#265 - Has contact centre technology actually improved? With Danny Wardell

[00:00:02] Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Get Out of Wrap. Once again I am joined by Danny Wardell of Alvaria. We promised you a part two. We caught up last week and great response to that first episode where Danny took us through his career up to a point but a lot of the learnings and we thought you know what let's carry this on.

[00:00:29] And again another similarity between us both is we were both agents and I wondered Danny the extent to which your time being an agent in a contact centre, the impact that's had on you and kind of how you reflect on that and how you see that today like where we are right now in this kind of changing environment that we call contact centres.

[00:00:57] Danny Wardell, Yeah, you did. Do you know what you don't until you reflect you don't always get the chance to realise just how much you draw on to an experience but there's a number of contact centres I've been into the last few weeks. Danny Wardell, And I leave them contacting us thinking not a lot of what's changed in the last 20 years from when I was an agent.

[00:01:17] Danny Wardell, Yeah, I think some respect, some of it's come backwards slightly I think. But I definitely draw on the experience of being an agent at probably in every pursuit or conversation I have. Danny Wardell, Either way, my team that I support or to provide insight into the contact centres that we work with either existing customers or prospective customers. Danny Wardell, And I often draw back on the experience of what it was like to be an agent. Danny Wardell, You still will hear a single pin of glass.

[00:01:46] Danny Wardell, Being the Nirvana of contact centre. Danny Wardell, And that's the same conversation we had 20 years ago. Danny Wardell, More difficult now with the number of tools. Danny Wardell, But I often think that the agent experience does get lost in this world of customer experience. Danny Wardell, So yeah, definitely draw on it a lot. Danny Wardell, Definitely look back on my time as an agent. Danny Wardell, Look at the things I did to cheat the system, as any agent does. Danny Wardell, Your first few weeks is all about delivering the best possible service. Danny Wardell, You do the best you can.

[00:02:16] Danny Wardell, But like everybody else, you drop into working rhythm mode. Danny Wardell, And you drop into getting the day done. Danny Wardell, You start your shift and then you shift and getting home and switching off. Danny Wardell, And you find ways to do it quicker, do it more effective. Danny Wardell, And in most cases, your aim is to get to the next call and get to break. Danny Wardell, Get from break, fill the gap, get fit in. Danny Wardell, And it goes back to the school days. Danny Wardell, You deal with what's the next thing I need to focus on, what is break time.

[00:02:46] Danny Wardell, Then after break, it's focused on get to lunchtime. Danny Wardell, After one time it's focused on get the second break time and then it's home time. Danny Wardell, And I think, and I bet if you did an audit of agents, I imagine that's a big part of the mindset. Danny Wardell, The majority of contacts in the agent and out there, whether they're in Bambi or out there. Danny Wardell, 100%. Danny Wardell, 100%.

[00:03:05] Danny Wardell, I mean, I did some work with some agents recently and said, you know, what are the name three things that really help you at work, make you happy at work. Number one was team, but breaks was actually there in the top three for most of the, most of the groups. Yeah. You know, and I think we, I think we overlook that. You make a really interesting point though.

[00:03:30] Do you think from what you've seen, because there's more tools that the job has got harder from when you did it? Yeah. I actually compare it to Formula One in some respect. But any of the fans that are into Formula One, you watch a Martin Brundle who gets the luxury of trying to leave modern Formula One car. And he talks around the current Formula One stars all say, I don't know how he changed gear all the time. And you had all the manual change gear and Monaco.

[00:03:59] I think 180 gear changed the lamp or whatever it is. I don't know how he did it. At least it's saying, because I don't know how you fit all the buttons, like changing brake bias and the number of switches and engine modes. Like I don't know how you do that and still drive the car. And I think the contact center agent is quite similar in terms of they've got to deliver in some respects to experiences more value nowadays. They're expected to deliver a higher level of service to some extent, but they have so many more distractions.

[00:04:29] I won't call them tools all the time. I think tools are something that help you do a job. I'm not quite sure all the applications that an agent uses actually make the job any better. I just think they create more distractions. I don't know about yourself, mine, but one of the best inventions that's ever come out for me is transcription. They'll be able to transcribe a note without having to sit there and write.

