Key Takeaways
In this insightful session, Kayleigh Tait (Head of Marketing) and Ben O’Reilly (Training Specialist) share how to create an intelligent contract strategy by leveraging consumer behaviours to build trust and drive better results.
Our latest research explores how UK consumers feel about AI in customer interactions and what businesses need to know to enhance their contact strategies.
1. Customer Expectations Are Higher Than Ever
- 80% of customers expect businesses to anticipate their needs and provide personalised interactions.
- Businesses that fail to understand consumer preferences risk losing engagement and loyalty.
2. The AI Acceptance Gap
- Younger consumers are more comfortable with AI – 65% of 25–33-year-olds are happy to engage with AI-powered interactions.
- In contrast, only 27% of over-55s feel comfortable with AI, and 52% of them actively prefer human interaction.
3. Human Connection Still Matters
- Despite AI advancements, 60% of customers prefer speaking to a human agent for complex queries or emergencies.
- AI should enhance—not replace—the human element in customer interactions.
4. Speed to Lead Directly Impacts Conversions
- Businesses that respond within five minutes can achieve up to 70% conversion rates.
- Delays of 24 hours or more see conversion rates plummet to just 2%.
5. Smart Data Usage Improves Efficiency
- Intelligent contact routing ensures the right customers are connected with the right agents, leading to better engagement and resolution rates.
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Webinar Transcript
00:03:43.000 –> 00:04:05.000: So we wanted to really dig into how AI has impacted those conversations what the the uk consumers are feeling around some of the newer technology that’s out there on the market. So we’ve got a bit of a snapshot of some of the key things that have come up from the research, which we’ll share a sneak peek now.
00:04:05.000 –> 00:04:21.000: And then we do have a full report as well that’s coming out shortly. So here are a few things that we thought would be interesting For you guys to know. So the first one was around I suppose understanding the modern communication preferences
00:04:21.000 –> 00:04:28.000: 80% of customers expect clients to know their needs and expectations.
00:04:28.000 –> 00:04:42.000: Which I think is probably something we all feel day in, day out when we’re communicating with businesses But a really interesting one was around the AI acceptance gap.
00:04:42.000 –> 00:05:02.000: So I don’t know if this would be common knowledge, but maybe a bit of a presumption that The younger cohort of the UK market are the people that we researched with have a higher acceptance of AI in general and are more comfortable with interacting with AI.
00:05:02.000 –> 00:05:16.000: And that’s compared to, it was 65% of 25 to 33 year olds are more comfortable with AI interactions compared to 27% of over 55s.
00:05:16.000 –> 00:05:29.000: Which was interesting. But with 52% of over 55 year olds actually being actively uncomfortable with AI interactions.
00:05:29.000 –> 00:05:51.000: Moving on to the human element. So I suppose this goes hand in hand with ai So despite technology advances and AI being the buzzword and the buzz piece of technology over the last 18 months human the human element is really critical so semi
00:05:51.000 –> 00:05:58.000: 60% of customers do prefer human agents when explaining specific situations.
00:05:58.000 –> 00:06:07.000: Or they have complex queries. And when there’s an emergency there is a real preference to that human contact as well.
00:06:07.000 –> 00:06:26.000: And it’s the same when anything involving finance or I suppose really sensitive subjects, 47% of people do prefer that human agent contact rather than self-serving through digital channels.
00:06:26.000 –> 00:06:44.000: The next slide is around proactive outbound communication. When does it makes sense from a UK consumer’s perspective that you might reach out to me as a business around the different types of things that you might want to.
00:06:44.000 –> 00:07:10.000: When are they more accepting of that? So people are more accepting of outbound communication when it’s in relation to payment and billing matters, account updates And email is a strong strongly preferred channel as well as the initial contact method and then follow-ups via direct phone calls, SMS, WhatsApp.
00:07:10.000 –> 00:07:24.000: We have taught at great length on other webinars around the impact that Omnichannel has on Whether that’s success rates for sales and debt collection.
00:07:24.000 –> 00:07:39.000: Or the actual customer service experience as well. So I think for us, the key things here were really that actually a one size all approach doesn’t work. It does need to be personalised.
00:07:39.000 –> 00:07:51.000: And it is crucial to ensure that you’re matching your your contact strategy with the consumer’s preferences and knowing your customers is really the start of that.
