask you, actually, do you notice a change in behavior just in terms of the respondents
[00:06:46] between the UK and the US?
[00:06:48] Not necessarily the results, but just how maybe they interact with the research?
[00:06:55] Because you're basically reliant on all of us within the industry, especially those running
[00:07:00] contact centers to complete the surveys.
[00:07:04] Do you notice any difference in just the take-up or?
[00:07:09] Yes.
[00:07:09] The take-up in the UK is far better than the US.
[00:07:12] The US is a really, really difficult market to get anything out of.
[00:07:16] You know, we persist.
[00:07:17] We've got massive databases over there and we just keep chipping away.
[00:07:20] The UK, I don't know, maybe because of a British company or maybe just, you know, British people
[00:07:25] are happy to help.
[00:07:26] Who knows?
[00:07:26] But it's far easier.
[00:07:28] It's not to say it's easy, but it is far easier, you know, for UK people to provide us
[00:07:34] with data and keep coming back year after year and updating their surveys.
[00:07:37] And it is, you know, a big thank you to everybody who does that because I can't thank people individually
[00:07:42] because everything's confidential and anonymous.
[00:07:44] I can't even say which companies take part.
[00:07:46] So I'd love to give a big share of sight to everybody, but I've contractually promised
[00:07:50] I can't do that.
[00:07:51] So if anybody's watching and filled in the surveys for us in the past, then thank you so
[00:07:55] much.
[00:07:55] It's, it's absolutely vital.
[00:07:57] I think we owe you in this industry a huge thanks because a key part of my development,
[00:08:05] becoming an operational leader very early on, I think from even from team leader level,
[00:08:11] the decision makers guide was something that I went to all the time.
[00:08:15] I found that far easier to help my development than other, other techs that might just say,
[00:08:21] oh, this is what this is.
[00:08:22] This is what that is.
[00:08:23] I loved getting into the stats and then being able to compare them with where I was working
[00:08:29] at the time.
[00:08:30] And it became a staple part of my development.
[00:08:34] You know, I basically went to you and call center helper to develop.
[00:08:40] And I'm sure I'm, I'm not alone in that.
[00:08:43] And let me just catch up with something.
[00:08:46] Danny Wareham, this is a good shout.
[00:08:47] Helen Beaumont Manahan was on a panel at the expo that covered vulnerability and was fabulous.
[00:08:52] So if you're looking for someone to have a chat with Steve about vulnerability, then Helen
[00:08:58] would be a good port of call.
[00:09:00] I've worked with Helen.
[00:09:01] It was her birthday yesterday, in fact.
[00:09:03] So happy birthday, Helen.
[00:09:05] And happy birthday, Pete Dunn, because it's his birthday today.
[00:09:10] Rob is fanboying.
[00:09:12] So I first met Steve at CCX by 2009.
[00:09:17] Just Steve, a chair, a table and a laptop.
[00:09:20] I was doing research for the consultancy I was launching and he was very generous.
[00:09:25] Isn't that good?
[00:09:26] That's lovely.
[00:09:27] I will say the stand really hasn't moved on much since then.
[00:09:30] You know, you don't come to a scene or anything.
[00:09:33] I was going to say that sounds like a great stand.
[00:09:35] It was very much like mine.
[00:09:37] Hey, a chair is always good at an exhibition, you know?
[00:09:39] Everybody's wondering now with sore feet.
[00:09:42] Exactly.
[00:09:42] I'm still struggling now.
[00:09:44] Morris, I couldn't agree more.
[00:09:46] Morris Pentel.
[00:09:47] We do owe Steve a great deal as in this industry, his impact has been profound.
[00:09:54] It's pretty kind of Morris in there.
[00:09:56] And I think we all know him.
[00:09:57] I don't need to say how much we owe him.
[00:10:01] True.
[00:10:02] Now, something for you to consider, Steve, before we crack on.
[00:10:06] Spencer, who is a great champion of people within our community who are disabled.
[00:10:12] Spencer is deaf.
[00:10:13] Is very, very good.
[00:10:15] Kind of reminding us of that key strata of both our customers and our colleagues.
[00:10:22] So Spencer says, with rising complaints from disabled and vulnerable customers,
[00:10:26] how can contact centers leverage technology and training to ensure accessibility, empathetic engagement,
[00:10:34] and compliance while effectively addressing diverse customer needs?
[00:10:39] That's some question.
[00:10:42] I'll tell you, yes.
[00:10:44] And I will hopefully be talking to you in a few months down the line with an answer to that.
[00:10:51] This is, you know, like I said, this is something which we haven't looked at yet,
[00:10:54] but which, you know, it was a surprising number of people actually came to the stand and said,
[00:11:00] have you got anything on this?
[00:11:01] I'm like, no, I haven't yet.
[00:11:04] Let me, let me go away.
[00:11:05] Let me talk to a few people and, you know, find out how best to kind of engage with, you know,
[00:11:11] the people that help us with surveys and find out what the industry needs and, you know, try and,
[00:11:15] you know, raise, raise awareness and raise, you know, I should be able to say,
[00:11:20] this is the reality of how we deal with vulnerable customers at the moment.
[00:11:22] How can we improve this?
[00:11:25] So, yeah, this is, we're at the start.
[00:11:28] Well, I would definitely recommend Spencer as someone to speak to.
[00:11:34] And Marianne is also suggesting Elaine Lee does a lot in vulnerability.
[00:11:37] She would be a really good person to speak to.
[00:11:40] Thank you, Marianne.
[00:11:41] Yeah, and agree.
[00:11:42] Elaine's great.
[00:11:43] A question for you.
[00:11:45] And we, if memory serves, we will come up to this in a slide.
[00:11:50] So let's just pin this one.
[00:11:51] How do you feel that AI is going to affect the contact center world?
[00:11:57] So you can either answer that now or we can, we can.
[00:12:01] Let's do it in order.
