The Winners and Losers of CCC Expo 2023

Will Patchett, one of our Contact Centre experts at StableLogic, recently attended the Call & Contact Centre Expo 2023 here in London. He shares his thoughts below.

Setting the Scene

As expected, the hot topic of this year’s Contact Centre Expo was AI – the number of vendors leading with ‘Generative AI’ or ‘AI-Driven Customer Experience’ far outweighed any other topic of discussion. It was interesting to hear different Vendors' views on what this means for their business and, specifically, what packages they are building around what are essentially the same AI models that everyone else is using. 

Our team spent some time listening to some of the Keynotes and meeting with the various key Vendors in the market to try and determine who is to benefit most from the developments that have been made in the market… 

Winners: You, The Consumer  

If there was one takeaway from this year’s CCC Expo it was that the vendor market has not calmed down and competition remains high! For the end consumer this is great. It means:

1. Ever-increasing number of channels – vendors continue to bring more digital channels into the omnichannel space which means that if you just love to Whatsapp you don’t have to stop at friends and colleagues. No, why not drop your favourite coffee chain a message for that next Oat Latte pick-up?
2. Increasingly accessible data – companies are now able to pull together information about you as a consumer, alongside internal resources, faster and more coherently, getting you the answers you need before you even finish asking! 
3. Improved automation – long gone are the days you have to sit and wait for an agent to pick up that phone, you can now be served by the IVR you used to know solely for annoying hold music. 
4. AI-powered automation – tired of static chatbots that never deliver whilst preventing you from accessing the knowledge-holding agents? Developments in AI are finally allowing bots to deliver for customers across all channels – is this the beginning of the 5th industrial revolution?

Losers: You, The Purchaser 

Looking to purchase a new Contact Centre solution? Looking to enhance or improve the solution you currently have, mid-contract?  

1. Ever-increasing number of channels: With customers able to, and wanting to, contact you across an increasing number of channels, how do you incorporate these into your Customer Servicing offering? Which ones will deliver for you and which ones will simply add complexity to your agents’ lives? 
   
2. Increasingly accessible data: Contact Centre Managers have been asking for access to more data for years, but now that we have access to more data points than ever before how do you use them to your advantage? What is going to set you aside from your competitors in the market and help to drive customer retention? 
3. Improved automation: you want to allow customers to self-serve but don’t know which Customer Journeys to target first or how to ensure the right information is being provided back to customers who aren’t speaking to agents. Where does automation start and where does it end, and how do you begin on a journey that delivers for your business? 
4. AI-powered automation: the hot topic of the moment, AI is being thrown around by every marketing and sales person in the industry - but what does it actually mean, and more importantly how can it be implemented to deliver for your business? As a rapidly growing field (we went from ChatGPT3 to ChatGPT4 in 9 months) many businesses have yet to release internal AI policies around usage, so how does your Contact Centre adopt this technology safely?
   

The developments we are seeing throughout the market mean there has never been a better opportunity to drive real change in your business and become a Winner. However, without a clear plan, there are a number of common pitfalls that may lead to you losing out to your competition…