00:07:51.000 –> 00:08:01.000: 76% of customers expect personalisation and brands to really excel at personalisation.
00:08:01.000 –> 00:08:16.000: I think that’s all well and good saying that but actually as organisations and people in charge of contact strategies, how do you make that happen? And that’s something that we’re going to talk about now with Ben.
00:08:16.000 –> 00:08:29.000: It is much harder to execute and scale across hundreds of thousands of clients and make that personal But we can show you some ways that other organisations are doing that.
00:08:29.000 –> 00:08:47.000: We’re going to have… then show us around some of the key features in the Max Contact platform that will help you do that and also share some of the customer stories as well and the use cases for these specific features as well.
00:08:47.000 –> 00:09:06.000: So we’re going to start, Benny’s going to share his screen. Thanks, Ben. So we’ll start by talking about something that we call in our platform outbound skills-based routing and this really is ensuring that the right person for the job is reaching out to the right client.
00:09:06.000 –> 00:09:10.000: So we’ve got a client and a customer story around this.
00:09:10.000 –> 00:09:22.000: Around how someone really made their Outbound campaigns much easier to manage Before they moved to Max Contact, they were using click to dial in Salesforce.
00:09:22.000 –> 00:09:28.000: They were averaging around four hours of talk time per day.
00:09:28.000 –> 00:09:41.000: They didn’t um by talk time in this context That included all answer machines, all no answers So it wasn’t a reflection on true talk time.
00:09:41.000 –> 00:09:45.000: So they struggled with reporting as an element of that as well.
00:09:45.000 –> 00:10:06.000: Now, after the move to Max Contact, they’re averaging four hours of actual talk time active conversations with their prospects each day. So that is excluding the answer machines and no answers So some really great results from moving from a manual dialing
00:10:06.000 –> 00:10:24.000: Approach to more automated and removing some of the ineffective work where answer machine detection is coming in And maybe predictive diving But they’re also being much more effective with how they’re using their data internally.
00:10:24.000 –> 00:10:31.000: Ben, are you all right to give us a little bit more insight as to how they’re approaching the leads and that data.
00:10:31.000 –> 00:10:37.000: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, hopefully you can see my screen and I’m assuming you can hear me as well. Kaylee will tell me if you can.
00:10:37.000 –> 00:10:38.000: We can, yes.
00:10:38.000 –> 00:10:47.000: So yeah, so after they moved over to Max, they were using individual lists and campaigns per users to begin with.
00:10:47.000 –> 00:10:55.000: So if you can imagine, you know, each one of the campaigns on screen here was for an individual agent and within that there was an individual list, an individual pot of data.
00:10:55.000 –> 00:11:05.000: Problems with that come when people are off sick you now have to start moving around your lists, moving around your campaign. So it can be quite a manual processes.
00:11:05.000 –> 00:11:18.000: Which can take a lot more time. They also have an internal process of prioritising leads based off three kind of categories. So they have hot leads, high priority and normal leads.
00:11:18.000 –> 00:11:29.000: So what they now do with Macs is they apply skills via skill-based routing so as they import their data in.
00:11:29.000 –> 00:11:40.000: What you can do as part of that import is map your data and when you have a category of skill groups or skills on your CSV file, you can map that into our lead table.
00:11:40.000 –> 00:11:57.000: On the system and the system will obviously pick up those skill groups now they link into the skills that you can set up on the system. So you can create skill groups And you can create skills within those skill groups. So what they now do is they apply their skills to their data.
00:11:57.000 –> 00:12:16.000: Upload that data map it all in And then that allows the data to be controlled as to who it’s going to go to so their process only specific agents deal with hot leads. They don’t want some of their agents dealing with those hot leads. They want the best agents effectively, the best performing agents.
00:12:16.000 –> 00:12:22.000: Another thing they do as well is they utilise API imports as well.
00:12:22.000 –> 00:12:33.000: Again, same process as that manual one where it maps the data across and puts the relevant information in there when it comes to the skills.
00:12:33.000 –> 00:12:58.000: What you can also do on the system with your users, and obviously you may have the best users and some that are not quite as good at other things is you can also allocate specific skills and allocate a specific skill proficiency. So you can see here as a quick example, this particular user has got a proficiency of 10 out of 10 for customer service, 7 for dispute management and five for debt collection. So you can also control it at that level as well.
