Episode Transcript
[00:00:23] Speaker A: Thanks for tuning into this episode of Metrosite, a podcast from Metrogy. I'm Beth Schultz, Metroge vice president of research and a principal analyst.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: I am Robin Garris. I'm CEO and principal analyst. Welcome, everybody.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: Today we are here to share a preview of the program that Robin and I have put together for the future of CXS Expo. Metragy is co hosting this conference program at the ITX Bo super tech super show, I should say, taking place February 13 through 15th in Fort Lauderdale.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Right. Sorry to interrupt. I'm just saying good time to be in Fort Lauderdale in February, right?
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, Robin, don't rub it in. I know you get to kind of glory in the warmth of Florida all year round, and some of us just get it once in a while. But yeah, anyways, as I was saying, so this is year one for the future of CX Expo conference, and we're really pleased that TMC is a general show organizer for it expo, and we're really pleased that they've entrusted us to bring a deep dive on CX to its conference lineup. I think we'll do them proud, don't you, Robin?
[00:01:37] Speaker B: I definitely think so. I think we've got a great, I'm very, very excited about it. I can just give you like a little overview of what we're doing in the opening session on CX transformation, which is kind of an umbrella theme for the whole CX track. There's all sorts of different angles and tangents we're going from this, but I think overall, when you think about digital transformation and that term, it's kind of been a buzz term for years. And I first started covering it several years ago, and all of a sudden I'm doing all this research, I'm talking to it people and some business people, even some CX people at the time. And I found that many, if not most, actually of these projects were actually CX transformations. Yes, some of them were internal, like manufacturing automation and things like that. But a lot of the bigger projects were very focused on CX. So we really started looking at CX Transformation several years ago, and we've done a lot of just real world research in this area, talking to it. And CX leaders primarily, also some business leaders, like in marketing and sales in those areas, and even some sea level executives as well, to really understand what does it mean to have a CX transformation project? What are these projects? What drives companies to do them, and what kind of results are they seeing? So a lot of the sessions that we have will center around those sort of high level questions. But if you're listening to this now, you know that your company probably needs some sort of a CX transformation.
One of the questions you might have is, I just don't know where to start based on what other companies are doing, what we're doing. What do I do? I think that's one of the big things you'll get as a takeaway here is you'll know where to start. You'll see where other companies have found a lot of success with their transformation projects.
Where is the lowest hanging fruit? Where are you going to get the biggest return? Is it in chat bots? Is it Wem WFo? Is it integration channels, adding new channels? Is it AI? Is it analytics? Is it voice of the customers? All sorts of things it could be.
And I think that's AI. If we think about AI, that's a theme of everything we do these days, and it's another huge decision area. So you think about it, it's like, well, what type of AI am I supposed to be doing? Is it agent assist? What type of agent assist, if I think about. So there's, we just finished a huge research study that I'll be presenting. Beth, you'll be presenting some of that as well when we're out at the expo, and it's really the first time we're going to be presenting a lot of this data and it's great. We've got a lot of really good stuff, some hard numbers on what companies are seeing in these transformations, what they're seeing as they add new technologies, what types of technologies are driving the most success. So we'll have a lot of really good stuff.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Yeah, really exciting, really excited to be able to kind of speak to that recent study out in Florida.
So that's sort of the overview, the theme of what we're planning for the event, and that gives us plenty of fodder to fill up. Three days full of presentations. I think we have about ten or so, maybe shy of ten presentations that we'll be doing throughout the week, beginning with Robin's opening session, which is going to be 10:00 eastern on Tuesday, and then the program will run through Thursday afternoon. So, as Robin said, throughout the event we'll be sharing highlights of Metrogen CX research and our insights, along with those from, oh, gosh, a slew of CX vendors and other industry insiders will be hearing from thought leaders at vendors like eight by eight. Avaya, Cisco, Genesis, Intradayum, nice Ringcentral, sprinkler, Ujet, Varint Vonage, Zoom. Robin, did I miss anybody in there? I don't think I got everybody, but.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: I think you got everyone. But yeah, I mean, it's pretty much all the global leaders in the CX world. So we're going to have some really good information coming out of.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: Yeah, really, really a great lineup.
And there's a couple of other special guest speakers, too. We'll talk about those a little bit.
You know, we're going to have a mix of presentation types. Robin's going to be doing some solo presentations, like we just said, our opening session, and then we've got some panel discussions. We got fireside chat planned, a little bit of everything, a little bit of something for everybody.
And then topic wise, boy, we're going to talk about everything from contact center architecture and sort of the kind of basics of platform integration. We'll talk about the role of communications platform as a service and APIs agent. Experience is going to be a big topic. As Robin mentioned, you've got your wem, your WFL to consider, so forth, and then really important knowledge management and data platforms, especially as we go into the world of.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: Right. And like I said before, we think about AI. That's where everyone wants to really figure out what they're doing.