[00:12:03] Let's do it in order.
[00:12:03] So our one is a kind of three issues because we cover an awful lot of ground in, you know,
[00:12:11] in the company and the research.
[00:12:13] And what I want to do is talk really about kind of a macro level and have a look at
[00:12:20] what are the drivers.
[00:12:21] Because there's an awful lot of, you know, there's new technologies.
[00:12:24] We've got this, we've got that, we've got the other.
[00:12:25] And what I want to do is really kind of drill down on kind of the three drivers that's going
[00:12:30] to move the customer contact industry for the foreseeable future.
[00:12:34] So rather than look at, you know, how can we trim 10 seconds off a call, which is, you
[00:12:37] know, obviously useful and possibly a story for another day.
[00:12:41] It's more about what's, what's got us where we are and what's pushing us in, in the direction
[00:12:47] in which we're moving.
[00:12:48] So what I'd like to do is have a look first at, you know, the customer.
[00:12:54] What does the customer want?
[00:12:56] What is a good customer experience?
[00:12:58] What really matters to them?
[00:13:00] So these are hard stats based on our interviews with thousands of customers every year.
[00:13:06] We ask, tend to ask the same questions every year because not because I lack imagination,
[00:13:10] but because we can track stuff over time that way.
[00:13:14] And we can say, yes, this is, this is, this is the direction things are definitely heading
[00:13:19] rather than just kind of flit generally and say, well, this is interesting, isn't it?
[00:13:23] Moving on to the next thing.
[00:13:24] So we say, no, this is definitely true.
[00:13:26] This is something that's definitely true.
[00:13:28] The most important things, factors to customers when contacting an organization.
[00:13:33] Overall, two things come up again and again, first contact resolution, answer the question
[00:13:38] first time.
[00:13:38] So I don't have to call you back.
[00:13:40] And just as important to that, don't keep me waiting too long.
[00:13:44] Um, these, and they kind of applies to, you know, the vast majority of customers.
[00:13:51] So what I mean by that is we segment by demographics.
[00:13:54] This is from the UK customer experience decision makers guide came out a couple of months ago.
[00:14:04] So, and again, this year after year, it's these two things.
[00:14:08] So bear these things in mind.
[00:14:09] First contact resolution, short queue times.
[00:14:13] Also worth mentioning polite and friendly agents.
[00:14:15] You think, well, you know, that's, that should be a given.
[00:14:18] It's super important for young and inexperienced customers.
[00:14:22] You might think, I mean, I might thought that's, you know, if there's going to be somebody who,
[00:14:26] you know, really values, polite and friendly agents, empathy, stuff like that, it'll be older
[00:14:30] customers.
[00:14:31] Yeah.
[00:14:32] In fact, it's not, it's younger customers.
[00:14:34] I've got four, four daughters, two of whom are at university.
[00:14:39] And they're terrified about picking up the phone and say, ringing the bank or doing that or something
[00:14:44] like that.
[00:14:45] You know, you virtually have to sit there and hold their hand while they didn't, because
[00:14:47] they're not used to doing that.
[00:14:49] They're not used to communicating voice, you know, with somebody on a phone voice.
[00:14:53] So when they come off it and the person's been really nice, they're like, oh, that was amazing.
[00:14:57] What a great kind of, they don't use it with customer experience because they're not sad and
[00:14:59] all that.
[00:15:00] But they do really value it, whereas I kind of expect it.
[00:15:06] So this, that's quite an interesting thing.
[00:15:07] So anybody dealing with kind of young customers, maybe it's not quite what you think.
[00:15:12] It's such, it's such a great call out because as soon as I read that, like you, I've got young
[00:15:18] adult children and seeing them thinking about that they might have to talk to anything to do with
[00:15:28] their car or their job or travel or a shop.
[00:15:33] You're right.
[00:15:33] There is a level of nervousness there.
[00:15:36] And what a great reminder for people in operations right now to say to their teams, let's have
[00:15:43] a think about this.
[00:15:44] Let's have a think about when someone comes onto the call, we can see that they're young.
[00:15:49] Maybe they're calling for the first time.
[00:15:51] They haven't had the service, the policy, the product long.
[00:15:55] Let's make sure we're really holding their hands and just kind of being gentle with them
[00:16:01] and reassuring.
[00:16:02] You know, it's a great reminder.
[00:16:04] It really is.
[00:16:08] Something else that's worth bringing out on the text there is that the fairly large majority,
[00:16:13] 72% of customers prefer speaking to a person rather than using self-service.
[00:16:17] And this, this question was like, we asked them if, if the time and the outcome was the
[00:16:22] same, would you prefer to talk to somebody or to use self-service?
[00:16:26] So that's time and outcome.
[00:16:27] So it say it takes, you know, five minutes and you get the job done at the end.
[00:16:30] They'd rather spend five minutes talking to a person than five minutes, having a look around
[00:16:34] on a website, typing stuff in, trying to do things.
[00:16:36] I was quite amazed by that because I did actually think that self-service would be seen as,
[00:16:41] you know, kind of preferable.
[00:16:42] Now, of course, if self-service is being done properly, then the time and effort isn't the
[00:16:48] same.
[00:16:48] The time and effort is less for self-service than it would be for the phone.
[00:16:52] So, you know, that's, that's the way to read that question.
[00:16:55] All other things being equal, what would you rather do?
[00:16:58] Personal fact.
[00:16:59] And that applies to all age groups, not just the kind of older age groups.
[00:17:03] So that's really interesting.
[00:17:04] And really the thing I wanted to bring here is the thing in gold at the bottom there,
[00:17:08] which is telephony remains the gold standard for customer service.
[00:17:11] Don't let anybody tell you, oh yeah, everything's, everybody prefers self-service.
[00:17:15] It's all moving away and we won't need voice agents.
[00:17:17] And even if we do have voice agents, they'll all be bots.
