Yet, the needle is starting to move. Soon, talking to AI will feel just like having a normal conversation, and success rates will continue to grow.  

Gartner even predicts that by year-end 2027, conversational AI applications will automate approximately 70 percent of customer support interactions within enterprises.  

“Voice AI is quickly approaching human parity, as it does adoption is going to accelerate quickly” said Jake Tyler, AI Market Lead at Glia, a leading Voice AI provider for banks and credit unions. “This pattern is playing out in other markets already, from translation services to driverless cars, and contact centers and customer service will be next.” 

The contact center economic model will shift with that change. Leaders will need to rethink who works there, how many people are required, and what they do. At Glia, Jake and his team are helping bank and credit union leaders reconfigure how their contact center and frontline teams are positioned to best support the communities they serve in the AI-era.  

It’s not an easy conversation, it’s downright uncomfortable sometimes, but it’s one many companies need to have. 

The Three Options Businesses Face 

Don’t skip ahead to 70 percent of customer support conversations. Consider: what if AI did half the work? If AI takes on this much labor, what happens next? 

In this scenario, a business would have three options (which they may blend). 

1. Reinvest

This is the crowd pleaser. In this scenario, the contact center would keep its headcount flat and reinvest the savings in its people.  

The classic example is to give agents more time to interact with high-value customers and graft away at meaty, complex issues.  

Yet, there are other ways in which a fully-staffed contact center can add value.  

For instance, leaders could rearchitect customer journeys. Here, a contact center may pass an issue that is possible to automate over to a human representative, if it’s particularly emotive. The rep could then offer warm, firm reassurance to boost loyalty. Similarly, they can have humans answer contacts that have high upsell or cross-sell potential.  

In addition, the contact center could expand its customer and community outreach. 

Consider a financial institution. It could contact customers to explore new opportunities to grow loans and deposits. Meanwhile, it may reach out to the community to promote financial literacy programs and other initiatives. 

Case Study 

Busey Bank has expanded its customer base by 25 percent. Yet, because of voice AI, it managed to keep its headcount steady.  

In fact, it even managed to reskill two frontline employees, placing them into more strategic research roles.  

As its AI exploits continue it even plans to offer career advancement for other reps into areas like career advancement in areas like treasury and commercial. 

As Caitlin Drake, SVP and Director of CX & Support, said: 

“By investing in technology, we can put our people on a career path that opens more doors for them and allows them to serve the company at a higher level.”

2. Right-Size

From the crowd pleaser to the town villain. Right-sizing is not an easy conversation to have, but it’s a realistic one.  

After all, a business may sense the opportunity to significantly reduce or even eliminate costly overflow and after-hours contact centers.  

Perhaps a more sensitive approach, however, is to stop backfilling agents who churn, aligning the strategy with forecasts and AI performance insights. 

Alternatively, for brands experiencing high growth, there’s the option to simply stop adding headcount. Whatever the case, the workforce management team will be busy!  

Case Study 

Service 1st Federal Credit Union implemented its virtual agent, “Scout”, to interact with customers across voice. But, it didn’t stop there. It also provided real-time conversation transcription, automated agents’ post-call processing, and streamlined managers’ quality assurance (QA) tasks to eliminate busy work.   

Since it has decreased human-handled monthly contact volumes by 29 percent, it has also cut average wait times by 71 percent, slashed average speed of answer times from three minutes to 18 seconds, and cut call abandonment from 25 to 1 percent. 

That’s all while its service headcount has dropped. However, Service 1st didn’t dramatically cut employees; it reduced its headcount with natural attrition and continues to work with Glia to unlock new efficiencies as staff trickle out of the business, as they inevitably do in contact centers. 

3. Reallocate 

Finally, the contact center could reallocate reps, starting with those wanting to try something new or those looking for a long-term career path.  

In doing so, the business could grow its other customer-facing functions. At a bank or credit union, this could include fraud prevention, financial planning, or proactive outreach. 

Alternatively, the firm may assign personnel to lead business development projects within the community or invest in branch modernization. There are options aplenty! 

Case Study 

Sticking to finance, Granite Credit Union is a successful credit union out of Utah. After implementing a virtual agent, it achieved a 60 percent containment rate while saving 1,400 hours of manual work in only four months.  

Like the other examples, Granite also implemented agent assist tools to boost that reduction in manual work, again lowering its labor requirement.  

