Key Takeaways
The contact centre industry stands at a crossroads. While AI and automation promise operational efficiencies, the question isn’t whether to adopt these technologies—it’s knowing when human intervention delivers superior outcomes.
Our recent webinar explored this critical balance, featuring insights from consumer research and practical demonstrations of how intelligent systems can support, rather than replace, human agents.
The Klarna Case Study: A Cautionary Tale
Klarna’s highly publicised move to replace 700 human agents with AI initially appeared triumphant. The fintech company reported handling 2.3 million customer conversations in the first month, with average handling times dropping from 11 minutes to just 2 minutes.
However, within months, Klarna pivoted. Their CEO admitted that an excessive focus on cost cutting had compromised service quality and brand reputation. This real-world example demonstrates that automation alone cannot solve every customer service challenge.
What Customers Actually Want
Our research surveying over 1,000 UK consumers reveals clear preferences for human interaction in specific scenarios:
- 70% prefer speaking to humans when explaining specific situations
- 67% want human support during emergencies
- 65% need human assistance for complex account queries
- 61% require human interaction when making complaints
- 59% prefer humans when negotiating terms
These statistics highlight that complexity isn’t the only factor—emotional intelligence, reassurance, and trust-building remain distinctly human capabilities.
The Challenge of Getting Inbound Right
Modern customers expect fast answers, clear communication, and empathy. Yet they also want to speak to the right person without navigating through endless automation loops.
Our research identified key friction points:
- 55% of consumers abandon calls due to excessive wait times
- 35% disconnect because agents don’t understand their situation
This represents missed connections and lost opportunities. The solution lies in using automation strategically—for routing, triage, and self-service—while ensuring human agents can focus on conversations where they add genuine value.
Intelligent Routing: Getting Customers to the Right Place
Effective contact centre operations start with connecting customers to the appropriate team member immediately. Smart routing eliminates the frustration of multiple transfers whilst maintaining operational efficiency.
Key routing capabilities include:
- Dynamic queue management based on agent availability and skills
- Priority routing for vulnerable customers or high-value accounts
- Overflow management to alternative queues when primary teams are busy
- Callback options that preserve queue position whilst improving customer experience
Supporting Agents During Critical Conversations
When complex calls reach human agents, they need comprehensive support systems. Real-time coaching tools ensure agents can handle challenging situations confidently:
Live Coaching Features:
- Silent monitoring for quality assessment
- Whisper coaching for real-time guidance
- Message alerts for compliance reminders
- Script assistance with objection handling prompts
Knowledge Management:
- Configurable scripts and guides
- Message-of-the-day notifications
- Ticker updates for campaign information
- API integrations for customer data access
Post-Call Analytics and Continuous Improvement
Spoken AI analytics transforms every conversation into a learning opportunity. Rather than replacing quality assurance teams, these tools enhance their capabilities:
- Compliance monitoring tracks script adherence automatically
- Sentiment analysis identifies emotionally charged conversations requiring review
- Performance benchmarking recognises top performers and coaching opportunities
- Conversation insights reveal common objections and successful resolution strategies
This data-driven approach provides consistent, objective feedback for coaching sessions whilst identifying trends across the entire operation.
Key Takeaways for Contact Centre Leaders
- Strategic AI Implementation: The most successful contact centres use AI for triage, routing, and information gathering—not as a complete replacement for human interaction.
- Escalation Planning: Clear handoff protocols between automated systems and human agents prevent customer frustration and ensure seamless experiences.
- Agent Empowerment: Equipping human agents with real-time support tools and comprehensive training maximises their effectiveness on complex calls.
- Continuous Learning: Post-call analytics drive ongoing improvements in both individual performance and overall operational efficiency.
The Path Forward
Contact centres that thrive will master the integration of AI capabilities with human expertise. Automation handles routine tasks efficiently, whilst skilled agents focus on conversations requiring empathy, problem-solving, and relationship building.
The goal isn’t choosing between technology and human agents—it’s orchestrating both to deliver exceptional customer experiences whilst achieving operational objectives.
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Webinar Transcript
00:00:24.870 Kayleigh Tait Hello! Good morning, everybody!