00:12:58.000 –> 00:13:07.000: This user can handle all those types of lead But they’re more likely to get more of the customer service ones because they’re more proficient with them.
00:13:07.000 –> 00:13:18.000: What they also do as well is they use fetch weights on their lists so within this campaign here that you can see up at the top I’ve got two lists in there.
00:13:18.000 –> 00:13:33.000: And on the right hand side, we can control the fetch weight. So how much data we’re dialing from each one of those lists. So the higher the the number effectively, the more data that you’re going to dial. It’s also worth pointing out as well that within a script.
00:13:33.000 –> 00:13:44.000: Sorry, within a list, you can also apply individual scripts. So those two lists within that campaign could have different scripts around different products or services as well.
00:13:44.000 –> 00:13:50.000: Great. What was the impact of that approach then, Ben, for the client in question?
00:13:50.000 –> 00:14:06.000: Yeah, so now now, as I said before, they were separate campaigns, separate lists for separate users. Now they all log into the same campaign and agents are matched to specific leads based on their skills And again, matching with their categories of hot leads, high priority and normal
00:14:06.000 –> 00:14:17.000: And the best agents are always matched to those hot leads. But they can still, if they choose to, on occasion they do, they can still deal with other calls as well, obviously.
00:14:17.000 –> 00:14:24.000: Before they did this, they’d run out of data quite quickly and now it’s spread out a bit more over the day.
00:14:24.000 –> 00:14:29.000: The campaign’s conversion rate before using skill-based routing on the Max Contact platform was around 4%.
00:14:29.000 –> 00:14:37.000: And afterwards the conversion rate doubled to 8% compared to the previous period So yeah, big, big improvement there.
00:14:37.000 –> 00:14:51.000: Yeah, so I suppose the sales conversion rate before was pretty was good. It was in the good category three to five percent is considered a good conversion rate on a B2C sales call.
00:14:51.000 –> 00:15:07.000: They’ve moved up that category. Into 5% to 8%, which is considered an excellent conversion rate so that’s really good to hear and some great roi off implementing really powerful feature.
00:15:07.000 –> 00:15:17.000: So let’s move on to the next area, Ben. So this is our data prioritisation.
00:15:17.000 –> 00:15:39.000: Tool. It really helps organisation leverage real-time data for effective outreach We’ve got another customer who used this specifically to help with their local market penetration so It was a relatively new brand. They were established in 2021.
00:15:39.000 –> 00:16:03.000: And are in a really, really competitive market. They transitioned from An approach where they were using manually dialing via spreadsheets, picking up the phone And lead volume was a priority for the customer as a challenger brand, you have to make sure that you’re going out there and fighting for every sale and lead.
00:16:03.000 –> 00:16:15.000: That you can possibly get. Leads are generated by the website, third party sites And lead generation campaigns across different social channels as well.
00:16:15.000 –> 00:16:26.000: So Ben, can you tell us how they took that local geographic approach to their campaigns and what impact that had. That’d be really good to see.
00:16:26.000 –> 00:16:47.000: Yeah, so if we look at that they collected all the data, obviously, and they import their data into the system they actually do a lot of api imports so an API mapping screen here just to just to call out there. You can import your data map all your fields. You can also map things like skills
00:16:47.000 –> 00:16:52.000: And the skill groups as well that we’ve just previously spoken about as well.
00:16:52.000 –> 00:17:09.000: And what they use is custom data fetching to look at two things. They looked at postcodes and they looked at the area as a whole. So as we say They were prioritising calling data from Manchester area first because they’re looking to build that presence in that area.
00:17:09.000 –> 00:17:25.000: Before going a bit wider field. So the two ways they’ve done that is they use custom data fetching to build a couple of queries. Now, the first one they actually used was a simple Manchester query. So in here, the rule is effectively the city equals Manchester
00:17:25.000 –> 00:17:39.000: So the system will look through all the data, find all the leads that match that, and then it will pull out those leads and prioritise them. I’ll show you that in a second on another screen. But the other way they did it as well is they went in and they built some
00:17:39.000 –> 00:17:44.000: More specific rules around specific postcode areas as well. So for example.