[00:04:57] And that's something that pops up in your screen and it's on the right hand side. And it's a bit of a disruption style when you're getting used to it. And then I think for agents, they have so many variations of that. The things popping up, things in mind, scripts. No justice has not said the right complaint statement or whatever that would be. I think it's made the job harder because I think you've got to multitask a lot. Yeah.

[00:05:26] Oh, well, transcription is really interesting when I know certainly from my own, my own experience, especially when you felt under pressure, you know, the whole title of this podcast is get out of rap, because it was said to me so many times that I felt rushed and I could write a set of notes. The same customer could come back to me the next day. I'd be reading the notes that I wrote and I didn't, didn't understand them.

[00:05:51] So the automation now that is able to take what we've spoken about, summarize it and give it to me, give it to the next person that has to deal with that customer, I think is, is only a good thing. But I really do. I really do agree with you on the whole distractions. And I think generally speaking, one of the things that we need to guard against is kind of like over stimulating agents.

[00:06:19] I mean, that could apply to all of us in the world anyway, but it's, it's very hard to focus on a customer and be present in a conversation. One that you may have done a lot of times anyway, but when you're having to navigate five or six different systems just to be able to do what the customer requires. Yeah.

[00:06:41] You know, I think kind of that has to be a key objective for people is to give agents the space to be able to engage with customers. But I think, but if contact them has got any better, I can think, I'm a consumer like you. And I think of the people I contact and actually in the process of speaking to estate agents, which in some respects it's all many contacts. And so then you go for an, an auto attendant, an IVR, trying to get through to somebody.

[00:07:11] Is that experience any different today than what it was for me 20 years ago by myself? No. If I want to call Lodafone or O2 or a network, I will single one out to upgrade my phone or to have room with a bar to change something. Is that any easier now than 20 years ago? I mean, worked in a network contact center? No. So I often wonder what all these tools they spend money on, like, what do they actually do?

[00:07:38] Because in reality, I don't think the customer experience over the last 20 years has improved with the world of CCAS and with the world of technology evolving at the pace it's evolved. I don't see a better customer experience, a more personalized experience in 2026 than you did in 2006. I don't know about how we all could do that, but I just don't see it.

[00:08:03] Well, in the main, I think you've got pockets of organizations that provide unbelievable service. I do always think they're the ones that spend the most money on technology, but they're the ones that probably dig into the detail of their data and information and understand the queries they deal with on a daily basis to try and find a turnkey solution that evolves and makes it better.

[00:08:30] I think a lot of times you're seeing shitloads of data and no insight, no information or not knowing what to do with that data to improve your overall line. Their agent experience, customer experience, always be honest in a lot of cases, improved bottom line. Because all of that's always masked by, we want to provide a better experience. In reality, businesses want to make more. What an interesting question. Have we got better?

[00:09:03] So funny. Because I agree. I'm not sure you could say overall we have, but I wonder, I wonder, is it because it's got harder at the same time? What do you think? What if we haven't got better? Why do you think that is? So I don't think we've got better in general.

[00:09:30] Not saying not picking an individual contact center, but I think in general my consumer experience is I don't believe my experience calling the contact center or messaging the contact center is any better than it was 20 years ago. In addition, I think the reason it's not going to be better is because I think there's been an influx of tools and platforms that's been becoming an all you can eat buffet.

[00:09:58] I use what's the all that. I think there's been a lot of tools that are used to be better than it was. If you look at the sort of evolution of CCAS, it became this all you can eat buffet. We do everything you want us to do. You can choose which bit you want to consume. That doesn't always mean you're choosing the best technology. It means you're probably making your supply chain management less complex.

[00:10:23] You've probably got this thing got throat to choke and something doesn't work, but it doesn't mean you're getting the best individual piece of a contact center by buying it for one overarching CCFender. So, and that's why I think it's not improved. I think elements of inbound have improved. I think the ability, I think IBRs have improved. I think IDMPs improve. I think self-serve and FAQ stuff's got better.