00:00:29.580 Kayleigh Tait Get started in a moment, just waiting for my colleague, Tom. Hi, Tom!
00:00:34.160 Tom McGarry Cloud
00:00:36.540 Kayleigh Tait All right. Let me share my screen
00:00:44.850 Kayleigh Tait hopefully. Everyone can see that we’ll get started in just one moment and see people are joining
00:01:04.950 Kayleigh Tait Okie Doke, right lovely. Let’s get started, then. this
00:01:12.780 Kayleigh Tait webinar is being recorded. if you’re late joining or need to drop off for whatever reason, don’t worry about it. We’ll send out the recording afterwards
00:01:22.645 Kayleigh Tait before we get started, I’ll just introduce Max contact. Max, if you’ve either not a customer or haven’t heard of Max contact before. Max, contact is a contact center platform built to help organizations
00:01:38.480 Kayleigh Tait achieve better outcomes. whether that’s more meaningful conversations or to drive business outcomes. We work with a lot of sales, organizations, debt, collection, debt, resolution, management and customer engagement teams
00:01:55.290 Kayleigh Tait to really make it easier to connect with customers, manage customers at scale, and also gain powerful insights into the conversations that happening across your team in the contact center, utilizing AI some providers out there just focus on call handling Max contact
00:02:14.640 Kayleigh Tait It’s all about how you can achieve your outcomes. With the the tools that we have in our platform, and the support from our team as well
00:02:24.473 Kayleigh Tait You may may may or may not have heard. We recently launched both an inbound and outbound AI agent as well. Through an acquisition
00:02:35.090 Kayleigh Tait because AI and automation absolutely has its place in the contact center. You cannot get away from the noise around AI. And rightly , there’s lots of operational efficiencies to be gained utilizing AI and automation appropriately in contact centers and in customer engagement teams
00:02:55.350 Kayleigh Tait but just as important as having the technology is knowing when to use it. And when a human touch makes the difference. our last webinar was all about AI and automation today, we’re going to be talking about. Well, , when does it make sense to have that human engagement in your customer engagement? Life cycle or in your processes. And that’s what we’ll be covering today
00:03:18.210 Kayleigh Tait housekeeping I said, it’s been recorded. Feel free to submit your questions at any time. That’s why we do these live. Sometimes there are some small hiccups, but we do it that we can get as many questions and engagement as possible, and we’ll send out the recording afterwards
00:03:36.920 Kayleigh Tait quick intro to us as a team. firstly, I’ll introduce Tom Tom join is joining us today. He is head of implementations here at Max. Contact Tom works really closely with our customers in the customer success team
00:03:54.003 Kayleigh Tait and really helps organizations get what they need to out of their platform and their investment in mass contact. you’re up and running smoothly from initial setup right through to launch and beyond. He’s got heaps of knowledge around and contact strategies
00:04:11.309 Kayleigh Tait Utilization of technology. When is the best place to use certain features, features functionality. Within our platform. And also when it comes to solving problems, really helps organizations to understand the best way of doing that
00:04:29.653 Kayleigh Tait He’s worked at Max contact for a number of years now, and recently welcomed a baby girl. he might be looking a little more tired than people are used to seeing
00:04:41.620 Kayleigh Tait But yes, he’s very still very efficient, and on the ball
00:04:45.820 Kayleigh Tait I’m Kaylee Tay. I’m marketing director at Matt’s contact. I’ve been instrumental and involved in driving the growth of the organization and enhancing the brand through innovative strategies
00:04:59.069 Kayleigh Tait Have got over 15 years experience in B, 2 BB, 2 C, and led marketing functions across various industries. including tell telecoms commodity markets and also customer engagement technology. that’s a bit of our background, you can see the context of where we’re coming at this conversation from
00:05:20.750 Kayleigh Tait you’ll have me just for a few more minutes we’ll touch on a few things happening in the industry and research that we’ve recently uncovered, and then I’ll hand over to Tom, who’s going to show you how certain things are applied within the Max contact platform as well
00:05:37.870 Kayleigh Tait kicking off with a real world example. If you haven’t seen this already, I’m sure lots of people have. It was pretty well publicized when it 1st came out as well. news earlier on in the year was that Klana, a global Fintech company, made headlines for rolling out AI agent contact centers that replaced