00:17:44.000 –> 00:18:06.000: Here, you know, I can put in these rules where I’ve got three different postcodes that I can apply it to. So just jumping back real quickly um to what that looks like in terms of the campaign on a campaign we can see this particular list here has eligible leads of 15,000 and then filtered leads of just under
00:18:06.000 –> 00:18:17.000: 7,000. So using that custom data fetching, it allows you to filter out that data based on those rules in there. And that’s what they were doing with the postcodes and the Manchester area.
00:18:17.000 –> 00:18:27.000: Yeah. And what are the other ways that customers are using the data prioritise beyond geography.
00:18:27.000 –> 00:18:35.000: Essentially any data that you map, you can use. So for example, number of attempts when you’re calling someone.
00:18:35.000 –> 00:18:46.000: Read out someone that have had X number of attempts already try retry your old data first debt value fetch the highest value contacts first to get the largest amount of debt in sooner.
00:18:46.000 –> 00:19:01.000: Car insurance, so competitive displacement campaigns target contracts who are with certain insurances, if they’ve had bad press, things like that, dates, customer signs up on a certain date and you want to schedule a check-in call after X amount of days
00:19:01.000 –> 00:19:10.000: Contract expiry dates And date of births as well, things like that. So yeah, literally any data you want to map in, you can potentially use in those filters.
00:19:10.000 –> 00:19:17.000: Yeah. Amazing. And I think this is the key to the personalisation side of things.
00:19:17.000 –> 00:19:36.000: Isn’t it really i’m sure there’s so much data and insight in businesses understanding what is your process for capturing it, whether it’s in your department or another area of the business if it’s sitting in a CRM or even a spreadsheet
00:19:36.000 –> 00:19:43.000: It really makes sense to then start to use it within your campaigns and just be more intelligent with your targeting.
00:19:43.000 –> 00:19:47.000: Of messaging and the time of your time team as well.
00:19:47.000 –> 00:20:09.000: Good. Thanks, Ben. So let’s move on to the actual getting a view of customer history and understanding Customer intent, past interactions And how you can actually get that data enriched. So when you are speaking to clients, you can start to build that profile as well of
00:20:09.000 –> 00:20:29.000: What does the client um look like from a competitor perspective are they using a certain utility provider or I’ve got a certain contract date seeing how a customer understanding a customer is really important and it’s the crucial part of the campaigns
00:20:29.000 –> 00:20:41.000: And makes great great campaign success so How can clients stay on top of this in the moment with their teams?
00:20:41.000 –> 00:20:46.000: Yeah, so obviously customer by customer, you’re learning about them, adding details to the right lists.
00:20:46.000 –> 00:21:07.000: Within the system you know you may you may deal with customers who you’ve got campaigns for multiple products services so you know dealing with them and making sure the data and information is up to date on those lists. You can keep up to date in a few ways. So on screen now, I’ve just placed a call to myself. Apologies for the ringing in the background while Kaylee was still speaking there.
00:21:07.000 –> 00:21:36.000: But Simon, I apologise. But yeah, what we can see on here is I’m on a call with a contact and um First thing you can do within Contact Hub is you can update the preferences communication information on the right hand side over here. So I can go in and I can add a new phone number, a new email address. I can copy those and take those out and use them elsewhere and I can update their address detail. And that’s regardless of whether you’re using a script or not and whether you’ve got that information within the script.
00:21:36.000 –> 00:21:44.000: You’ve also got the ability to update that same information if you’ve got it in your script. So for example, we’ve got address detail and information in there as well.
00:21:44.000 –> 00:21:55.000: And a little bit further down here. Again, going back to what we talked about before with filtering data based on essentially any data you map into the system, you can also bring that through into your scripts.
00:21:55.000 –> 00:22:15.000: And then you can update that information on each call, your agents can go in and can make changes to that data and update you know current supplier, who’s your supplier at the minute, for example, with this one. But again, it can literally be any data on their contract expiry dates, debt amounts, so on and so forth, dates of birth and what have you.
00:22:15.000 –> 00:22:27.000: The other area that you can do within here is keeping notes so getting your agents to add notes to the calls about the customer, what’s gone on previously, what’s happened on this particular call.
00:22:27.000 –> 00:22:40.000: Adding those notes to the active call so that they are recorded for future And then finally, agents have access to a history tab which has the entire customer journey on there.