[00:10:53] But the analytics that you get from a CCAS vendor may not be as good as buying it from an analytics business or a BI business that specializes in just that. The outbound is probably compromised because the outbound or the dialer or the outreach solution from a CCAS vendor isn't as good as somebody who specializes in it. Um, probably not people rough to cloud, but went to this public cloud world where we've had outages and you've had real data security issues and compliance issues.

[00:11:23] Um, you want to look at down detector and then sort of site to look at how often that occurs. And people rushed to move our premise because it saved an infrastructure costs to move into public cloud when public cloud probably wasn't mature enough at the time to be where it needed to be. And I think when you had a lot together, you end up compromising lots of the contact center because of the buying strategy you'd made in terms of trying to collapse into one buying pursuit.

[00:11:52] And I was in that world. I promoted it, I sold it, I lived and breathed it. But I lived and breathed it from a technology perspective. And I definitely tried to live and breathed from an agent and customer experience perspective. Because you can't sit there and say, by the way, we're great at everything, but really the roger these three old ones go by elsewhere. You get fired. But I think be really honest. Oh, and very, and being authentic.

[00:12:17] If I look at the CCAS vendors I've worked for, they've been brilliant, but not been brilliant at everything. And I look at the world I'm in now at Alvaria that I've been in twice. We're not a CCAS vendor. We don't profess to be, we don't want to be. It's not a world where we really want to try and promote. We specialize in compliant outbound orchestration. That's what we're good at.

[00:12:42] Um, by if a customer based on the outreach wants to call back in, we serve to it, but it's not our specialist area, which is why we looked at the relationships with zoom and so on, because they do specialize in that inbound customer journey and that. I've asked that all to attend them that self-service FAQ inbound experience, but they don't specialize in the outbound side.

[00:13:10] So I think for that reason alone, people have gone late. The old term Jack of all trades, master of none, I think comes to mind a lot in contact center. I think the market put contact center to go down with Jack of all trades. And they've realized they've become masters of none of it. And you spend time in some contact centers. How often do you see Walpole show information? Sorry, they'd show data and no information. They'll show average handbook time of nine minutes.

[00:13:40] Nine minutes doing what? Walpole doesn't tell you what that nine minutes is spending doing. It tells you might tell you got to into calls in queue. And I go back to my two days. Calls in queue was bad. And I do recall days of two, three, four from the calls in queue. Many of them were 5,000 person contact centers. So maybe that wasn't the numbers. Yeah, we're proportional. But if you have found a calls in queue.

[00:14:09] Because the car figure out how to change manual network selection when they're rolling on Nokia 6210. It's not a great call in queue to add. Because it probably means that you didn't, you've not managed something at the front end or you've not prepared them to roam. That's probably not great examples of having calls in queue. But what if you'd find a calls in queue that's all queuing to buy a 500 pound iPhone? Are they good calls in queue? I'd argue they are.

[00:14:36] I'd rather find a people queuing to buy something than find a people queuing to complain about something. A wall board wouldn't tell you which that is. No, no. I mean, you take me right back to my kind of operational management days. We're trying to navigate and gently educate senior leaders who would look at a board and bark at you. Yeah.

[00:14:59] You know, that average handle time is a really interesting one because they were looking at that thinking we were wasting money. I was looking at it going, I'm assuming we're doing something, we're doing the right thing by the customers there. We're not just saying, oh, by the way, what do you think about the World Cup at the moment? Do you want to have a chat about that? You know, we were actually doing our, we were doing our job and this was a reflection of where we were with our, with our job.

[00:15:28] Of course it needed investigation. But I think you make so many really good points and the, you know, my, a lot of my background is outbound. And I, I wonder, especially with your customers, do you see there being an evolution, certainly an understanding of people appreciating that outbound isn't just sales and collections and things like that.

[00:15:56] But when you, when you get the right information, as opposed to just data, you can actually proactively contact customers from a customer service point of view. Is that, are you seeing more and more of that? Not, not at the rate that I've hoped to see it. Um, I think you are seeing it is, it is starting to increase. I think when you look at some of the predictions that the analysts make, you'd expect it to have been all on.