So, it invested in reskilling its excess staff and started training employees to work in branches, collections, and fraud prevention. 

As Cindy Clark, CIO of Granite Credit Union, summarized:  

“With Responsible AI, we can keep pace with the industry, while still doing it right.”

Don’t Skip Too Far Ahead…  

The contact centers furthest ahead are thinking about how to reinvest AI’s efficiency gains into innovation and human potential. 

For many, that’s going to be a struggle. As Justin Robbins, Founder & Principal Analyst at Metric Sherpa, said:  

“AI is becoming table stakes, but too many leaders are still running old playbooks. Until contact centers both measure their strategic impact and have a stronger hand in AI decisions, they’ll leave enormous value on the table.” 

Capturing that “enormous value” requires a fundamental shift in how businesses align people, processes, and measurement. 

For more on how brands can do that, check out Robbins’ latest whitepaper: The New Equation: Redefining Value, Effort, and Impact in the AI-Era Contact Center 

From the move to the cloud, to the birth of chatbots, to the pandemic-induced rise in remote working – the headset has seen it all.

Of course, that isn’t to say that agents are still using the same old bulky, ear-crushing models of yesteryear.

These days, the top tier offerings are ergonomic pieces of kit that boast AI-powered features and capabilities.

One of the major contact center headset retailers in the sector is Cyber Acoustics.

Having come from a strong background in the education sector, the pandemic – and subsequent increase in remote working – provided Cyber Acoustics with an avenue into the contact center space.

Thor Mitskog, CEO of Cyber Acoustics, explained how once the company gained an understanding of the contact center sector it realized that it was a “perfect fit” for what they do.

“It’s been tremendously eye-opening to us, because we saw all the issues and problems within the call center arena were mainly related to acoustics.”

“And we quickly identified things that we could bring in to help solve these problems.”

The Power of Noise-Cancellation

Whether it’s traffic, lawnmowers, or excitable pets when working remotely, or background chatter when in a contact center environment, the number one problem that Cyber Acoustics identified for its customers was a lack of effective noise cancellation solutions.

In particular, Mitskog and his team felt that too many contact centers were overly reliant on software for their noise-cancellation, rather than the headsets themselves.

The company firmly believes that contact centers and CX departments do not need to burden their IT people with more software to manage and install when there are hardware solutions that can do a better job of solving the problem.

“We feel it’s important to avoid having to deploy software because it’s another layer that these call center and IT people have to manage,” Mitskog explained.

“We do everything in hardware, no drivers, and it’s all controlled by the IT people on what features they want to deploy within that hardware.”

When it comes to the hardware, Cyber Acoustics’ headsets are equiped with an AI-powered DSP solution, which is embedded directly into the headsets.

The AI algorithm actively learns and filters out external noises, ensuring that once a distracting sound – such as a nearby conversation – is identified, it will not bleed through in subsequent calls.

This tech was used in the company’s first AI-powered headset, the AC-304, which launched in early 2024.

Mitskog describes the product as a “game-changer” for BPOs, detailing how it has led to a significant rise in demand, with the company’s traction among top-tier BPOs looking very strong for 2025.

Building on the success of the AC-304, Cyber Acoustics expanded its lineup with the launch of the AC-404.

Designed as a “commercial back-office solution,” The headset features the same AI-powered noise cancellation but is optimized for executives with a more ergonomic design, collapsible structure, and magnetic desktop attachment for ease of use.

Standing Out from the Crowd

When it comes to what really sets Cyber Acoustics apart from other headset providers in the space, alongside the AI-powered noise-cancellation capabilities, Mitskog outlined these additional differentiators:

Affordability Without Compromising Quality

While some competing solutions offer strong noise cancellation, they are prohibitively expensive for most call centers.

We made a strategic decision to make our technology accessible, ensuring that call centers can deploy high-performance headsets without excessive costs, as Mitskog explains:

“There are some other solutions out there that are good; they’re almost as good as ours, but they’re very expensive.”

“And the problem is contact centers can’t afford to deploy something that’s stupidly expensive unless the client’s willing to absorb that in their contract with the call center.”

Innovative Training Solutions

Mitskog details how many call centers still rely on outdated training tools.

In order to plug this gap, Cyber Acoustics has developed a proprietary training system: Agent Assist Solution.

The system allows companies to connect to an agent’s headset via a secure Bluetooth connection, providing contact center coaches the ability to seamlessly listen in or take over calls at the press of a button.