00:22:40.000 –> 00:22:52.000: So I can go through and I can see a call that happened today where the agents left a note, say the customer informed of was a change of address. And as I go through, I can see notes around callbacks, transfers.
00:22:52.000 –> 00:23:09.000: Notes on the call if there are multiple. You can also click on these and you can see more detail if there are that more than viewable. And there’s also some other stuff around Spokane AI, which is a product we have in terms of things like transcripts and speech analytics, which can be pulled through into this page as well.
00:23:09.000 –> 00:23:20.000: But as you can see, I can scroll through this customer’s entire history to see everything that’s gone on with them on the system.
00:23:20.000 –> 00:23:27.000: Cool. Thanks, Ben. Next, we’re going to talk about the need for speed.
00:23:27.000 –> 00:23:47.000: Let’s get that one in there. So all about how reaching out to your leads and contacting people, what is the impact of speed essentially So we’re going to talk through how you can do that. But first, there’s a couple of
00:23:47.000 –> 00:23:53.000: Research pieces really that help us really show how important speed is.
00:23:53.000 –> 00:24:05.000: So there’s some research from mit over They analysed over 15,000 leads and over 100,000 call attempts over three years.
00:24:05.000 –> 00:24:12.000: This study revealed that the odds of contacting a lead decreased by 10 times in the first hour.
00:24:12.000 –> 00:24:17.000: So if you are not moving quickly with anything that is coming inbound.
00:24:17.000 –> 00:24:29.000: Then you are really damaging your conversion rates of campaigns So the odds of qualifying a lead are 21 times higher when contacted within five minutes.
00:24:29.000 –> 00:24:54.000: Compared to 30 minutes as well. There’s more support for the need for speed. So there’s another study from Convertica Who revealed that a significant decrease in lead conversion rates with increasing response times So specifically, within five minutes, the conversion rate is around 70%.
00:24:54.000 –> 00:25:08.000: People are in the moment, they’re ready to have a conversation if they’ve filled in a form on your website or perhaps on a comparison site, they’re in that frame of mind, they’re ready to talk about it.
00:25:08.000 –> 00:25:15.000: The conversion rate drops to 50% within 30 minutes and 20% within an hour.
00:25:15.000 –> 00:25:21.000: And it drastically falls when it’s over 24 hours to around 5%.
00:25:21.000 –> 00:25:31.000: So customers… And not just you, we all spend a lot of money and time on generating high value leads.
00:25:31.000 –> 00:25:43.000: For our businesses. How do you make sure that you are outside of that 2% conversion rate stat how do you make sure that you are performing as best you can.
00:25:43.000 –> 00:25:48.000: Sylvia to you, Ben.
00:25:48.000 –> 00:26:08.000: Sorry, I muted myself there. Apologies. Yeah, I just wanted to talk about HubSpot integration. So one of our customers uses HubSpot integration to create an automated lead management workflow that eliminates the manual processes And speeds up the response times.
00:26:08.000 –> 00:26:27.000: So when prospects submit inquiries through the website integration automatically creates high priority records in Matt’s contact enables agents to contact leads within seconds of the submission The syncing of the data, call activities and outcomes means that they’re instantly added to both systems.
00:26:27.000 –> 00:26:32.000: Also call recordings are automatically stored and linked with HubSpot for quality monitoring as well.
00:26:32.000 –> 00:26:40.000: Agent wise, they can get screen pops with instant access to complete customer records, allowing them to maintain context during conversations.
00:26:40.000 –> 00:26:57.000: Without having to switch between multiple systems, which can obviously sometimes cause a few issues or delay things. The integration also enables automated workflow triggers based off HubSpot lifecycle stages So it ensures leads are followed up and processed according to their status.
00:26:57.000 –> 00:27:16.000: And this this approach a streamlined approach has really helped the customer to improve the contact rate and conversion metrics by ensuring that leads are contacted during peak interest periods Whilst it also maintains the records of all interactions across both of the platforms as well.
00:27:16.000 –> 00:27:32.000: Yeah, so integration is really key, well, a key driver for that speed here. So whether it’s HubSpot or another it’s ensuring that you have the right connection between where your data is being held, where it’s coming in.
00:27:32.000 –> 00:27:41.000: How you respond to it and then we can obviously have the campaigns and the right responses to that inbound contact.
00:27:41.000 –> 00:27:47.000: Good. And apologies. I was a bit slow to share that slide then, but here it is.