[00:17:21] Definitely.
[00:17:22] Can we have a look at the next one, please?
[00:17:24] We can.
[00:17:24] Can I just, one thing that, that that's fascinating around 72% of customers prefer and to speak
[00:17:30] to someone if the context was the same.
[00:17:34] I wondered, do you think if you surveyed purely people that have worked in contact centers,
[00:17:41] you would get a different result?
[00:17:45] Yeah, we did.
[00:17:46] We did.
[00:17:46] So we asked the contact center managers this question as well.
[00:17:49] We asked them what their customers would prefer, what they thought their customers would prefer.
[00:17:54] And there was a, I believe a slight preference for self-service.
[00:18:00] They thought there'd be a slight preference for self-service.
[00:18:02] It's roughly 50, 50, maybe 55, 45 in favor of self-service.
[00:18:06] So people, people who worked in the contact center did think their customers would be more up for using self-service.
[00:18:11] And I wonder if that's, I wonder if that's because being in the industry for so long,
[00:18:17] I think it's had an impact on me that I don't like using the phone.
[00:18:24] Yeah.
[00:18:26] Right.
[00:18:26] Let's move on.
[00:18:27] There's some more questions coming in.
[00:18:29] Do you want to hold them to the end or?
[00:18:31] Well, you can see them.
[00:18:33] I can't.
[00:18:33] So he saw Matt, he saw Matt ask that question.
[00:18:39] It's Matt Hall.
[00:18:41] Matt Hall.
[00:18:41] Morris has said, Matt Hall asked the quest, the AI question.
[00:18:44] It is an interesting question.
[00:18:45] I wonder if you can track how many interactions are treated by AI.
[00:18:52] Yeah.
[00:18:53] We all can.
[00:18:54] We'll park that one.
[00:18:56] Look into the horizon of business.
[00:18:58] What do you feel could cause stumbling blocks and blockers for call center growth?
[00:19:03] Could be legislation changes, technological changes, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:19:10] I think one of the biggest issues and something I will be talking about, because as long as
[00:19:14] I'm percipient with this is budget costs.
[00:19:19] Those are things that consistently year after year, we ask people, which technology you're
[00:19:25] going to be employing within the next 12 months, what you want to put in.
[00:19:29] And there's so much optimism.
[00:19:31] It's just like, yeah, we want to be doing this.
[00:19:33] We want to be doing that.
[00:19:33] Then you interview the same people 12 months later.
[00:19:36] Did you do that?
[00:19:36] Nah.
[00:19:37] Budget.
[00:19:37] You know, I'm tied up.
[00:19:39] Didn't have the resource.
[00:19:40] Didn't have the IT.
[00:19:40] Didn't have the money.
[00:19:42] You know, so it's those things.
[00:19:43] And I think someone going to be talking about a bit later on is we, you know, we've got
[00:19:50] severe budgetary pressures that are going to get worse.
[00:19:52] And you know, there's pretty major problems with operations that have crept up in the last
[00:19:57] few years that weren't there before.
[00:19:59] So those are, can we move on?
[00:20:02] Cause I'd probably be able to talk better about it.
[00:20:04] There we go.
[00:20:05] The slide.
[00:20:05] This is something I wanted to kind of wrap up the customer preference thing for.
[00:20:10] So I've said telephony is the gold standard.
[00:20:12] It provides the best level of first contact resolution.
[00:20:16] And if you can get your queue time sorted, then that's fine.
[00:20:19] If you 15, 20 minutes, obviously then there's an issue.
[00:20:22] So it's something we need to focus on.
[00:20:24] Queue time impacts the X.
[00:20:26] This is a, something we've tracked for seven years now.
[00:20:30] So we asked a thousand customers.
[00:20:32] We gave them a scenario where they had to think it was maybe get a mortgage application or
[00:20:38] need to ring the tax office or something.
[00:20:40] So it was a complex inquiry.
[00:20:42] How do you prefer to do it?
[00:20:44] And back in the pre pandemic days, it was like, well, I'd rather go to, you know, if
[00:20:48] there's a store or an office or a branch or something like that, have a face-to-face.
[00:20:52] Obviously that fell off a lot during the pandemic for obvious reasons.
[00:20:56] And you can see the green line there.
[00:20:57] That's really gone through the roof.
[00:20:58] That's ring the contact center.
[00:21:01] And that has not come back down.
[00:21:03] That's, you know, in fact, that's still heading North.
[00:21:05] If you look at it, the likes of email people say, no, that's not really appropriate for
[00:21:10] complex.
[00:21:10] It's it's, you know, it's back and forth inquiries.
[00:21:12] Yes.
[00:21:13] I've got stuff written down, but you know, if I'm having to send nine or 10 emails and
[00:21:17] get responses that really doesn't work.
[00:21:20] What's easiest for them?
[00:21:21] Lowest effort.
[00:21:22] Best outcome is ringing the contact center.
[00:21:26] So this is high complexity.
[00:21:28] We also track high urgency and high emotions and high urgency looks pretty much the same as
[00:21:34] this, except that used to be about more about the web self-service obviously, but now strong
[00:21:39] telephony.
[00:21:40] The it's interesting will be high emotion.
[00:21:43] And a lot of the high emotion stuff is actually complaints.
[00:21:46] And this is interesting where we compare the UK and the US because UK people will prefer
[00:21:52] to write their complaints.
[00:21:54] They, you know, maybe they get their, they, you know, get their, their ideas in order.
[00:21:58] They don't really want to swear or get angry or something like that.
[00:22:00] We're also terribly frightened in Britain, aren't we?
[00:22:02] So email does very well.
[00:22:04] Phone still does well and it's grown and that's similar sort of pattern.
[00:22:07] Whereas really interesting in America, they're more than happy to pick up the phone.
[00:22:11] And, and, you know, just a lot of have with both barrels.
[00:22:14] I love that.