Mitskog explained that the “innovations have been well received by financial services, healthcare, and CX centers, and we’ve filed IP to protect these advancements.”

To find out more about Cyber Acoustics and its CEO, Thor Mitskog, you can watch his two exclusive interviews with CX Today here and here.  

For more information on the company’s AC-404 headset and all of its other products, visit the website today.

Last month, Jim Marous, Owner and CEO of the Digital Banking Report, posted this on his social media.

In doing so, he highlights how new financial services (FinServ) customers want it all: the easy, automated digital experiences and the comforting human advice.

However, these two demands are divergent, and it’s tricky for FinServ providers to do both in their contact centers.

Thankfully, the following three trends shed some light on how customer service leaders can get the balance right in 2025.

1. AI Use Goes Cradle-to-Grave

Consider the contact center’s core demand drivers. Some will follow a predictable path, and these are ripe for automation. Nevertheless, some issues require consultation.

Recognizing this, Torrin Webb, Customer Experience Strategist at Nationwide, recommends splitting contact reasons into two buckets: “transactional” and “consultative”.

In conversation with CX Today, he noted how his team then optimizes its contact center journeys by either adding automation or better-enabling consultation, depending on the bucket.

By doing so, Webb is ensuring that critical balance between the customer’s desire for both effortless service and human reassurance – as Marous underscored.

Virtual agents are becoming increasingly adept at handling those transactional contacts. Yet, for the latter, brands can optimize the customer journey to add opportunities for consultation.

Crucially, that requires a more supportive, informed contact center agent.

Thankfully, AI can help here, too. It can assist the consultative agent from before they accept the call to after they hang up.

Let’s start before the call. Consider a virtual agent that gathers the customer’s intent and pertinent information upfront. This can then pass through to the agent before they pick up, so they’re better equipped to lead the conversation.

Next, think about how AI can aid the live agent in-call, fetching information so they can stay focused on the customer. As Jason Griffin, Principal Solution Consultant at Five9, said:

“Instead of agents flipping through a manual or looking up product criteria, AI can provide guidance in real-time, whether it’s for claims, insurance policies, or other offerings.”

“These applications can also help agents identify upsell opportunities, such as loans or account upgrades, and present them effectively.”

Finally, consider after call work (ACW) automation. By auto-summarizing conversations and auto-tagging intent, agents spend less time typing notes and more time engaging with customers.

“The key is integrating AI throughout the customer journey rather than using it as a siloed tool,” concluded Griffin. In doing so, contact centers can deliver that cradle-to-grave assisted AI service that better supports the consultative FinServ agent of tomorrow.

2. Omnichannel Journey Orchestration Gets Real

Craving that effortless digital experience, 73 percent of consumers expect a seamless transition between channels. But, only 13 percent think their financial institutions meet that expectation.

Authentication represents a huge hurdle here, as customers must often re-authenticate themselves as they switch between channels.

As such, for high-risk communications, FinServ contact centers may consider: what’s the best channel to handle this customer journey?

From there, they can – again using a virtual agent – immediately pass the customer to that channel and orchestrate an experience with a one-step verification process.

That intent-level orchestration routing will continue to gain momentum as more FinServ contact centers move to the cloud and compose experiences that blend modalities, AI, and the human touch.

Many contact center vendors recognize this as the future and are getting ahead of the curve. For instance, Five9 acquired Acqueon earlier this year to create an “orchestration engine for every interaction across the entire customer journey.”

Yet, as contact centers blend those channels, they must be able to track context as the customer shifts between them. Alongside multiple authentications, that’s a significant pain point.

Thankfully, AI is again helping here. “We can summarize live and automated voice interactions, chat transcripts, and other communications, feeding that data into a CRM,” said Griffin. “The CRM becomes the single source of truth.

“The key is making all data accessible and actionable in real-time, regardless of the scenario.”

So, even if a customer moves from a virtual to a live agent, for example, all relevant data transfers smoothly, and the agent can pick up the conversation from where it left off.

Indeed, if the customer returns the next day, their information should already be in the CRM, so they don’t have to repeat their issue. In all sectors, that’s a huge source of frustration.

3. The Contact Center Becomes Part of a More Connected CX Ecosystem

Siloed data – whether in CRM systems, ERPs, or elsewhere – creates considerable integration challenges. In financial services, this is further complicated by GDPR and strict data regulations.