00:27:47.000 –> 00:28:00.000: So I think next we’ll chat about how do you understand whether what you’re doing is working So what works for one client might not work for all of them.
00:28:00.000 –> 00:28:07.000: How do you understand those patterns in behaviour and refine your contact strategy.
00:28:07.000 –> 00:28:14.000: Everyone’s customer base and contact strategy differs. What’s important for you to understand is what works for you.
00:28:14.000 –> 00:28:18.000: What are the best ways people can do that, Ben?
00:28:18.000 –> 00:28:27.000: Yeah, so there’s a couple of ways. Reporting wise first of all, max contacts get over 40 out of the box reports to measure success.
00:28:27.000 –> 00:28:33.000: You can also build your own custom reports within the platform and you can also speak to us about having other reports built in as well.
00:28:33.000 –> 00:28:43.000: And then with the introduction to speech analytics. You’ve got access to more data than you’ve had before for the contact center. So it allows you to see trends, draw comparisons.
00:28:43.000 –> 00:28:48.000: And sort of deep dive into what’s going on behind the numbers that you can see in the reports.
00:28:48.000 –> 00:28:55.000: And it also allows you to anticipate future consumer needs as well. So yeah, that’s our sort of spoken AI platform.
00:28:55.000 –> 00:29:01.000: With speech analytics in there as well.
00:29:01.000 –> 00:29:26.000: Good. And we do have… This is, as a spoken ai is it interesting to you we have got previous webinars that cover exactly what this is and the value that it brings to the contact centre And I believe our next webinar next month is going into a deep dive of some of the newer features and things that we’ve introduced.
00:29:26.000 –> 00:29:39.000: Good. Before we get to our Q&A then, just a quick overview from me on our research piece so This is where we got some of the stats earlier on from.
00:29:39.000 –> 00:29:56.000: So if you do want this research report in your inbox. There’s a QR code there that you can scan with your phones now that will take you to a form which you just need to fill in and we will send it to you. It’s due for release in the next
00:29:56.000 –> 00:30:26.000: Three to four weeks It’s the deep dive on what the 1000 UK consumers believe about their recent call centre So yeah, I think it’s got some really good insights in there as to how things have changed what different demographics of audiences want from a contact centre as well. So it’s a really useful report that I’d encourage you to go and download and help inform your contact strategies.
00:30:30.000 –> 00:30:47.000: And then before we go to our Q&A, just a few key takeaways from me. So thanks, Ben, for the insights and the demos So here are some of the key takeaways. So number one is understanding your consumer preferences is essential.
00:30:47.000 –> 00:31:09.000: So we know different people have different communication preferences They also have different preferences of products as well so there’s no point plugging a certain product to To me, I’ve got a dog at home, I don’t want to hear about cat food or cat insurance.
00:31:09.000 –> 00:31:14.000: I don’t know if they do specific cat insurance, actually. I don’t know if that’s a thing but anyway.
00:31:14.000 –> 00:31:29.000: You get the point. And knowing when to use AI versus human interactions and having people involved in your communication process is crucial for customer satisfaction.
00:31:29.000 –> 00:31:41.000: Second one, speed to lead is critical for conversions Respond within five minutes and you’ll achieve or can achieve up to 70% conversion rate on those conversations.
00:31:41.000 –> 00:31:52.000: After 24 hours, it drops dramatically to around 2%. Thirdly, data prioritisation enhances outreach efficiency.
00:31:52.000 –> 00:31:59.000: So strategic routine of contacts to the right agents significantly improves results.
00:31:59.000 –> 00:32:05.000: And customisng fetch rates based on priority can double conversion rates as well.
00:32:05.000 –> 00:32:27.000: Ai and speech analytics do unlock deeper insights so whether I think reports are great for seeing that day-to-day side of things that I suppose real time update as to what’s happening within a campaign or within a team speech analytics really helps to understand
00:32:27.000 –> 00:32:34.000: The high level trends and gives you more visibility into those customer interactions.
00:32:34.000 –> 00:32:44.000: And really helps spot those trends at a higher level across your entire teams or campaigns and really track that over time as well.
00:32:44.000 –> 00:33:02.000: And then finally, the centralised campaign management really increases efficiency as well so unified campaign management simplifies operations and skills-based routing ensures that the right people are handling the right contacts or leads for your business.
