Angus, Pete, and the highly experienced Uncle Ken, provide a sharp critique of the current state of the CX and Contact Centre industry. The key takeaway is that the constant "noise and burbling about artificial intelligence" is causing fragmentation and distracting the industry from crucial basics. The hosts and Ken conclude that high turnover among contact centre managers, combined with sellers who have lost foundational knowledge, necessitates an urgent re-education process across the industry.
 
Here are the concise takeaways:
 
• Boomers Are Not Anti-Digital: Older customers (boomers) are highly digital. If they use the telephone, it's because they are "unforgiving" and frustrated by digital channels that fail or offer bad service, proving that high expectations drive channel choice, not age.
 
• AI Hype Focuses on Costs: AI implementations are often "siloed" and appear primarily driven by achieving "cost cutting and efficiency" for the business, rather than delivering actual benefits or a better experience for the customer.
 
• Don't Automate the Mess: The hype around AI has "hijacked the finishing off of the digital first story". Implementing AI before sorting out basic digital channels and data only results in technology being "very analytical and very automatic with the mess that you've already got," which makes things worse.
 
• Outbound Tech Remains Valuable: While outbound calling (just dialing a list of people) is "dying on its feet," the underlying technology remains highly useful for improving customer experience (CX) and efficiency. Examples include using call-back systems (like Qbuster) or sending pre-call texts to alert customers to an incoming call.
 
• Seller Knowledge Deficit: The industry suffers from a lack of fundamental knowledge, exacerbated by contact centre manager tenure decreasing to about 2.5 years. Sellers who claim to be experts are often "not worthy of the badge" and must step up to educate buyers and "sense-check" RFPs.
 
• Measure the Fundamentals: Sellers must be able to understand and apply basic contact centre mathematics, such as Erlang for voice and Little's law for digital channels, to accurately build Return on Investment (ROI) models. New technology will "fail" the consumer if it is not developed with the fundamental ability to "measure and manage what's going on".

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