00:06:00.770 Kayleigh Tait their entire workforce of 700 human agents. It was labeled as obviously quite a drastic but innovative move at that point in time
00:06:16.040 Kayleigh Tait due to it being fast cost effective. And initially looked a triumph, and that Klarna were going to be setting almost the roadmap, as how of how brands should be implementing AI in their customer engagement teams. They reported that 2.3 million customer conversations in the 1st month
00:06:37.766 Kayleigh Tait with average handling time, dropping from 11 min to 2 min with AI! it all sounded absolutely amazing
00:06:47.310 Kayleigh Tait But then, just a few months later, I think this is almost 2 weeks ago now, Klana pivoted, and they did publicly as well. And that’s mainly down to the customer experience and the impact that I suppose rolling out technology at scale without that consideration of
00:07:08.340 Kayleigh Tait the customer journey. The customer pain points with limited flexibility
00:07:14.690 Kayleigh Tait really had on the brand itself. that’s something that is really interesting to us, and really comes down to , when is AI
00:07:25.990 Kayleigh Tait and chat bots? And those digital deflection channels are a good fit for your customer journey. Of what types of conversations. Should you be driving to those channels, you still get the efficiency as a brand. But you are not harming the reputation or the customer experience, and then for therefore, other things customer attention or growth
00:07:50.200 Kayleigh Tait all things that are having impacts on the bottom line
00:07:55.097 Kayleigh Tait Klana, CEO admitted that focusing too heavily on cost cutting compromised the quality of the brand
00:08:02.688 Kayleigh Tait he described the services lower quality and said that the balance wasn’t quite, quite there. And that’s really where we’re coming at this conversation from. It’s how do you achieve that balance? And sometimes it’s a test and learn approach. They obviously went all in and learn relatively quickly. But I’ve also backtracked
00:08:26.060 Kayleigh Tait a powerful reminder that automation alone can’t solve every customer service challenge
00:08:33.450 Kayleigh Tait And and that’s what today’s session is about. just quickly sharing some stats from a recent research piece that we conducted here in the Uk. the story isn’t an outlier. It reflects where we’re hearing what we’re hearing across different industries. The voice of the consumer report is a view from over 1,000 Uk consumers
00:08:59.970 Kayleigh Tait and really delved into how they want to interact with brands as a Uk consumer. And where speaking to somebody, a human is more appropriate versus those digital digital channels, or perhaps an AI agent
00:09:18.900 Kayleigh Tait 70% said that they would prefer to speak to human when it’s to explain a specific specific situation
00:09:28.390 Kayleigh Tait 67% when it’s an emergency, 65% for those complex account queries and 61% when it comes to making a complaint
00:09:40.360 Kayleigh Tait and then just off this but 59% when negotiating terms. if you are trying to barter on price for your insurance or your broadband service. Then , do you feel you are getting the best deal with that level of engagement when it’s not a human. That you’re speaking to
00:10:02.210 Kayleigh Tait it’s not just about complexity, complexity. Here. It’s about, how do you reassure clients build that emotional intelligence which leads to more trust. And there are things that is relatively difficult to do through an AI agent. But humans obviously a best place to do it when the stakes are high
00:10:25.420 Kayleigh Tait what makes inbound contact hard to get right, customers expect more than ever. They want fast answers, clear communication and empathy. But they also went, want to speak to the right person and not get lost in a maze of automation. And that’s absolutely crucial
00:10:44.130 Kayleigh Tait The challenge is balancing efficiency with experience. And according to our research, 55% of consumers abandon calls due to excessive wait times 35% because the agent didn’t understand their situation. And that’s not just a missed connection, but it’s a missed opportunity
00:11:05.660 Kayleigh Tait And that’s where automation does have a role to play but only when it’s used smartly. routing queries, triage flows, self service. They should all work together to help free up your agents that they can focus on the conversations where they’re really needed and really matter. And they’re adding that value that ultimately you want
00:11:28.573 Kayleigh Tait and when those complex calls do come in, agents need to be ready. And that means they need to have access to knowledge across your organization. Consistent training, coaching, supporting script. It’s and guides, because giving your team. The right tools to succeed is really it’s just as important as the tech, I suppose, behind the scene as well