Another issue is the lack of advanced analytics tools. Without them, it’s tricky to use data effectively, which leads to missed opportunities for personalization, inaccurate decision-making, and – ultimately – higher costs.

However, bringing all these data silos together, combined with advanced analytics, enables a new level of personalization and insight that fosters cross-function CX collaboration.

There are a couple of new technologies FinServ contact centers can apply here. For those looking to reimagine the contact center environment, a unified CCaaS-CRM offering is one to consider.

Five9 is developing such solutions with Salesforce and ServiceNow, centralizing data and tools from the two central customer service platforms.

Another approach is to leverage Aceyus by Five9, which takes data from various CX platforms before building it into custom reports and visuals.

Yet, most pertinently, Aceyus delivers that data downstream to a customer’s data lake, enabling CX teams to mine insights and create curated new data sets on top of cross-functional data.

That can bring many benefits, especially in regard to aiding the contact center’s data strategy. As Griffin noted:

“We’re focused on making data accessible and shareable within the necessary security frameworks. That way, it can be used to connect systems, improve customer journeys, and enhance experiences for both customers and employees.”

That’s critical as data is the driver of everything AI. Whether it’s insight generation, AI Agents, or intelligent process automation, it all starts with accessible, usable data.

More Insight Into the Finserv Contact Center

While debating trends offers plenty of food for thought, the best way to envision the FinServ contact center of tomorrow is by learning from the people who are building it.

Recognizing this, Five9 contacted several  FinServ contact center customers who shared their transformation strategies and results so far.

These customers included Central Bank, SumUp, and a leading FinServ provider based in Latin America. Each summarized their story as part of the Five9 2024 Customer Success Book.

The Success Book also includes various other case studies for integrating the CX ecosystem, reimagining employee experiences, and – of course – harnessing AI.

Alternatively, FinServ contact centers can follow this link to learn more about Five9’s industry-specific CCaaS innovations.

Having signed its “largest deal ever” earlier this year with a prominent US bank, serving 70MN customers, FinServ is a sector Five9 knows a lot about!

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In upgrading its telephony and CRM systems, Bank of Ireland’s tech investment intends to produce quicker resolution of customer calls, improved self-service options (such as changing account addresses, ordering duplicate statements, and requesting new cards), increased availability of transactions 24/7 via phone, and enhanced customer security measures.

“This is the largest single investment in enhanced systems and technology for our frontline colleagues in branches and contact centres that the Bank has ever made,” said Susan Russell, CEO of Bank of Ireland Retail Ireland. “We receive more than 11,000 calls on average each day, and when customers call us, they want speed, expertise and security.”

This investment equips colleagues with the latest technology to provide better and faster resolution of calls, and colleagues will now have a ‘single view’ of the customer at the touch of a button, providing them with instant access to all their information without having to talk to another part of the bank. This investment will make things faster and better for customers and for colleagues, it’s a win-win.”

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The investment involves equipping 2,800 colleagues in Bank of Ireland branches and contact centres with rapid access to a “single view of customer” data, facilitating faster call resolutions.

Additionally, voice biometrics will enhance customer authentication, bolstering fraud protection and reducing call waiting times. Streamlined phone-based transactions will also be enabled around the clock, featuring improved customer verification methods and simplified menu structures.

With this latest announcement, Bank of Ireland’s total expenditure on a range of customer service enhancements is set to reach close to €150 million by the end of 2025.

In January, the Bank of Ireland unveiled plans for an investment exceeding €60 million in various branch enhancements, marking the bank’s most significant single investment in ATMs in the last decade. Additionally, in February, the bank announced a €50 million expenditure on customer fraud prevention and protection, which includes investments in new technology.

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The Pandemic And Cost-Of-Living Crisis Have Increased Vulnerability

Over the past few years, many have endured cumulative stresses not witnessed for generations. First, there was the global pandemic. A cost-of-living crisis quickly followed, producing the highest inflation rate seen in the UK for over 40 years. These hardships have been exponentially more challenging for individuals and groups in vulnerable circumstances.

Confirming this, in its 2022 Financial Lives survey, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) discovered that the number of consumers exhibiting characteristics of vulnerability had surged by nearly one million since 2020. This dramatic increase was primarily attributable to growth in the proportion of adults with low financial resilience who described themselves as “heavily burdened” by household bills and credit commitments.