[00:16:23] I know the analysts are a lot of time are a paid to play model, but you see all these statements of where the market's going to go. I've never really seen that come to fruition. Um, I've got a couple of points that I could probably raise in that. Number one, I don't think we're seeing it at the rate we should be seeing it. Cause I think sales people and account managers and CSNs no longer spend time in the contact center. Um, that's something I brought to me since I come back to Loveria. Like Lewis and Josh today. And I know you've met Lewis in a podcast.

[00:16:53] They're at a contact center in Scotland at the moment. Um, because one of my big pushes is go do some chair side. Who hasn't ever done chair side? He'd never been an agent. So we've learned he blows along the way. And he's budding up with, with Josh and our other guys. He was my experience. Who knows what to look for. And they're not going there looking to try and find things to sell. This is an existing customer. They're going to look and find areas where we can help them improve on the technology they've already got. Well, even one, I don't think enough organizations do that.

[00:17:23] I think they spend so much time dealing with the buying personas of contact center software. That they get to go and spend time in the contact center to understand the operation. Number two, I think that contact centers for the last five to 10 years have tried to stop everyone from calling in. They go harder and harder to find a number to call to get to a contact center. The floor she down the route of self-serve chat.

[00:17:52] And I don't invite you, but every time I join a chat, I end up having to say, speak to a nation. The chat doesn't give me what I need. Um, over somewhere with a train booking. Well, I can either change my train booking. It wouldn't let me change it online. I had to go on chat. So I couldn't find a number to call. I had to go on chat, beat to the, on the bot, which was very helpful to a point. And then it, it, it kept telling me to go back to the same page of being on to rebook this training. It wouldn't work.

[00:18:21] So I had to eventually type, speak to an agent. Then he asked me to summarize what I'm speaking to the agent about. And we can just capture the 20 minutes of conversation. So I did that again. Agent then comes online and that's more always, I'll speak for a query is. Even though the agent has said he spent the last five minutes reviewing the transcripts, but then said, how can I help you? I'm like, are you kidding me? You just spent five minutes reading the transcripts and you asking me why I needed to help me.

[00:18:49] Um, and I think until organizations really care about the service delivery. And that's the example. I think there are a long way of turning that into outbound orchestration, but I give you a good example of it and where, where it can work really well. Because of traveling over the years and the amount of traveling I've done, I've been lucky enough to become a gold member on BA. Which does give you a, like a VIP service. And I went to Dubai in January.

[00:19:19] My in-laws had never been. So me, my wife and me in-law went to Dubai. It's flat enough. We thought they'd like it, which they did. Stayed there for 10 days. And, um, on the day we're checking out, I think we were getting picked up by the minibus tax, whatever I'm calling it, like 6am the Monday morning. To flying back to the UK. So flying to Dubai, generally a night flying out, flying back to the Tennessee Day Flags, the time difference, slightly opposite to the US. Um, in the hotel, you don't pay for anything.

[00:19:49] You're good in your room. So when he comes to checking out, you're paying your bill. Um, because we're checking out so early and getting picked up so early, we've been playing cards at the table in the hotel at night. So I'm going to go check out the room now and pay the bills. And on the morning, we don't have to, we can just drop the keys. I get to the reception. I pays the bill. I'm walking back to where they sat. And in that walk back from just checking out and paying the bill to getting to the table, this flight had been canceled. So I get to the email, which said,

[00:20:19] important information, your flight's been canceled. And there was lots of stuff going on in the Middle East at that point, but nothing in real and bubbled over yet. I'm like a kid and mess. So I sit down at the table. So I go back to the room, then I'm going to leave my laptop panel and look at what the flights are available. So in between walking from this table to the room, in the meantime, I had a WhatsApp from British Airways, the gold member from an individual person. He'd confirm the flight booking reference, confirm the week passing detail.

[00:20:49] He changed that flight. Not the next available flight, the one after that, because he wanted to make sure the four of us in one party could still sit together in the class of Cernish would flown in. He'd rearranged the taxi to pick us up before the new flight and cancel the existing one. He's spoken to the hotel, did another night extension of the hotel, included the evening meals for Hartball. Then he gave me a phone to fill out, but said, if I show the form out, because at the time, trust the delay, we can claim £540 or something per passenger.