00:11:55.010 Kayleigh Tait The best customer experiences don’t just happen. They are engineered, and they really do start with trust. whether it’s a missed delivery, a complex debt, claim, a vulnerable customer that’s contacting you. These are all moments when your team can build trust
00:12:14.120 Kayleigh Tait I suppose it’s the they either build the trust or it’s an opportunity where trust can be lost quite easily as well
00:12:21.470 Kayleigh Tait Customers want to feel heard and helped fast. And that’s where those intelligent systems and journeys come in, and by routing queries to the right team at the right moment. You really help eliminate that friction and give your team the best chance of resolving issues fast 1st time
00:12:41.178 Kayleigh Tait it’s not all about routine as well. I suppose it’s about relevance. And that smart contact strategies combine team specific workflows, supportive scripts, real time context. your a. Your team aren’t scrambling for, answers. And they’re able to step up confidently on calls ready to help
00:13:02.332 Kayleigh Tait this is the what the shift is looking is less admin, less action, less confusion, and more clarity. And that’s driven by having the platform that’s designed to support people and not replace them. And that’s where we see the role of AI and automation playing really well into the contact center space. at this point I’ll hand over to Tom, who will share
00:13:28.269 Kayleigh Tait our view and some of the helpful things we have in product that will help you do that
00:13:33.820 Tom McGarry Okay, Kayleigh, let me just share my screen
00:13:43.820 Tom McGarry Okay? I’m gonna talk a little bit about kind of our ivr. how we route calls through to customers, and the the smart routing that Kayla was talking about. Kind of before we start just a bit of an overview on kind of routing
00:13:56.810 Tom McGarry why, it’s important technically, is we want to get the right customers through to the right people. We don’t want to build that frustration from a customer level that they are waiting in a queue. They can finally get through to somebody, and that person is not the person they want to speak to, they have to be transferred again into another queue
00:14:12.460 Tom McGarry It increases the customer’s frustration. Suddenly the agent they do speak to the user they do speak to is fighting a an uphill battle because the customer is already upset
00:14:21.840 Tom McGarry we want to kind of remove that
00:14:24.090 Tom McGarry again, we want to get the customer through to the right person and the right time, and we can do a lot of that within the Ivr that we have. you can see my screen here. We have a very colorful Ivr. Maker. I will not talk you through every single element here, but kind of just some of the routing options we have. as we do go along
00:14:42.878 Tom McGarry we can see here we have your opening hours
00:14:45.440 Tom McGarry This is very basic routing. Are you open? Are you closed? Let’s do something different, depending on your opening hours
00:14:51.780 Tom McGarry The next very, very
00:14:53.910 Tom McGarry quick, level or quick. Smart routing available is your Ivr menu. press one for this department. Press 2 for this department
00:15:01.070 Tom McGarry It’s a very simple way that customers understand. Everyone’s gone through an Ivr menu before, and it will take the customers to the right place
00:15:08.030 Tom McGarry what we can then do
00:15:10.080 Tom McGarry in on this example the customer has pressed one, and they’ve gone through to our 1st queue element. we click on the element. There we can see the settings on the right hand side, we can kind of see what what goes in behind that element
00:15:22.320 Tom McGarry in this scenario, we are going through to the help desk queue because somebody’s pressed one, and they’ve asked for the help desk. we’re going through to that queue
00:15:32.380 Tom McGarry in this scenario. We’re giving that queue 20 seconds. If all your users are busy and all your agents are busy. We don’t want the customer to wait too long before we give them another option
00:15:41.060 Tom McGarry in this case we’ve decided to wait 20 seconds. We then overflow to the second queue
00:15:46.580 Tom McGarry Now, on the second queue, you have some options. with the smart routing, you can
00:15:53.100 Tom McGarry send the call through to the same queue again, and also add an overflow queue or several overflow queues if you’d to
00:15:59.690 Tom McGarry in this scenario we have the queue routing here, and we can add multiple queues
00:16:04.860 Tom McGarry again, we could still say, we still want to go through to the help desk queue
00:16:10.470 Tom McGarry but also we can overflow to the