[00:22:16] Yeah.
[00:22:16] We're kind of a bit, bit more.
[00:22:18] No, I'll just write, I'm going to write a strongly worded email.
[00:22:21] That's what I'm good.
[00:22:22] And so.
[00:22:24] So yeah.
[00:22:24] Interesting cultural difference.
[00:22:26] I do love that.
[00:22:28] Rob has asked, do customers trust self-serve enough to use it over speaking to an agent yet?
[00:22:34] And he adds, they, they might not prefer it because it's being done badly.
[00:22:40] Yep.
[00:22:41] Yep.
[00:22:41] That's, that's, he's answered his own question.
[00:22:43] Yes.
[00:22:44] So there's self-service and there's self-service, isn't there?
[00:22:47] If you want something relatively simple, you know, a balance inquiry or do meter readings
[00:22:53] or whatever, something like that, the sort of stuff that we've been doing by IVR for the
[00:22:57] last 20 years, then that's absolutely fine.
[00:23:00] It's, this is the real problem.
[00:23:03] Self-service is not just self-service and everybody's doing the same thing.
[00:23:07] One company will be doing one thing.
[00:23:09] Another will be doing another, somebody's doing it well, somebody's doing it badly.
[00:23:12] But in fact, your customer has the, the, the experience, all of these different experiences,
[00:23:17] good, bad, indifferent, you know, noddy, really sophisticated, whatever.
[00:23:23] And then it's down to the customer's experience about how they then feel about self-service
[00:23:27] as a whole.
[00:23:27] So your self-service might work really well, but your customer has been, you know, messed
[00:23:32] around by loads of others, companies.
[00:23:34] So they've actually become inoculated against trying this type of thing.
[00:23:38] This is what we found.
[00:23:39] This is where I can cast my mind about, which is why it's great being like, you know, 26
[00:23:42] years in the industry.
[00:23:43] Cause I can remember when email came in and it was done so badly for so many years that
[00:23:48] people just got fed up.
[00:23:49] They thought, do you know what?
[00:23:50] I'm not even going to bother using the email channel cause I never get a response.
[00:23:54] And that, that was the case for like seven or eight years.
[00:23:57] There was no growth in emails for seven or eight years.
[00:24:00] And this is a real danger.
[00:24:01] So everybody with self-service and bots and things like that, every, we have to, yes, we
[00:24:07] have to move forward.
[00:24:08] We have to move forward slowly enough so that everybody, nobody's left behind.
[00:24:14] We were all providing, you know, a good level of service fairly simply.
[00:24:19] And then a bit more complex and a bit more complex and all move up together.
[00:24:23] But if you've got all these things happening at different levels, then, you know, it's,
[00:24:27] it's a real risk that customers will just be put off the whole thing.
[00:24:31] So people are trying too hard.
[00:24:33] It doesn't work.
[00:24:34] And they think, do you know what?
[00:24:35] I'll just pick up the phone cause I know that's going to work.
[00:24:38] That's a really good point.
[00:24:40] And Steve Neve has asked, does the category social media include chat channels like WhatsApp,
[00:24:47] Viber, et cetera?
[00:24:48] In this particular case, yes, it does.
[00:24:53] Yeah.
[00:24:54] Let's just try and remember there.
[00:24:55] Great.
[00:24:56] Thank you.
[00:24:57] Small volumes.
[00:24:58] Very small.
[00:25:00] Got has asked, email still has a valuable place in the contact center industry, but it's
[00:25:05] treated poorly.
[00:25:06] Voice, web chat, all get SLAs measured in seconds.
[00:25:10] Yet businesses seem to think it's fine to put SLAs of one to two working days on emails.
[00:25:16] No wonder popularity is declining.
[00:25:21] True.
[00:25:21] But with an asynchronous channel like email, excuse me, if you're trying, if you've chosen
[00:25:27] to use that in the first place, you know, you're not going to get a response within five minutes.
[00:25:31] You know, you're putting something out there for a specific reason.
[00:25:34] I think it's more analogous with a letter and I think customers treat it like that.
[00:25:39] So I think, you know, response within one working day is probably acceptable.
[00:25:44] Anything more than that is not very good.
[00:25:47] And it doesn't cost you anything to say, we will get back to you by this time tomorrow
[00:25:52] or within 24 hours or something like that.
[00:25:54] If you then say, we'll get back to within five to 10 working days, forget it.
[00:25:58] You know, the customers, you still see that.
[00:26:01] And there's stuff in the report about how quickly the emails are actually answered.
[00:26:06] And there is, it is like a glacial improvement over the last 12 years.
[00:26:12] So yeah, I'd agree with that.
[00:26:13] It's not seen as a channel where SLAs are terribly important compared to the synchronous channels.
[00:26:19] Couldn't do better.
[00:26:21] Okay.
[00:26:22] Here's your next one.
[00:26:23] Yeah.
[00:26:24] So that's looked at, I talked about what customers want.
[00:26:27] What I want to do now is look on this slide at the big pressures, the pressures we've got on businesses,
[00:26:35] severe operational and budgetary pressures.
[00:26:38] So I'll talk about the budget stuff first.
[00:26:40] I've done a lot of talk about the rise in employer national insurance coming in
[00:26:43] and the lowering of the thresholds, which is, you know, going to be an issue.
[00:26:46] And you've also got increase in national minimum wage.
[00:26:50] The average agent you salary is now close to 23,000.
[00:26:55] Inflation really pushed that up a lot in the past couple of years.
[00:26:58] And it's kind of, we reckon, we reckon the expected rise by about six to 8% next year
[00:27:05] coming through from April when national minimum wage comes in.
[00:27:09] So those are already issues.
[00:27:11] If you think, right, well, our headcount is already, we can't really increase it anymore.
[00:27:17] You know, it's costing a lot more, a lot more to, to employ new people.
[00:27:21] So that's kind of one element of that.