[00:21:18] So over two grand back. He reached out to me. Like he dealt with the old foreman, offered me to communicate back with him if I didn't want that flight. Or the only thing you couldn't deal with was my car parking at Heathrow, because that's for a different company. But everything else he dealt with, proactive with. But if I had been a BA bronze member or blue member, I wouldn't have got that service. It tells you, you can offer that service, and you can provide that service.

[00:21:48] And that for me, what made me return to BA over and over again, because I got a great experience. So it tells you the technology is there to do it. It tells you the organizations that want to do it, do do it. So it tells you that it's not running the pace it should be running because the choice is not to provide that service. And I always ask the question, why? Why would you not want to give the best possible service to somebody who can tend to continue to repeat the revenue with you over and over again?

[00:22:16] And the answer generally comes down to there are technologies today that is 90% designed for inbound, and it's not geared towards providing the same level of service in Outback. And that's why I believe in what we do out of area. For that reason alone, it's because that's what we are designed originally to collect revenue, to sell something, to make the most of an age at the time, an idle time,

[00:22:46] to make sure that when they speak to people, it's because they're connected in the bank at the right time and day. But you can use that technology in so many other ways to provide unbelievable service that create a real loyal customer base. They don't because they don't have the tool to do it, and the tool they've got doesn't support it. It's funny, isn't it? Because you've just told a story where you are acting as marketing for BA right there.

[00:23:15] Right there. And that's what's possible. I think you raise a really good question around the kind of levels of service. It's kind of like, well, we know we can do this and we can do it really well, but not for you. I always remember that advert for banks, and I think you're a brand new customer's only. She got this like best mortgage rate. And it's constantly not quite a bit in insurance, but I see so much bad press on BA.

[00:23:44] And the reason I think you see bad press and examples where I'm getting great press is that they deal with different class of customers differently. And I'll never understand that. I get why you want to give loyalty to someone who travels with you so much more. And no doubt like me, spend so much more than the average person who flies in a hordy every year. I get why I may should get some extra perks. Maybe I'm the first in the queue to get bumps to a better class. Maybe I get a priority to get my ball on both the plane quicker.

[00:24:14] But why should I get better customer experience? I shouldn't. The person that's flying BA gold versus BA bronze on that flight probably paid the exact same amount of money. Why give me the amazing service and give the guy that spent the same money as I am a lesser service? I just never understand that. But it goes back to my point that it comes down to having the right tool to do the job.

[00:24:41] It comes down to knowing how to proactively reach people to deliver great service. And I think, I always use this example. If you go to America, and I know that it'd be mine, the service you get in restaurants, the service you get in petrol stations or gas stations, is a far cry from the UK. And it is.

[00:25:08] You've got to go spend big money in the UK to get great service. You've got to go to Lucky Cat. And they'll charge you 15 pounds on top of the bill for the service that you've not choked a tip for you. The mindset of service in the US is so different from the mindset in the UK when it comes to service. And if you look at the US as a market demographic, there's so many more outbound contact centers in the US ratio-wise, but the capital is in the UK.

[00:25:35] And not all in the US contact centers are selling you something or trying to collect a bill from you. They are using it for practice service at a higher ratio over there. Why? Because service is seen as a loyalty award. It's seen as something that if you deliver great service, you'll repeat custom. I look at the mindset in the UK, and it's not just the UK, it's more across Europe as well.

[00:26:02] How hard does your insurance provider try to retain your business every year? They don't try very hard. No. It makes you feel like you've been disappointing. Exactly. I came up in January, and I got a 25% increase, and I'm like, I've not made a claim for the car. I've been driving again 20 years or so. I've never crashed the car. I've never made a claim to damage the car.

[00:26:30] Yeah, I seem to be a cusper that no one wants when it comes to... Get rid of him. And after, and he gives me the challenge, I had to go back onto showing all these forms and trying to remember all the information about your car and everything like that to go find a renewal call, to go get it 50 quid cheaper somewhere else with a de facto rated insurer. And I think to myself, why does the insurance business not just want to retain? Sure, it's easier and more cost-effective to get me to renew

[00:26:59] than to find a new customer that you don't know anything about. That's completely new to your insurer. I'll never understand that. But with some new ones in insurance that I don't know. But customer experience-wise, it's a really bad customer experience. And it goes to... I always come back to this, at this central point, I think we see service as expensive.