Low Financial Resilience Drives Vulnerability

The FCA survey firmly established that low financial resilience has emerged as an increasingly crucial driver of vulnerability, driving up the total share of UK adults displaying one or more characteristics of vulnerability to 47 percent (24.9 million) by May 2022. However, it is critically important to recognize that vulnerability stems from more than someone’s financial status.

With an aging population, organizations are increasingly dealing with customers who have conditions such as dementia (900,000 people are living with dementia in the UK) and people who may have difficulty accessing non-traditional customer communication channels such as live chat.

Concerningly, while awareness of vulnerable consumers appears to be high, particularly amongst companies operating in regulated industries, there is still a lot of progress to be made to establish, implement, and maintain good practices in dealing with vulnerable customers.

New Regulations Require Supporting Vulnerable Customers

Interestingly, while the 31st of July 2023 marked a significant date for all UK customers of financial services, ironically, few are aware. This date marked the official “go live” commencement of the new Consumer Duty regulations developed to ensure financial services organizations consistently provide vulnerable customers with fairer, more inclusive, and more appropriate outcomes.

Reviewing the details and requirements of the Consumer Duty regulations, one key component places heightened obligations on firms to ensure vulnerable customers can be effectively supported and not disadvantaged or excluded because of their vulnerability—with the definition and scope of vulnerability implicitly being far broader than financial vulnerability.

The FCA’s approach here mirrors similar existing and evolving regulatory strategies from other UK regulators, including Ofwat and Ofgem in other industry sectors. While the ramifications of this are still somewhat muted and yet to be fully felt, the hope and expectation is that they will ultimately deliver substantive positive impacts and benefits for all customers over the long term – even if they don’t fully realize it.

Personal Experiences With Vulnerable Customers

Over the past 12 months, I have personally experienced both the highs and lows of customer experience through the eyes and ears of a vulnerable customer – specifically my 85-year-old father, who was recently diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer’s dementia.

Imagine attempting to successfully undertake a complex identification and verification process exclusively over the phone with an individual who, on bad days, cannot accurately recall or communicate their own address or date of birth.

Yet this profound challenge is certainly not restricted only to the 900,000 people currently displaying symptoms of dementia (estimated to grow to 1.4 million people over the next 12 months).

With over 47 percent of the UK population now exhibiting one or more substantive attributes or characteristics of vulnerability, the scale of this issue extends far beyond just those with cognitive decline or impairment.

Creating a CX Strategy Fit For The Future

Addressing the challenges experienced by vulnerable customers undoubtedly creates an improved experience for all customers – so take a moment to consider how your end-to-end customer experience works for the:

•   Nine million UK individuals who do not have access to the internet. (Source: Lloyds Bank)
•   90 percent of individuals with seriously impaired vision who can’t read Braille. (Source: RNIB)
•   80 percent of customers that rank phone as their preferred channel. (Source: Calabrio)

Fortunately, this is not an issue without solutions:

• Live and recorded speech analytics can be used to detect multiple attributes of potential vulnerability
• Vulnerable customer personas can be used to assess journeys
• Syndicated data sources exist to identify financial and non-financial vulnerability

Find the Right Balance for CX Success

An effective customer experience strategy balances competing priorities: Investing while controlling costs, efficient AI with empathetic agents, and meeting employee needs alongside customer expectations. Here are eight things to consider in your quest for a better customer experience:

• Leverage available data – Use insights to empower teams to handle varied, complex inquiries
• Keep human connections – Ensure that the high-value conversations between customers and agents reach humans irrespective of channel
• Empower your teams – Build a multiskilled workforce who can respond flexibly to changing customer needs
• Support your teams – Use AI to aid specialist agent skill sets and drive efficiency
• Maintain CX initiatives – Fix poor experiences through training, tech upgrades, and process improvements
• Walk in your customers’ shoes – Engage representatives of vulnerable groups in your focus on CX transformation
• Phase changes gradually – Limit customer-facing platform overhauls where possible to reduce change fatigue
• Consistently bang the drum – Continually articulate your company purpose and values to unite customers and employees.

As an industry, we shape the customer experiences of the future, so we must design with empathy while staying mindful of potentially vulnerable customers —because any one of us could find ourselves in their shoes.

Thanks to Philip Michell, a Consulting Director in Davies Consulting’s CX Practice, for writing this article.