[00:27:23] The certain elements is what the chart shows there.
[00:27:26] So this is speed to answer and call abandonment rate since 24, is that set?
[00:27:32] 2014.
[00:27:33] So you kind of speed to answer, crucial for customer experience.
[00:27:38] It's bundled along around the 30 to 40 second mark for a number of years.
[00:27:43] Before that, since about 2003, it used to be about 20, 25 seconds and people still known.
[00:27:48] And so it was like, but you know, 40, 41 seconds, something like that.
[00:27:52] And then pandemic hit, more than doubled.
[00:27:54] Fair enough.
[00:27:55] You know, we all had our own issues to deal with there.
[00:27:58] It hasn't come back down.
[00:27:59] In fact, it's continued to increase.
[00:28:01] So this is year end stuff as well.
[00:28:03] I'm just putting together the stuff for 2040, 2024 now even.
[00:28:09] And obviously call abandonment rate tracks average speed to answer.
[00:28:14] The longer you have to wait, the more people are going to drop off.
[00:28:17] That's fine.
[00:28:18] But you know, you're annoying your customers there and you're losing sales opportunities.
[00:28:22] So it's not good.
[00:28:23] And so this is something that's impacting on customer experience.
[00:28:28] It's impacting on sales opportunities.
[00:28:30] You can't just throw more headcount at it because it's getting more expensive.
[00:28:33] So what are the answers to this?
[00:28:35] It's a tough question.
[00:28:37] I think one of the keys to it is going to be reducing call duration.
[00:28:42] Now call duration as a metric has really fallen out of favor.
[00:28:45] 20 years ago, it was kind of the key thing that people measured because it was an easy
[00:28:49] thing to measure.
[00:28:50] It's directly impacting on cost.
[00:28:52] And it's something that the senior management can say, oh, you know, your calls are taking
[00:28:57] too long.
[00:28:57] Make them short so we can cut costs that way.
[00:28:59] Yeah.
[00:29:00] Really simplistic.
[00:29:01] Now we moved away from that and that's great.
[00:29:03] But you know, the longer you talk and I didn't put the slide in here, but call durations have
[00:29:08] gone up and continue to go up year after year.
[00:29:10] The easy stuff goes to self-service.
[00:29:12] The more difficult stuff takes longer.
[00:29:14] It goes to the phone.
[00:29:16] This isn't difficult.
[00:29:18] The impact.
[00:29:20] So what I'm saying is that we can, we have to look at a way of reducing call duration, which will
[00:29:25] lower queue, lower call abandonment rates, but do that without impacting customer experience
[00:29:31] and any upselling, cross-selling relationship building.
[00:29:36] And this is where I think AI, which I'm going to be talking about next comes into that nicely.
[00:29:40] This is where AI can really help.
[00:29:42] I think.
[00:29:42] So there's loads of time spent within the call, flicking between screens, looking around for
[00:29:47] things, you know, pauses and things like that.
[00:29:50] So if we can have everything on a single screen, the AI is listening in, understand what's going
[00:29:54] to happen next because it knows what happens on these types of calls.
[00:29:57] We can bring the information for the agent there.
[00:29:59] We have the co-pilot, the agent assist helping.
[00:30:02] If we can do trim time off customer authentication at the front of the call as well, then that will
[00:30:07] really help you.
[00:30:08] It's 40 seconds to 45 seconds tend to be spent on customer authentication.
[00:30:12] There's nothing in it for the customer.
[00:30:13] It's really boring.
[00:30:14] And the agent has to do this 70 or 80 times a day.
[00:30:16] So if we can trim that, great.
[00:30:18] And then we have stuff that can help post call as well.
[00:30:22] So auto generation of notes, kicking off processes in the back office.
[00:30:27] So things that can trim the rack, in fact.
[00:30:30] So there's lots of opportunities within, before, within, and after the call to trim that down
[00:30:36] without damaging customer experience.
[00:30:38] In fact, possibly helping it.
[00:30:39] So, but I have whole reports about this stuff.
[00:30:43] So I will just, I'll leave it there for now.
[00:30:46] It's very insightful.
[00:30:48] Let me just catch up with a couple of comments.
[00:30:50] And Spencer, I will come to some of your other ones as well at the end.
[00:30:54] I use email all the time because I don't always want an instant response.
[00:30:57] If I wanted that, I will use live chat, says Marianne.
[00:31:00] Email is very good at times.
[00:31:02] And if managed well, it is a great channel.
[00:31:04] And now just in relation to this slide, Niamh has said it would be interesting to see average
[00:31:11] call volumes against this chart.
[00:31:16] So, but we don't have call volume.
[00:31:18] It doesn't, it's not something that easily you do really do at a whole industry wide level.
[00:31:22] Putting in say billions of calls or something like that against it.
[00:31:26] What we've done is we've got call duration.
[00:31:30] Call duration has risen.
[00:31:30] And that's again, tracks these things as well, because they're all very much interconnected.
[00:31:37] In terms of overall volumes, they haven't come down a great deal.
[00:31:41] So while we don't actually say these are the, there are this many calls, we do say the proportion
[00:31:48] of interactions, this many are calls, this many are emails, et cetera.
[00:31:52] And, um, there was a big drop in live voice.
[00:31:58] It used to be about 90% in 2005.
[00:32:00] It's now about 63, 64%.
[00:32:03] And that's been very, very steady for quite a number of years now.
[00:32:08] And Rob has asked, has CSAT NPS effort improved at the same time as the call length going up?
[00:32:18] To be honest with you, we don't have a vast amount on that.
[00:32:22] But I think this is because sometimes we get different companies called, you know, survey
[00:32:27] and we survey different companies year on year.
[00:32:30] So kind of comparing NPS one year to NPS the next year, it's, you really have to be dealing
[00:32:35] with the same company.
[00:32:36] So I don't have a straight answer on that one.
[00:32:38] Sorry.