AI is without a doubt taking the world by storm. And particularly since the general availability of generative AI and how that just went crazy in less than the past year. We saw in our research adoption of generative AI jump from 27% last June, which by the way is still pretty high, all the way up to 41% as of just January of this year. So in about a six month time frame, a huge jump in adoption. And we really do have several sessions that are going to guide companies on what to do with AI for their CX initiatives. A lot of the recommendations and the key points presented are going to be backed by this just completed research that we talked about and of course also from the actual people at all of these technology providers who are engineering these products, who are marketing these products, who understand how they work, who are dealing with customers. So we'll really get kind of behind the scenes there of what's happening in the world of AI. And I know some of the questions I'll be asking my panel is just like, what are they excited about that's coming? What's know around the corner here that we haven't heard about yet? What kind of success are companies already seeing? So we'll see all that. You'll be able to ask questions in any session so you can come in and have your list of questions and if they're not answered already, you can jump up and ask a question or two. And I've had another session I'm really excited about.
I'm going to be doing a fighterside chat with Henry Svenblatt. And Henry served as actually served as a CTO for a company nurse, really interesting company, by the way. And the technology strategy that he developed at that company became so successful that they actually spun off a tech company called Intellio that he runs. So it's just like a really great story. I'll be interviewing him. He'll be able to tell all about what happened, how they got from point a to point z where he and continuing really cool growth. That session is Wednesday at 09:00 a.m. So definitely consider that Henry's always got great success metrics off the top of his head and really explains things well. So yeah, we'll be talking about AI's role in CX improvements in other sessions, demystifying and differentiating approaches to AI and CX, how AI automation and analytics actually shapes your customer experience, and then the role of AI and automation, I'm sorry, the ROI of AI and automation. So we'll have that one as well.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: And now those sessions all have AI in the title, but I think we'll be touching on AI and several other sessions. And I'm doing a session on how successful companies improve agent experience.
That topic is very near and dear to my heart as a lead analyst here on employee experience in general. And certainly AI plays a big role in kind of identifying agent burnout, helping guide agents themselves and supervisors and what they can do to sort of relieve some of that burnout and just have a better overall experience.
As I mentioned earlier, also be taking a deep dive on architecture questions around architecture, we hear so much about the cloud, but it really isn't all about all cloud all the time. There are a lot of different considerations that go into making an architectural choice and we'll be talking about all of those, whether it's cloud hybrid on prem and then also talking about platform integration as part of that session as well.
Another session I want to point out, I mentioned knowledge management and data platforms. Really excited about this session as well. It's really sort of a pivotal time to really get your knowledge management and your data house in order as we move forward with AI and generative AI in particular. If you don't have a strong knowledge management strategy in place, if your databases are a mess, you're going to be really crippled in moving forward on those critical areas, definitely. And then one last session, I'll point out, is the role of communications platform as a service and APIs. Another great session. Clearly CPAs APIs, that's a really critical enabler these days for just so much of what we do in customer engagement. And we'll be talking to know leading vendors there as well as I have a special guest as part of this session, and that is Robert Gallup. Robert is the chief marketing officer for the CPAs Acceleration alliance. So he's sort of carrying a lot of the weight on his shoulders in terms of getting out the word about cpas and the value of cpas for enterprises, really pushing it beyond that, sort of. Okay, we're going to use cpas to add a messaging channel. That's sort of what it comes down to a lot of times or different channels, but really sort of helping the world understand how to really take advantage of all of the potential of cpas. So really excited that Robert will be joining us for that one.
[00:11:53] Speaker B: And also another area I think we want to mention is workforce management. So Juanita Cooley, who is just such a great speaker and such a big presence in the WFM space, even really a WFM practitioner as well, she'll be speaking at Wednesday at eleven on how WFM directly influences and impacts customer experience. So I think she'll have a lot of good actionable insights for integrating WFM into your CX strategy. She's very hands on, really wants people to be walking away with to do. Here's what you need to do next. So that's a great session if you really are needed, some WFM assistance.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm excited to have Juanita. She's such a straight shooter and really kind of a ball of energy.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Very dynamic.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.
So that is what we have planned, kind of in a nutshell.
Just to remind you, future of CX Expo, please join us for this inaugural year of this program. It is taking place February 13 through 15th in Fort Lauderdale at the convention center. It is part of the IT Expo tech Super show.
That means you get access to all of the keynotes, the expo floor, et cetera, and you get access to Robin and I. So join us, say hi to attend our sessions.
And then, just as always, we're really happy to hear from you, whether it's in person or online. So feel free to reach out to us. You can use the contact button on the Metrod website if you don't have direct contact with us. And that is all for today. On behalf of the Metrod team. Goodbye till next time, and take care, everybody.
Thank you.