00:16:13.900 Tom McGarry sales queue as well, just in case there’s nobody still available on the help desk queue. Now, we still want to prioritize our help. Desk queue, because that’s what the call was originally made for. in that scenario, we can increase the priority to make sure that if there is someone that’s become available in the help desk. We’ll go through to that user. If not, we will overflow to the sales queue
00:16:32.330 Tom McGarry Now we have those options there, and they are priorities in here, the higher
00:16:37.530 Tom McGarry higher the number, the higher the priority. You can also prioritize agents within that queue. if you have certain users within the queue that are more highly skilled, the more experienced. You could make sure they’re off the they’re not off the phone for too long, and you could put the calls through to them as a priority instead of the the new users that might still be getting used to the system
00:16:56.520 Tom McGarry we have those options. We also have a few different options that can keep the customer informed about
00:17:02.450 Tom McGarry how long they will be waiting in the queue and give them some options as well. we have the option down here. You can see on the tick box there announce Eqt. eqt. Is estimated. Queue time, do we take into account how many customers are in the queue? How many agents you have available? How many agents want to call your average? Call length your average wait time things that, and we play back the estimated queue time to the customer
00:17:25.920 Tom McGarry we, keeping them informed about how long that this we expect them to be in the queue, for
00:17:30.580 Tom McGarry now, based on that, they can make a choice
00:17:33.610 Tom McGarry , using a a phrase or a prompt, you can suggest that the customer presses an option to be taken to our queue Buster or a golden ticket. Ivr. what that essentially does? If I was to add a digit in here. Change that to one
00:17:48.180 Tom McGarry I can say, if you would to press a digit
00:17:53.600 Tom McGarry you can be taken out of the queue, and we will save your space within the queue
00:17:57.890 Tom McGarry that will take you to another Ivr. And everybody on their system will have a basic Ivr built called the golden ticket. Ivr
00:18:04.380 Tom McGarry Now, what this tick this Ivr does is, it will add the customer into a queue. It will keep their place in the queue
00:18:10.540 Tom McGarry They can hang up, and then once they get through to the front of the queue, that call will come up as a preview. Call for one of your users, and it will call the customer back
00:18:18.690 Tom McGarry it saves the customer waiting in the queue. And , maybe getting frustrated about the queue time if you’re busy
00:18:24.380 Tom McGarry and it will call them back when they do reach the front of the queue. still fair to you guys as a as a business, you’re still organizing the calls in the correct order. They came in
00:18:34.230 Tom McGarry but at the same time the customers feeling a little bit better. They don’t have to queue. They’ll get a call back as soon as they can do
00:18:40.150 Tom McGarry . We have that option there. Another way to do it is also we have the enable Overki to routing. you can set a time, and you can suggest that if the estimated queue time is over 60 seconds, take the call somewhere else. whether that be straight to a comfort message to again let the customer know that. Sorry the wait times might be a little bit higher today, or just to go through to another queue entirely, you can do that. you have those options
00:19:06.230 Tom McGarry Some of the other options we have for kind of
00:19:09.230 Tom McGarry giving the the agent or the user a little bit more information about the call that’s come in
00:19:14.640 Tom McGarry We have a capture element, we can ask the customer to enter digits. Now this could be the customer’s reference number which can then pass through to the agent once it goes through to the call
00:19:25.560 Tom McGarry it could also be. If you have a vulnerable customer, you may have sent out letters. You may have given them a code. They could enter that code within here, and we could check it on the Ivr. And if they qualify they could then go through to a certain queue, a higher priority queue. That means that they get dealt with quicker and earlier by user. that’s in improving the customer experience for everybody. Essentially
00:19:46.870 Tom McGarry what you can also do with the capture element is a little bit of identification similar to the vulnerable customer section. What you can do is get them to enter a reference number, maybe a date of birth, something that you’ve got stored in the system that we can check against