[00:32:39] I've got a comment here from Mark.
[00:32:43] Thank you, Mark.
[00:32:44] Great slides timely with benchmarking and business planning season here.
[00:32:48] Interesting point around talk time increasing.
[00:32:51] Hopefully aligns to increase of CSAT.
[00:32:56] Yeah.
[00:32:56] I mean, I think it's the CSAT.
[00:32:58] This is, I always think CSAT NPS and to some extent first contact resolution.
[00:33:03] In fact, to a large extent, first contact resolution are internal metrics really.
[00:33:07] So you change something within your business and see if that changes rather than kind of
[00:33:12] an industry wide type of metric.
[00:33:14] So, you know, for example, first contact resolution.
[00:33:17] It's really difficult to compare that between contact centers because they all do different
[00:33:20] things.
[00:33:21] So if a contact center doesn't have any self-service, then their FGR is going to be really high because
[00:33:26] they're dealing with loads of simple things really easily that they don't really need
[00:33:30] to do that.
[00:33:31] So FGR being high in itself is not a good thing.
[00:33:34] It's, it's really, it's something for you to measure internally.
[00:33:39] Keep measuring the same way each year, tweak things, see how things change.
[00:33:46] And then, you know, do your NPS and CSAT at the same time as well.
[00:33:49] So it might be the first contact resolution drops because you've, you've put a load of
[00:33:53] stuff onto self-service and the things you're now handling are much more complicated.
[00:33:57] They can't really be dealt with on a single call.
[00:33:59] So it's not to say high FGR is good.
[00:34:02] And obviously within that, you also then go and track your NPS.
[00:34:05] So even if your first contact resolution comes down, your NPS is going up, your CSAT's
[00:34:08] going up, then there's obviously a sign that your customers are, you know, obviously
[00:34:12] pretty happy.
[00:34:14] And Spencer does say, how do metrics like speed to answer and call abandonment rate account
[00:34:20] for the needs of disabled customers, ensuring accessibility and equitable support?
[00:34:27] Again, that's something I don't have a comment on because you've not looked at it yet.
[00:34:32] But I'm sure afterwards, Spencer would be a great person to talk to about how that can
[00:34:36] be reflected.
[00:34:39] Now moving on then.
[00:34:42] You're on the list, Spencer.
[00:34:47] We have your next slide then, Steve.
[00:34:49] Okay.
[00:34:50] So AI, I've got two slides on AI here.
[00:34:52] Obviously this is everybody's talking about AI and you know, how important it is.
[00:34:57] And depending on, you know, whether you've got an AI company yourself, you know, some
[00:35:00] people are more enthusiastic than others.
[00:35:02] What I wanted to do with this is that the first time we've looked at this because for the
[00:35:06] first, you had enough people using AI for me to consider that there might be some sense
[00:35:12] in asking these questions rather than just having a tiny little sample size and trying
[00:35:16] to draw conclusions from that.
[00:35:18] So we asked a few questions again.
[00:35:19] This is from the customer experience decision makers guy who asked, what do you want to get
[00:35:24] out of AI, whether you're using it now or whether you're using it in the future?
[00:35:28] And we gave them a big long list of things I could think of that, you know, might benefit
[00:35:32] from, from AI.
[00:35:34] And the two things that came out most important were handle more inquiries through self-service,
[00:35:39] which is fair enough, which is, you know, the way in which a lot of AI is actually used
[00:35:43] now through chatbots.
[00:35:45] And the second one was better understand your customers.
[00:35:48] So this is a kind of step beyond or building on top of interaction analytics, which has,
[00:35:54] you know, been a hot topic for the past eight, but it's that's often used now for things like,
[00:35:59] you know, quality assurance, compliance, things like that.
[00:36:02] So it's not really kind of value add stuff for, you know, moving things forward, but putting
[00:36:07] AI on top of this, I think in, you know, gathering information, whether it's structured
[00:36:12] or unstructured from, you know, various sources about, you know, your products, your business,
[00:36:18] your competition, I think that will be, you know, very, very positive.
[00:36:21] And it's, you know, I think that's a kind of a, a hope and an acknowledgement that we,
[00:36:27] you know, we need to understand our customers, not just why are they calling us in the first
[00:36:30] place, but maybe if we understand, we understand that we can actually provide them with the
[00:36:35] information that they need before they call or even fix issues elsewhere within the
[00:36:41] organization that's causing, you know, creating this demand in the first place.
[00:36:45] So, but yeah, I would say that's a positive thing.
[00:36:48] Another interesting thing to note here, we look right down at the least popular is reduce
[00:36:53] agent headcount.
[00:36:55] So, you know, you, I have seen industry commentary to say, yes, you know, the contact center is dead.
[00:37:03] Voice channels dead.
[00:37:05] We're not going to need any agents, blah, blah, blah.
[00:37:07] Come on.
[00:37:07] Yeah.
[00:37:08] No, just, just no.
[00:37:10] I'm not even going to argue about it.
[00:37:12] Ralph agrees with you, Steve here.
[00:37:14] Look, better understand customers ranks highest.
[00:37:17] There may be hope for our industry.
[00:37:20] Absolutely.
[00:37:21] Yes.
[00:37:21] And I think better understand customers.
[00:37:23] It's just where I reiterate my last point.
[00:37:25] It's not just about understanding the customer within the call.
[00:37:29] It's understanding every stage of their customer journey and trying to make it easier for them.
[00:37:34] Trying to, you know, understand the parts in the journey, whether they're having problems or the products that are causing problems or the, you know, the departments, the processes that are causing problems.
[00:37:46] And this is where it might become a bit more tricky because, you know, the, the contact center is, it's a well-defined area.
[00:37:53] You know, we, we are in control of our operational destiny, if you like, but then we start saying, actually, this is an issue with marketing or this is an issue with procurement or warehousing or delivery or distribution.