00:33:02.000 –> 00:33:09.000: So that’s the key takeaways. I believe we have got a few.
00:33:09.000 –> 00:33:14.000: Questions, just bear with me. I’ll stop sharing my screen so I can see Ben.
00:33:14.000 –> 00:33:19.000: As well? And we’ll get to these questions now.
00:33:19.000 –> 00:33:25.000: Lost my Zoom panel. Here we are.
00:33:25.000 –> 00:33:34.000: Okay, so… If you have 10 agents on a campaign but only half Five, have a customer service skill.
00:33:34.000 –> 00:33:39.000: But are not available. What?
00:33:39.000 –> 00:33:44.000: I’m not available. Will the call move to the other five that do not have that skill?
00:33:44.000 –> 00:33:48.000: Sorry, fluffed that question up there, Ben.
00:33:48.000 –> 00:33:53.000: Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah. So yeah, we don’t want calls not to be made.
00:33:53.000 –> 00:34:12.000: Obviously so we can we can set it up so that, yeah, those calls will still go to other agents who don’t necessarily have that skill. So you can look at the originally assigned agent and you can look at the same skill but different proficiency levels. And then, yeah, any agent available. So yeah, 100% that
00:34:12.000 –> 00:34:15.000: That will do that.
00:34:15.000 –> 00:34:20.000: Okay, good. Thanks, Ben.
00:34:20.000 –> 00:34:35.000: So can SQL queries be used to initiate a WhatsApp interview I think that’s and say our WhatsApp interaction For example, after a certain number of days after signing up with a supplier.
00:34:35.000 –> 00:34:42.000: Can you send a check in? Via WhatsApp, maybe via SMS.
00:34:42.000 –> 00:34:43.000: What are your thoughts on that, Ben?
00:34:43.000 –> 00:34:48.000: Yeah, I was going to say, I know that we’ve done that before with SMS.
00:34:48.000 –> 00:35:00.000: That’s something that we can definitely do. Whatsapp, I’m not 100% sure is my honest answer on whether or not we can do that, but it’s certainly something that we’ve done before, as I say, with SMS.
00:35:00.000 –> 00:35:18.000: I would imagine from the technical side of things, I’m doing a lot of imagining because I’m not as technical as some of the company. That’s something that we could as well but yeah um certainly we’ve done that with SMS before, 100% on that side of it. So yeah, WhatsApp, I would imagine it’s possible.
00:35:18.000 –> 00:35:41.000: Yeah, and I believe WhatsApp has I suppose more that opt in and opt out compliance regulations requirements as well with WhatsApp. So we’ve got more information on WhatsApp and we’ll come back to We’ll perhaps link to that in the follow-up email actually because it was an anonymous
00:35:41.000 –> 00:35:55.000: Person who asked that one. So we’ve got, how do you gather a customer list integration
00:35:55.000 –> 00:35:59.000: So, uh. In what respect so uh
00:35:59.000 –> 00:36:10.000: Yeah. So maybe it’s maybe Yeah, if you could provide a little bit more context for that one, Carl, that would be useful.
00:36:10.000 –> 00:36:11.000: Essentially, around… Well, sorry.
00:36:11.000 –> 00:36:21.000: Maybe it’s, yeah, what are the different what are the different ways we can get data integrated into the platform maybe could be along that line
00:36:21.000 –> 00:36:39.000: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so you’ve got things like obviously your API import. So you can take data from web leads, for example, someone goes on your website, fills in a web form that then automatically comes through into the system is imported in. You can do sftp uploads as well
00:36:39.000 –> 00:36:51.000: So, you know, there’s a few different ways that you can get that data in, as well as obviously your integration with things like HubSpot and other CRMs and and systems available as well.
00:36:51.000 –> 00:36:52.000: Yep. I think it did, Carl.
00:36:52.000 –> 00:36:57.000: Not if that answered the question 100 but yeah
00:36:57.000 –> 00:37:12.000: Expanded on it. So yeah, I think via we’ve got integrations obviously that you can connect to We’ve also got the integration marketplace as well.
00:37:12.000 –> 00:37:21.000: Which has got really useful. Useful integrations in there. So depends where the data is coming from. It’s probably the answer. But if it’s a web API, then yeah.