00:19:59.430 Tom McGarry you do have those options. And if you really wanted to get advanced with it. We do have an Api element. if your Crm. Or your where you store your information has an Api that you can hook into what you can do is make an Api call, maybe based on the phone number the customers called in on, or a reference number that they’ve entered
00:20:17.310 Tom McGarry and that could be sent to the the using the Api. It could be sent to the Crm. And that could come back and say, we found the customer. They need to be routed dynamically to this queue or a different queue
00:20:27.500 Tom McGarry you have those options in there. There’s there’s quite a lot. Obviously we can’t go through every one of them today. The one I will mention is that we have the get stats. Ivr, using this, you can pull stats from within the Ivr. Such as queue time, such as number of users in the queue, whether a campaign is paused or playing, and again, you can use that information to route the calls dynamically
00:20:47.920 Tom McGarry there are a couple of examples of of smart routing
00:20:52.040 Tom McGarry that we’ve got within the system
00:20:54.460 Tom McGarry Now, once we get through to a user that once the call gets through to an agent or a user
00:20:59.980 Tom McGarry how can we support that user in kind of helping the customer achieve your goals, do they need to make a payment? Do they just need some help? Is it customer service? Query
00:21:10.280 Tom McGarry any of that we can help with. Essentially
00:21:13.490 Tom McGarry what can happen? We’ve got a few different ways to kind of coach the agents and help them out while they’re on a call
00:21:19.240 Tom McGarry what I will do. I’ll jump across to our contact hub
00:21:22.750 Tom McGarry This is on our demo platform, and I’ll jump into one of the campaigns
00:21:27.940 Tom McGarry 1st thing you will see, once we log in what you can do on the dashboard, you can have what’s called a message of the day. that’s a simple pop up that pops up. And it just has a Pre type message that you’ve typed in as a manager, and that will display to the agents that could be an information message such as we have a team call at 3 o’clock. Push this product today. Remember to do your your Dpa. When a call comes through. that’s information messages
00:21:52.030 Tom McGarry Another way to deliver information you might be able to see there at the bottom is called the ticker
00:21:56.665 Tom McGarry on our dashboards, which completely configurable, you can put whatever stats on there you want to, but you’ll see along the bottom. We have our ticket widget here. again, that message in there is completely customizable. It can be different for different campaigns that the guys log on to
00:22:12.090 Tom McGarry And they have that in there. that is a little bit of information for the agent, and that’s live. if you change that, that will pop up for the agent again
00:22:20.450 Tom McGarry these are all just little bits that can help the agent, because, no matter how experienced they are
00:22:26.310 Tom McGarry every call can be different. It could be a distressed customer. It could be someone who just needs a bit of support could be a new team member
00:22:32.360 Tom McGarry There are different ways to help them out
00:22:34.750 Tom McGarry
00:22:35.640 Tom McGarry the message of the day is one example, the ticker widget that we can see. There, that’s another one. If I jump on a quick call I can show you a couple more ways that we can help the agent. I’m gonna make a quick voice call
00:22:48.860 Tom McGarry on the system
00:22:53.210 Tom McGarry We can type my number in quickly enough
00:22:55.520 Tom McGarry what I will do now I will make a call
00:23:00.120 Tom McGarry I will mute myself once a call comes through
00:23:02.440 Tom McGarry or I’ll just see myself talking back, which will be fun
00:23:09.200 Tom McGarry Okay? we have a call that’s come through, and the script has popped up. on the script. The script can be a way, and there’s a few different uses for the script. It can be used to capture information as we have here. It can be used to display information to users
00:23:22.950 Tom McGarry we have those options. It can also be used as a bit of a guide for the user. should questions come up during the call. We have the script there that can take them through it, and it can suggest and make kind of small suggestions and do some objection handling as well, we have here an objection handling button. If I click on that
00:23:41.190 Tom McGarry you can pre program the scripts in and the scripts are very easy and really efficient and quick to change as well. you can add in sections of the script with objections, should these come up. The agent has a little bit of a helping hand, they know that they’re being supported. And if I click on one of these here, it can give you a little bit of information. these are common kind of objections in a in a kind of sales call that comes up I can see those there. If I just need a bit of a refresher, or just need something to be, . Spark in my mind