[00:38:03] Whatever that's when you start treading into other people's fiefdoms and that is really difficult politically.
[00:38:11] So again, that's a, that's something to consider, but it's not to say, but first problem or the first issue identify where the problems are, identify what the customer is actually thinking and get as much information as you possibly can.
[00:38:23] And this AI gives an opportunity to do that rather than just bang out an IVR survey and the really happy people complete it.
[00:38:30] And the really unhappy people complete it and the really bored people complete it and put most customers down.
[00:38:38] Okay.
[00:38:38] Okay.
[00:38:39] And have a look at the last slide we got here.
[00:38:42] Okay.
[00:38:42] So this was a pinch of salt because this, I say this is the first year that we've asked this question.
[00:38:49] And I just wanted to get an idea.
[00:38:52] Do people feel that AI is working?
[00:38:55] Outcomes seen from the current use of AI, only businesses using AI now, which is not the majority of businesses at all.
[00:39:02] About 45% of businesses use chatbots.
[00:39:07] Only, I think maybe no more than 20, 25% say that they're using it for any other things.
[00:39:13] So this, you know, big pinch of salt bro wants to get the kind of vibe on it.
[00:39:16] What do people think about AI?
[00:39:18] So they're happy in the main reducing inquiries through self-service.
[00:39:22] So yes, it looks like the bots do work.
[00:39:24] We can argue about that, but yes, this is what the businesses are saying.
[00:39:27] And they're happy that it's helping to improve their knowledge base, which again is a good thing.
[00:39:31] Can be used by agents.
[00:39:32] It can be used by other channels as well.
[00:39:34] So, you know, knowledge is power.
[00:39:36] Less impressed by detecting fraud attempts, bro.
[00:39:38] I will say very few people were trying to use that.
[00:39:41] So don't write that off.
[00:39:43] Predicting customer behavior.
[00:39:44] Again, we're still not quite there with better understanding customers, but I'd, I'd, I mean, I put this question here now, but really I'll get an interesting answer in three or four years time.
[00:39:54] When more people are using this thing and we've had a chance to track over time, solutions get better.
[00:40:01] Implementations get better.
[00:40:02] People got more used to, to using it.
[00:40:04] More realistic perhaps about what can be achieved.
[00:40:06] This is the kind of, you know, a marker that we can come back and revisit in future years.
[00:40:12] I think Morris had a question before about, can we see, you know, what, how do we know how much is being handled by AI?
[00:40:20] And yeah, we do for web chat against something we've been tracking since 2015.
[00:40:24] So last 10 years, we've been pretty, we're pretty sure about that.
[00:40:27] At the moment, 20% of web chats handled entirely through bots.
[00:40:32] This is not to say though, that these are AI enabled bots, generative AI bots or anything like that.
[00:40:37] It might just be simple rules based bots, but that's, that's where we are.
[00:40:43] And 33% get triaged.
[00:40:45] So the bot will have a go at it.
[00:40:47] It might then go and root it.
[00:40:49] It might have a go.
[00:40:49] And if it, if it can't answer it or pass it to an agent.
[00:40:53] So yes, it, it, it, it's a good uptake.
[00:40:57] It's not spectacular yet, but it is growing year on year.
[00:41:01] And it's very nice to be able to kind of track, have one of these metrics or these charts that don't jump up and down a bit over the years.
[00:41:07] It's a nice, smooth curve increasing in bots.
[00:41:11] It must be very satisfied to see that.
[00:41:13] Um, it's a sad analyst perspective.
[00:41:16] Oh, and even more happy to say that the cost per web chat is significantly less than the cost per phone call.
[00:41:26] So back in 2016, 2017, they were parity ish.
[00:41:33] But since then, since the rising web chart, the rising bot usage, we've seen a divergence in the cost per web chat and the cost per phone call.
[00:41:40] And you know, it can only really be attributed to increased use of automation.
[00:41:46] Um, so that's a kind of a nice thing.
[00:41:48] I'd say, yes, it does work.
[00:41:50] We've got the numbers to prove it.
[00:41:54] I love it.
[00:41:55] And I just put up there agrees.
[00:41:58] It's about doing more with the same amount of resource and Ryan.
[00:42:02] Yes.
[00:42:03] There's all of the show will be available on LinkedIn or my YouTube channel.
[00:42:08] And for anything else that you're missing, of course, you can contact Steve at contact Babel.
[00:42:14] Um, Steve, absolutely fascinating.
[00:42:19] So much insight, no surprise, but still nonetheless, it's just great to have your commentary associated with this because you bring so much, you bring such a wealth of being in the detail for so long.
[00:42:35] And given that, when you think we're now, we're going to be heading into 2025, you've highlighted there some of the things that perhaps we should look at and where AI can make a difference at trimming call lengths.
[00:42:51] And we shouldn't shy away from looking at call lengths.
[00:42:54] But when you look at the whole thing, holistically, strategically, do, do you go into 2025 expecting any significant changes to some of the data that you might be capturing?
[00:43:06] Or is your sense that it's, it's going to be more of the same, a greater adoption of some of the things that you've mentioned and that impact we'll see over time.
[00:43:19] What, what's your sense of where we'll be in 2025?
[00:43:22] Yeah, I've seen when I was at expo last, last week and also, you know, just hanging around on LinkedIn, just seeing what people are saying, just trying to pick up on the kind of the mood.
[00:43:34] One of the things is that people seem to be pretty concerned about the, the rise in employing of employing agents that's coming.
[00:43:45] And there seems to be some pretty dramatic predictions about what, how that's going to impact in particular.
[00:43:51] Oh, you know, there's going to be lots and lots of jobs going offshore.
[00:43:55] It's like, you know, big companies looking to, you know, decimate their workforce and things like that.
[00:44:03] Now I'm going to say I've been around quite a while with this and I've, you know, I've seen the first wave of offshore.