00:37:21.000 –> 00:37:33.000: Good. Next question is Can we trigger alternative contact actions based on call outcomes or dispositions?
00:37:33.000 –> 00:37:44.000: I.e. An SMS or a WhatsApp is sent to a customer upon a non-contact via the dialer or an IVM.
00:37:44.000 –> 00:37:58.000: Yes. 100%. Yeah, we do that now for some clients. Depending on the outcomes of calls it automatically triggers those messages to go out to people. So yes, we can do that.
00:37:58.000 –> 00:38:09.000: Yeah, that you can automatically trigger it. And then can you also add the options to initiate it if it someone wants to make that choice or not as well.
00:38:09.000 –> 00:38:11.000: Automated. Yeah.
00:38:11.000 –> 00:38:32.000: Yeah, so in terms of SMS conversation, yeah, we’ve got SMS within the on the channel side of things and whatsapp so you can have those conversations off of the customer coming back to you replying into your SMS or your WhatsApp if you’ve got those channels enabled on there as well, then obviously they can chat to your agents via that method if needs be.
00:38:32.000 –> 00:38:43.000: Good. Thanks, Ben. How does that prioritisation engine work and how customisable is it?
00:38:43.000 –> 00:38:44.000: Is the question.
00:38:44.000 –> 00:39:02.000: Yeah, Barry. Yeah, it allows you to create custom rules for prioritising contacts based on your different data points. So again, going back to what we talked about earlier things like postcodes and what have you. Lead source, engagement history urgency you know any any of those things
00:39:02.000 –> 00:39:11.000: You can assign, as we said earlier you know hot leads to your top performing agents, prioritise high value debts, et cetera, et cetera.
00:39:11.000 –> 00:39:24.000: Yeah, there’s lots of ways and it’s totally bespoke how you want to do it. You know, it’s based on your data, whatever you’re mapping we can use those filters, those options with skill-based routing as well on there also.
00:39:24.000 –> 00:39:47.000: Yeah, I think in a previous life, I worked at a telecoms organisation And we always targeted our audience based on their demographic profile. We’re quite a high end provider and weren’t the cheapest on the market so we wanted to make sure that all our effort from a
00:39:47.000 –> 00:40:05.000: A marketing and sales perspective is put in the right place. So we used to use Mosaic profiles. So if you’ve got things like that that perhaps sit within marketing and sales teams and you know how an organisation is going to market you can really
00:40:05.000 –> 00:40:21.000: Utilise that in the contact center or whether that’s an extension of the sales team It’s really useful ways of using data.
00:40:21.000 –> 00:40:27.000: Good. I think that’s it for our questions now.
00:40:27.000 –> 00:40:38.000: Unless there’s any more, they usually flood in when I say that so Thank you very much everyone for sticking around and for all your questions as well. It was great.
00:40:38.000 –> 00:40:54.000: Hopefully you did find this useful. If you’ve got any feedback, let us know. We’ll link to the couple of things that we mentioned around integrations and WhatsApp as well in the follow-up emails so you can get those answers.
00:40:54.000 –> 00:41:01.000: And that’s it from us. Thank you very much, Ben. And thank you very much for joining us.
Your Questions Answered
During the webinar, we covered some of the most pressing questions around AI, customer interactions, and best practices for contact centres. Here’s a recap of the key discussions:
1. How can businesses access the full research report?
The report is set for release in the next few weeks. You can sign up here for pre-release to get it sent directly to your inbox.
2. What’s the best way to balance AI and human interaction?
AI should enhance efficiency, but human agents remain critical for complex queries, complaints, and emotional interactions. Businesses should use AI for routine tasks while ensuring human support is available when needed.
3. Why does response time impact conversion rates so dramatically?
Customers are most engaged when they first reach out. Our research shows that responding within five minutes can achieve 70% conversion rates, whereas waiting over 24 hours drops it to just 2%.
4. How can businesses personalise customer interactions at scale?
Understanding consumer preferences through data-driven insights allows businesses to tailor interactions. AI-driven speech analytics and intelligent contact routing can improve personalisation without increasing agent workload.
5. What’s the biggest challenge in AI adoption for customer interactions?
The AI acceptance gap—while younger consumers are more open to AI-driven interactions, over half of older customers prefer speaking to a human. Businesses need to balance AI automation with accessible human support.