Over the past 35+ years, Philip has worked with some of the World’s most recognized and respected brands to deliver successful customer-centric transformation – specializing in operational transformation, strategic outsourcing, and business change.

For more from Philip on vulnerable customers, he has released a new white paper available on the Davies Consulting website.

Adherence to the myriad rules and regulations is, of course, non-negotiable: sanctions, fines and reputational damage all potential and unwanted consequences of a failure to do so. 

The FCA Consumer Duty Act 2023 – introduced in late July this year – affords financial services customers a new and welcome layer of protection but places new demands on businesses to which it applies. 

Described as one of the biggest shake-ups to retail financial services regulation, it seeks to ensure customers receive ‘good outcomes’ and that businesses provide evidence that those outcomes are being met. 

Specifically, customers must be sold products and services that meet their needs and offer fair value; receive related communications they can understand; and get the customer support they need, when they need it. 

As is now so often the case, it is in the contact centre where much of that compliance bites. Smart technological tooling can help, as can a consultative expert hand to hold. Deploy both, and financial firms are well-placed to succeed. 

All they and their technology providers must do is pick the right partner. 

“It’s important new legislation, but in simple terms it’s actually all about improving customer knowledge and, in turn, the customer experience – and that means everyone wins,” says Ben Booth, CEO at leading UK-based CCaaS provider MaxContact, whose smart platform’s speech analytics and topic detection functionality can help enable that critical new compliance. 

“No-one is saying the new Act is not a good thing, it’s just a case of businesses aligning the available technology with their internal processes. They can then start to really listen to their customers and ensure they are providing them with the right products and services.” 

Among other things, the Consumer Duty Act compels financial services providers to interact with particular customer groups in particular ways and seeks to ensure those customers are appropriately and transparently matched with products, service levels, and communications capable of delivering ‘good outcomes’. 

Although unhelpfully non-specific, those outcomes must, in general terms, meet those customers’ needs and offer fair value.  

For example, in the event of a loan default, vulnerable or disabled customers must be interacted with in a particular way. Large enterprises may decide to categorise up to 20 different customer groups; smaller enterprises just a handful. To comply with the Act, all enterprises must be able to transparently demonstrate that segmentation and their differentiated approach to selling, servicing, and communicating.  

“A lot of that falls on the contact centre,” says Booth. “For example, typically contact centres have three to five day Service Level Agreements around responding to an e-mail. However, depending on the customer group, the new Act states that it may need to be escalated directly to a manager. 

“Categorising customer groups means that vulnerable customers, for example, can be automatically pushed to the front of a queue the next time they use any communication channel to interact with the contact centre. It means customer profiles can be constructed. In the case of a loan default, for example, has the customer defaulted before? Does the loan provider need to treat the customer in a particular way? What is the best solution for that particular customer? Every business is different and every business will want a greater or lesser degree of customer group granulation, but we have the technological tools and the consultative expertise to help get them to a place that is right for them.” 

In the case of MaxContact in particular, its platform deploys Gartner-validated, AI-powered speech analytics software which detects key words, topics, and risks and which can then trigger automatic internal communication workflows matched with individual customer groups. Some of that automation can be in real time, some can be post-contact. 

As well as supporting the real-world resolution of customer issues more effectively and efficiently, the technology also provides users with the ability to leverage historic call and messaging data for the training of agents upon whom the new Act most impacts.  

“We have many different customers from many different verticals, so we have a unique insight into what approach works best and on what kind of scale,” says Booth. “We like the first step to be a discovery of where an organisation currently is versus where they want to be. Then we work together to get there.” 

To learn more about how MaxContact can help your or your customers’ businesses comply with the Consumer Duty Act 2023 – or for all other contact centre support, click here. 

Zoom has revealed that its Zoom Contact Centre has reached over 500 customers in the past six quarters.

As revealed in the company’s latest earnings call, the rate of onboarding new contact centre customers expands upon its promising start of 350 customers in one year.

Zoom is anticipating that the Zoom Contact Center will drive significant growth by becoming a full contact centre suite by adding workforce management, virtual agent, quality management, and more.

Eric S. Yuan, Zoom Founder and CEO, commented:

Our mission of delivering limitless human connection remains core as we continue to innovate and expand our platform to help bring value and enhanced productivity to our customers with new AI features like Zoom IQ Meeting Summary and Team Chat Compose, as well as Intelligent Director. I’m also proud of the team for reinventing modern customer experiences with Zoom Virtual Agent and Zoom Contact Center, which surpassed 500 customers in Q2.”