[00:27:24] And I would challenge anybody in any business today to tell me how it's expensive. Because I think they're going to show me lots of data and no information. And I definitely want to challenge that status quo, that service isn't expensive. It's cost-effective. It delivers a great ROI. And it creates loyal, repeatable custom. And if you've got more than one product in your portfolio, then your chance of upsell, cross-sell,

[00:27:54] and product penetration of that base, it's far easier than trying to find new business. 100%. I would say, well, but existing customers, we've got new business, we want to try and win. Which is the easiest? Or Josh and Lewis are in an organisation in Scotland that I know for a fact they'll find opportunity doing the right thing. Not going looking for it, they're going to look at where they can find gain.

[00:28:17] That will generate opportunity at a far lower cut than trying to hunt down new opportunities in net new logo. It's hard. Why not treat and provide a better experience to your loyal customer base than you do a new customer base? I'll never understand it. No, me neither. Me neither.

[00:28:43] You know, you mentioned that 2006 contact centre and here we are in 2026. Yes. I agree with you. I think you could take that 2006 contact centre, drop it into today, and it would still, it would do okay. It wouldn't, it wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb, but where, so what do you think if we jump ahead 20 years?

[00:29:13] Will there, will contact centres be that much different from what they are now? Do I feel a bit of something there now? I think the Ryan's on the wall, not to remember if he phrased that. The opportunities there for in 20 years to be somewhat different with the evolution of AI and what it can bring.

[00:29:41] But I don't believe that AI can ever replace the human. Um, and I just don't. I think it can definitely make the job easier for an agent. It can definitely take away some of the repetitive mundane elements of customer experience. Do I ever see it fully replacing it? No, I don't. And I'd say the same for AI in a number of worlds. Like I use, I think I mentioned in the last call, I'm an early doctor of AI.

[00:30:10] I spend about £120 of my own volume on subscriptions for my AI toolkit. I use different types of AI for different things that I want to do. Um, my wife, because I adopted it, adopted it as well. And I've got $3, one buying a house, one going to university to one just finished GCSE yesterday. Um, and my wife started to use it to like group shots to say, we'll go up for a conflict in the house. Like, or how do we fund university for our middle daughter going to uni?

[00:30:40] What are we going to fund us? What's she going to fund? And me and my wife come from two different ends of the spectrum here. My wife is all about giving her the best opportunity, paying for it all. And I'm like, that's not a lie to them. I didn't get anything for free in my work ethic. I think, I think it's definitely shown through my career. I don't want to just give her all for free. Cause I don't want a world where she believes there's no consequences. But go back to the phone bill. You know, the consequence of that phone bill and having to pay back. Like I can learn something.

[00:31:09] So my wife starts to use chat GPT to say, this is where I am at. This is where my husband's at. What do you think? And you know, it just doesn't work. And I don't think you'll ever work because it can't take, it doesn't understand the emotion. The same way. You're only saying that because it sided with her. And it's actually another, the funniest thing it is, he sided with me.

[00:31:31] But I'm, I'm well aware that when it comes to, if I look at my dynamic of parenting, I get cut in and out. Because I work long out. My wife's in it every day, full time, every day, all the highs and lows. I sometimes get the lows, I sometimes get the highs, but I'm not around the kids every day. I don't, I'm not around them like my wife is. I travel more. I'm away more.

[00:31:58] My wife's the glue, I suppose, that keeps all our family shot together. And I think when I give it my opinion on something, it jumps to my side. My wife gives it her opinion, it jumps to her side. And in the end, it finds them where it wants to sort of align with. And it tended to agree with me. Um, but it fundamentally sort of misses some key ones. My wife raises around my middle daughter and some of the challenges that she has.

[00:32:25] At the point where my wife left the group chat, cause it just wasn't helping. And I actually said to Leon, leave you to agree with me, which wasn't the case. I definitely wanted to get that sort of, that that one over. But I think what it highlighted to me was, it doesn't really recognize emotion. Um, and it can make mistakes. It can make errors just like a human can. But I don't think it's ever going to be at a point where it can understand.