[00:44:08] You've seen, you know, automation and things like that.
[00:44:11] And something that strikes me is that the industry has an awful lot of inertia.
[00:44:16] And that means that, you know, we are, there are massive investments have been made in people, process, technology, buildings, expertise, customer experience, your brand, the way people think about your company.
[00:44:33] And I can't see, you know, any reputable, knowledgeable company, you know, putting a match to all that so they can save some top line costs on, you know, it.
[00:44:47] I just can't see that.
[00:44:49] I mean, I may be completely wrong.
[00:44:50] They may have a far better idea about their business and their costs than I do and how much of an impact that will make.
[00:44:57] But, you know, customer experience is something that's, it's built up and trust and loyalty is built up over a number of years.
[00:45:02] It doesn't happen overnight, but you can be got rid of overnight.
[00:45:05] So I will be, and I think this is the reason for, you know, the, where I've classed as inertia, it's not necessarily a bad thing.
[00:45:12] It just means, you know, you're moving in one direction.
[00:45:14] It takes an awful lot to move it either, you know, to the left or to the right.
[00:45:18] And you have to be damn sure which way you're moving before you do it because it's awfully hard to bring it back.
[00:45:23] So I would say to companies, be very wary.
[00:45:26] Don't knee jerk.
[00:45:29] You, there's a wealth of evidence to suggest that the operational and performance benchmarking isn't where it needs to be at the moment to provide positive customer experience.
[00:45:41] So focus on that.
[00:45:43] There are ways of doing without, there's ways to improve your operational performance without damaging customer experience.
[00:45:49] That are not high risk.
[00:45:52] They're not, they don't necessarily have to be kind of, you know, customer facing.
[00:45:56] You can do things internally to, to help you out with that.
[00:46:00] But I think we do need to see more efforts being made to, to bring down some of those key metrics that are affecting CX rather than just saying, well, hey, this is the new normal.
[00:46:13] We used to answer the phone in 20 seconds before now it's five minutes.
[00:46:16] Yeah.
[00:46:16] What are you going to do?
[00:46:18] It's, it's, it's not good enough.
[00:46:20] And it's not, but you can't just throw headcount at it for reasons I've talked about.
[00:46:26] You know, it's, it's hard enough finding the right people, let alone then confiding the budget as well.
[00:46:32] But yeah, I'd say I wouldn't expect any dramatic drops in headcount, for example.
[00:46:37] And I do think that a lot of the, the AI tools that are available now are extremely exciting.
[00:46:42] It will be very interesting to see how they're implemented in the future.
[00:46:46] And if you're not doing AI yet, don't worry.
[00:46:49] Most people aren't actually doing it either, but it's definitely worth finding out more about and then dip into toe in the water.
[00:46:56] And there's many different ways in which you can do that at, you know, relatively low risk.
[00:47:02] I love it.
[00:47:03] Steve, let me just catch you up on a few things.
[00:47:06] So Morris, two great guys in a proper chat.
[00:47:10] Nice.
[00:47:11] Thank you, Morris.
[00:47:11] Tracy, brilliant session.
[00:47:13] Thank you.
[00:47:16] Rob, awesome session.
[00:47:17] Thanks as always.
[00:47:18] I think Rob will be adding some more pictures to his shrine that he has to you, Steve.
[00:47:24] Yes.
[00:47:26] I'm not worried.
[00:47:29] Marianne, absolutely brilliant.
[00:47:30] Thank you.
[00:47:30] You really enjoyed this session.
[00:47:32] Would be great to have a chat with you soon.
[00:47:35] And Spencer, I wish we could stay a bit longer to listen to these two amazing speakers.
[00:47:39] Well, Spencer, I will defer that to Steve because I've just, I've just nodded along and taken on board everything he's been saying.
[00:47:48] And Niamh says, love this.
[00:47:50] So Steve, for me and from everyone watching, thank you so much.
[00:47:55] I think it's been such a good session.
[00:47:57] We'll definitely have to do another one.
[00:48:00] And again, pick out some of the things.
[00:48:02] Pick out some of the things because you've shared so much here that it's great insights and we've all benefited from it.
[00:48:08] So thank you very much.
[00:48:09] Thank you.
[00:48:12] Thank you.
[00:48:13] Everybody else.
[00:48:14] Thank you all for joining.
[00:48:16] We've overran slightly, but I'm sure you won't mind.
[00:48:20] And Ralph, great insights.
[00:48:21] We need to do the same for the DAC region.
[00:48:23] Again, well, Steve is your man.
[00:48:26] Definitely to speak to him about that.
[00:48:28] But thank you all very much.
[00:48:30] I hope you can all join me next Tuesday.
[00:48:34] So I will see you all next Tuesday.
[00:48:37] Did you hear him?
[00:48:38] That was Hugo telling me it's time to go for a walk.
[00:48:41] Bye bye, everyone.
[00:48:42] And thank you, Steve Morrell from Contact Babel.
[00:48:45] If you want to find out more, please do get on the website, but get in touch with Steve on LinkedIn as well.
[00:48:52] But thank you, Steve.
[00:48:54] Thank you for listening.
[00:48:55] Does your brand or company fancy increasing your brand awareness and sharing your stories and all of the things that you have going on at the moment?
[00:49:05] Then you should think about partnering with me here at Get Out A Wrap.
[00:49:09] We can do podcasts, live events, create content together, do research.
[00:49:15] You can come on and appear on Get Out A Wrap TV.
[00:49:18] And of course, I will share your brand and your logo across all of my channels.
[00:49:23] If this sounds something like you would be interested in, all you need to do is drop me an email at martin at getoutarap.
[00:49:32] Thank you for listening.
[00:49:33] I'll see you next week.
[00:49:35] Or maybe join us on LinkedIn for our Get Out A Wrap TV show every Tuesday at 10 a.m.
[00:49:43] Thanks a lot.
[00:49:43] Bye.