The company’s Q2 2024 earnings call also divulged that it has been rolling out roughly 90 new features and enhancements per quarter.

Zoom also beat its top-line and profitability guidance for Q2, with Zoom Phone reaching around half a billion dollars in annualised run rate revenue, and total revenue for the company’s second quarter grew four percent year over year to $1.139 billion.

• Read more

Twilio Announces GenAI-Powered Tools at SIGNAL Event

Twilio has launched a series of generative AI solutions intending to harness the potential of artificial intelligence for customer experience.

The company’s latest solutions – titled CustomerAI and first revealed in June – encompass predictive and generative AI tools, coupled with advancements in Twilio’s Segment’s composable data platform.

“The tectonic shift in technology that we’ve seen this past year rivals the scale and magnitude of the invention of the Internet. AI has truly captured the hearts and minds of builders across the globe,” said Jeff Lawson, CEO of Twilio. “I believe the real value unlock for AI will be pairing large language models with first-party data sets – which is where Twilio is most differentiated.”

Twilio’s SIGNAL 2023 event announcements include CustomerAI predictions, voice intelligence for enhanced customer insights, and generative AI tools for improving customer engagement.

• Read more

Five9 and Sandbox Banking Expand Partnership

Five9 has expanded its partnership with financial services-focused digital transformation business Sandbox Banking.

The relationship aspires to improve the connectivity between Five9’s CX solutions and core banking systems through Sandbox Banking’s Glyue platform. The integration’s feature set includes account retrieval, transaction searching, the transferring of funds and PIN changes.

Jake Butterbaugh, Senior Vice President of Global Partners at Five9, commented:

The Five9 intelligent CX platform offers a comprehensive suite of solutions for orchestrating customer experiences. ts cloud-native, scalable, and secure platform encompasses contact centres, omnichannel engagement, Workforce Engagement Management, extensibility through a vast partner network, and AI-driven automation and journey analytics.”

Glyue’s integration capabilities are now accessible through the Five9 CX Marketplace, which facilitates the management of APIs and integrations between Five9 VCC, ISV products, and core banking systems, such as Jack Henry and Fiserv. This integration supports real-time data synchronisation and operational automation for banking and credit union processes.

The integration allows direct communication between Sandbox Banking’s Glyue and the Five9 CX platform, simplifying interaction with banking cores.

• Read more

Journey’s Biometric Authentication Tech Introduced to Avaya HCS

Journey.ai has expanded its Avaya Hybrid Cloud Services (HCS) solution with the addition of its biometric authentication technology.

This new functionality enables Avaya’s on-premise contact centres to authenticate agents using biometrics rather than passwords.

“At Avaya, we are committed to delivering innovative solutions that enable our partners to thrive in today’s dynamic marketplace,” said Emir Susic, Global Vice President, Avaya Customer Experience Services. “We are delighted to partner with Journey on this innovative approach to providing contact centres access to more robust and efficient security. With our shared commitment to ‘Innovation without Disruption,’ we stand ready to support any future digital journey our customers envision.”

Journey says its biometric authentication technology produces greater security, such as reducing fraud, as well as an improved agent experience and performance.

Journey’s technology empowers agents to authenticate their desktop applications biometrically using a face scan, making it easier to log in smoothly. It also eliminates the need for password resets — which cost around $70 – $80 per reset — and helps protect corporate data by removing the risk of compromised or leaked passwords.

• Read more

The integration will enable Revolut agents to route calls between team members and customise dashboards with real-time performance metrics, strengthening overall contact centre efficiency.

• Ericsson Acquires Vonage for $6.2B

Reggie Scales, Senior Vice President, Applications Group for Vonage, said: “We are pleased that Revolut has chosen Vonage to drive customer engagement and create the best possible experience from anywhere.

“With Vonage’s Salesforce integration, the Revolut team has access to key customer data and insights, while benefiting from communications that are more meaningful, across any channel.”

Launched in 2015, the Revolut app offers personal and business money management services, alongside investing options, all within a single app.

Serving more than 18 million customers worldwide, Revolut aims to “reinvent the way the world does money”.

Revolut is already using the Vonage SMS API to authenticate secure global transactions, leveraging Vonage’s broad international SMS capabilities.