[00:32:53] For example, like one of the things I've loved to be is the things like, I love this at Mendic, something called PCM, which is about personality profiles and people are different colors and they have a base color and they have a, the color they're in right now. Based on the type of personality you are through numerous tests. I think I'm going to chat to your PT and say, can you write an email to Martin? I think I know Martin's PCM provides you ever, but he will understand. And it will write something and it will do it based off text.

[00:33:20] It doesn't mean you're, it'll land with you at the moment during that day. You're based on a static setting, um, or a static environment. And it did not guarantee to land, but it will write it as if he knows what he's talking about. And it doesn't. So if I go back to the point you made earlier on the contact center, I feel like we'd easier to be there. Do I think they'll be different? Yes. Do I think it will be much different? No. And I go back to 20 years ago. Uh, there's been more revolution in the last 20 years.

[00:33:49] And I think there will be the next 20 years. When I was a contact center in 2006, I had a VCC software. I had no physical turret or Android. I used to be a BT Meridian when I first joined the forum desk. That went. The tape desk went, or the tape decks went where the, uh, supervisor was the calls with you, with a double jack and both having a headset in with the tape deck. That all went.

[00:34:15] In 2006, I went to the VCC contact center tool, which was, um, web-based, a little toast from the bottom right on the screen. You could move it around where you wanted. And I used a web-based, um, Dynes CRN, which was an original Martin Doll system, where originally talking windows went to web-based. The disc screen popped in. When the number were recognized, it brought the person's details up. Uh, you could, it was all in a single screen.

[00:34:44] You could make, you could have proven change. You could make edits. You could write notes real telling. And anything we did into the notes required follow-up, it adds, um, actions that it would raise. If you were doing a SIN change, you would process a SIN change request in the platform there and then. It hit a queue and within two to 24 hours, the SIN change would go through. So I can a single screen using the VCC soft phone 20 years ago. What states them today?

[00:35:14] It's still on a web-based platform. In some cases, people still using Thiccline. Mainly using soft phones. Nobody's using hard phones on the desk. We have headsets, chargeable headsets, no wireless. They weren't wired. I think they were Jabber or Polycom back then. Um, we have wallboards that were in real time. Our call recordings, um, and our QA was done in the system and the platform. It wasn't a separate format to fill in all.

[00:35:43] You'd have to sit with your team leader or your manager and go through listening to recordings on a tape deck. It was all done through the desktop. We had coach and monitor. So my supervisor could barge into a call. He could listen to a call. He could whisper feedback to me while the call was going on. I don't see a change. And, uh, over than transcription and maybe some of the analytics and BI. I don't see much of a change. Technology is there though.

[00:36:13] People want to do a bunch of QA that can do that today with products out there, like success KPI that we work with. They will allow that product allows in real time. Once a QA is got AI that will advise on coaching and it will advise on next best actions and everything else. People are still not buying it wholesale and still aren't using it. Because everyone's still around the channel and the contact sensor with the lowest bottom line. And AI won't come cheap.

[00:36:44] There'll be an ROI to it, but it's not like it's going to be a replacement cost. It's another cost. You're not going to replace the contact center. You're not going to have all your current costs. You're then going to invest into a new technology that provides some AI key to build. And no doubt it's an ROI, but it's another tool you're going to have to have. So I think in 20 years time, I still think you'll have agents sat at their desk with their heads setting, delivering customer experience verbally.

[00:37:15] And I still think that I'll be there in 20 years time. And I don't think it will be, I don't think it will be a world different to what it is today. Sounds like we could do an episode of like a version of back to the future. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. And that doesn't mean that the world's not going to move on. It doesn't mean there's not going to be a different experience. It doesn't mean I don't believe in AI. I do believe in the power of AI. I believe it's got a place.

[00:37:44] But what about strategies designed around utilizing AI and making things more efficient and hopefully giving a better experience. But I think if the last 20 years to go by, I'd argue what's going to fundamentally change. I've been hearing about driverless cars for the last 20 years. I'm not going to watch Clarkson's farm, but he said something that I'd already thought.