Matthew Acton Davis, Global Head of Sales at Revolut, said: “We are delighted to bring Vonage’s solutions to Revolut. Its flexible and scalable cloud communications solution will help us to provide a consistent and personalised customer experience.”

Vonage first launched its contact centre solution on Salesforce AppExchange in June 2021.

An industry with a thousand-year-old history has strongly relied on many aspects of its tradition. However, the onset of the pandemic significantly accelerated the adoption of the latest technology and innovation that spotlight the customer more than ever.

As customers considerably prioritized their needs and developed almost zero tolerance for poor service, financial services quite literally could not afford to fall behind the latest customer experience trends and lose clients.

Digital services taking center stage in the post-pandemic era pushed financial service companies to rethink their CX strategy in order to foster brand loyalty.

Without a proper assessment of their customers’ needs, organizations can easily wander off the right path trying to implement many things at once.

To separate the wheat from the chaff, we spoke with Wes Humphrey, VP of Account Management of Banking, Financial Services & Insurance at Concentrix, who dives deep into what drives CX in the financial service world.

Identifying Key Concerns

Keeping pace with the new types of products is one of many concerns for financial service companies, partly due to the product or service complexity. Things like “buy now, pay later”, cryptocurrency or simply different kinds of lending and buying models create pressure on companies in several aspects. Humphrey explains this in detail:

“Integrating new products and services into companies’ offerings is very challenging, especially with services that require large infrastructure to support them. Similarly, financial service organizations also compete with the standalone companies specializing in those services.”

Another significant concern for both traditional and newer financial companies has been following regulatory compliance. The prevalence of fraud, money laundering, and theft have had an impact on how customers choose between players in the financial sector.
Pairing this with the need for cost control and staff shortages, banks and other financial organizations were due for a strategy optimized for the new CX environment.

Time to Reprioritize

Humphrey touches upon a number of things that financial service organizations should put first now operating in a new customer landscape. One of them is revenue generation marketing. He explains:

“Selling in financial services can be taboo, but the reality is that because of competition and new products and services that are coming and expected by consumers, there’s absolutely a need to focus on revenue generation.”

“As you’re interacting with your customers, there’s an opportunity to market products and services to them. This is where personalization also plays a significant role, because organizations should know what types of products to market to which customer based on the data they have.”

Investing more in marketing should be one of the main priorities for this sector, as Humphrey believes the pandemic influenced branding to take center stage. With the role of the branch in banking diminishing, digital channels are the main points of interactions for many customers. Humphrey elaborates:

“Your CX and your brand is now presented through your website, or a mobile app, or your contact center. Using those avenues is going to act as a differentiator in the future, so there needs to be a lot of thought put into how you craft those experiences.”

Technology that Makes a Difference

Over the last two years, technology moved to the forefront of driving positive customer experiences. Many customers make their first contact with financial service organizations through an app or email, so it’s key to make these channels as much customer-oriented as possible. Humphrey says that most financial institutions are still early in their digital transformation journey. He says:

“One of our surveys reveals that less than 50% of people were satisfied with their last mobile experience with a financial organization. However, we’ve noticed an increasing trend toward investing in mobile apps, so organizations are seeing that there’s room for improvement and taking action.”

Another trend in digital communication is that customers prefer live chats over asynchronous messaging, as it happens in real-time and delivers results faster. This requires agents to be engaged the entire time to ensure a flowing conversation. While some organizations really leverage this solution, Humphrey believes there’s more that could be done to improve the interaction:

“Many apps do not have the option to review the conversation history. Having to stay in the app during the entire interaction might not work for some people because of their daily routine, so enabling customers to come back to the conversation in their own time would definitely enhance the experience.”

Aside from mobile apps, financial organizations still use older IVR technology, notices Humphrey. Without features like Natural Language Processing or Machine Learning, using these services cause friction in the customer journey.

“It’s common to see environments where 30% of calls are transferred, which means they’re being routed to the wrong place.”

Implementing newer technology goes hand in hand with moving away from legacy systems. As already mentioned, ensuring enough infrastructure support in this endeavor can create an upturn in customer experience.

How Can Concentrix Help?

Increasing customer expectations in the financial service industry have ushered in an era of cutting-edge solutions that can handle all financial service needs.

Ensuring the security and cost efficiency of every customer interaction is the future of success for financial organizations. Concentrix can help you make that happen. Start your transformation journey here: Concentrix for Banking & Financial Services