[00:38:14] I can get a train to London today for a reasonable amount of money. I'm on the right side of the coast and then the West Coast, not as reasonable. But I can get on a train in 2026 and I can get my laptop out and I can attend to work. I can't either do team calls because of the tunnels and the connectivity is not great, but I can definitely do work. I can definitely log into Salesforce. I can send emails. And the other option is I could drive and I can make and take calls where I can't physically work.

[00:38:44] I can't type on my laps. The other option is I could get a driverless car that gives me the same experience as a train, but maybe doesn't stop. But it can't take me to a supermarket or do a shopping for me. If I wanted to take you to the supermarket, I've got to get out of the car, go to the shopping, come back in the car. At which point I may as well have drunk. If I don't drive, it's not that the exertion of driving is getting dressed, getting up, getting out to your driving and getting in the car.

[00:39:14] The actual driving side of it is not difficult. So what's driverless going to offer? And there's been so much noise around driverless, it'd be more safe and more efficient. In the last 20 years, I don't think we're seeing anything that presents any evidence as a portly, it's more efficient or it's safe. If you go to the US and then you go to San Francisco and you do these driverless taxes, which yeah, it's maybe that's a way in the future.

[00:39:44] But that doesn't replace all cars, which is the sort of the tokens noises that you hear. Like the certain thing is you just can't replace. It's not going to go and it doesn't understand that I'm in the mood for pizza today. So when it goes to a supermarket with a list, how many people listen to your podcast go to a supermarket with a list and just buy a list on the list? Yeah. See some that teach you fancy, you buy it. Yeah. You treat yourself that you didn't have on your list. AI can't do that.

[00:40:14] Can't replace that side of it. So, although I think it is revolutionized in the way that we work, I don't think it's an evolution. It's certainly going to be, it's certainly going to be interesting. And I think we do have a great opportunity, but to your point around driverless car, is it just a train? Just because we can doesn't mean that we should.

[00:40:40] It, you know, is it, is it fundamentally going to solve a problem, accelerate our progression, allow us to do better and more interesting things. And I think that same logic applies for contact centers and customer experience and, and what we're, what we're doing. Danny, again, this has been fascinating. Time is, time has disappeared. I think we, I think we, I think we should just do some regular ones.

[00:41:10] We should just sort of catch up regularly and just kind of put the, put the world to rights and, and hear some more of your, your fascinating stories. If you'd be up for that. Yeah, definitely up for it. And I think it's, it's really listening. I think from my perspective, doing the last two podcasts, one, my opinion isn't always right. It's my opinion. I'm not saying I'm writing everything.

[00:41:36] Um, but I definitely, I definitely enjoy putting your thoughts out there and seeing people's opinions. The feedback on the first podcast was really positive. I'd be interested in the feedback of this podcast, because there'd be so many people out there that work for AI business. And they go, I think you're wrong. I think I have an opinion. I've loved to hear it. I've loved to be proved wrong in some of my observations.

[00:42:00] And I'd look for any contacts that have listened for this to really sit there and look at how they're operating today. And really asked themselves the question about the operating the best interest of the customer. Because I think if they are, my challenge would be a technology staff doesn't support it. And the, the example I use this Martin, as we wrap up is how many people out there have rangerovers? And how many people out there drive them off road?

[00:42:30] Yeah. I mean, I think they're a bad car and they're a very comfortable car, no doubt. But the ranger over design to go off road, yeah, everyone buys them at the status. And if you're doing that in your own personal life, what are the chances that you're doing that in your work life? What are the chances that you're buying the brand, not the capability? And I think that's for me where contact center stalled over a number of reasons.

[00:43:00] People have got drawn into buying brand as opposed to buying what actually is suitable for their organization. A great, a great analogy. And for those of you watching, you can see that Hugo is telling me he wants to, he wants to, he wants to go out. He's had enough. His exit is there's left. He's like, okay, well, I'm done. But that is a, that is a great analogy to draw this episode to, to a close. Danny, thanks so much for giving up your time and, and coming on again.

[00:43:30] And, and I think that's a great shout out by the way, is just to engage with Danny, have a conversation because it's those conversations about how we, how we progress. Right. If you agree or disagree, I know Danny's he's volunteered there. Have a, have a conversation, get in touch and, and just make sure you don't use AI because you'll, you'll lose. Sure. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you.