00:24:10.380 Tom McGarry that will come through, and I can have a read of that. It’s it’s not too heavy. It’s not
00:24:15.600 Tom McGarry forcing the agent to to say these things, but it’s just kind of a little a little memory. Really, it’s a little refresher if they do need that help, and they do need something to to trigger the memories. we have those options there
00:24:29.050 Tom McGarry and they’re all in the script, and the script is completely configurable by yourselves. You can do that if you need to
00:24:34.620 Tom McGarry , based on the script. We’ve also got some coaching that can be done to the agent as well. , using our coaching and our live, listening feature, they can live, listen to calls, and they can kind of send send messages as well that which might help them out. I can show you that as well
00:24:52.170 Tom McGarry on. Here we have our coaching screen, and our coaching is completely configurable by permissions
00:24:59.350 Tom McGarry you’ll be able to permission. Base this off. only team leaders can have access to your Admins
00:25:04.520 Tom McGarry What you can do on here is search for the user in question. you can see several of the stock photos of call Center personnel. There
00:25:12.950 Tom McGarry I’m gonna find my user. I’m logged in as Tom Max. I can see at the moment that that user is talking
00:25:18.050 Tom McGarry They’ve made some calls. This is the current call they’re on
00:25:20.900 Tom McGarry and you can see I’ve got some several options down on the right
00:25:24.270 Tom McGarry What I want to do 1st off is just send the agent a message
00:25:27.840 Tom McGarry because maybe they they might be struggling a little bit
00:25:30.720 Tom McGarry what I can do here, if I’m live listening, I can send them a message, they won’t be able to reply, which is a good information message, I can say, Here
00:25:41.170 Tom McGarry have you done, Dpa?
00:25:42.530 Tom McGarry Just as a new starter. They might need that reminder. They might have already started the conversation. They might need to circle back and make sure that they are speaking to the the correct person. with that option I can send the selected agent. I can also send to a group of agents as well, I could send out a group message to. Kind of. Says, we’ve got a team meeting at 4 o’clock. Have you done, Dpa? Now in the background
00:26:02.180 Tom McGarry you’ll be able to see down here. If I do send that selected agent
00:26:05.510 Tom McGarry I get a pop up and it says
00:26:07.730 Tom McGarry we’re going to send this message
00:26:09.430 Tom McGarry Click, okay? And you can see down here it’s come up with a message. again, it’s not too intrusive. It doesn’t interfere with what the guys are doing and speaking about, but I can see that I’ve got a pop up I can click view, and it will show me the message
00:26:22.590 Tom McGarry have you done, Dpa. I sent an earlier one down here, maybe suggest a payment plan, and it’s just that gentle coaching and support that the user might need while they’re on the call
00:26:32.420 Tom McGarry All those coach messages are accessible down here
00:26:35.460 Tom McGarry in the coach section, you can click that, and you can see the coach messages
00:26:39.940 Tom McGarry I also mentioned what you can do. Instead of sending messages, you can help out on a call as well with voice
00:26:46.480 Tom McGarry if I jump back to that coaching page
00:26:50.000 Tom McGarry I have the options on the right hand side here as well. with Monitor I can live. Listen to a call that’s currently active. The agent doesn’t know I’m on the call
00:26:59.650 Tom McGarry The customer doesn’t know I’m on the call, but I can live. Listen I can kind of see what’s going on and using that that might prompt the message that I’m sending
00:27:07.440 Tom McGarry You can also coach. another word for coaches whispering essentially, you’re listening to a live call you can then coach, you can speak to the agent directly through their headset. The customer is not aware of this, but you are speaking to the agent, and you can coach them along. if they’re struggling a little bit
00:27:23.730 Tom McGarry you might be able to just coach them and suggest this suggest that it’s another way just to support the user
00:27:28.780 Tom McGarry We also have down here kind of the
00:27:32.200 Tom McGarry slightly more aggressively named barge and barge kick. Badge will allow you to join the call with the user. if the customer is getting distressed, if there may be getting a little bit angry, you can jump on the call, and maybe calm things down or help out the agent a little bit. that’s barge barge kick means you remove the user from the call and you take over the call
00:27:53.620 Tom McGarry again, it’s for those times where maybe the the user is getting a little bit worried. They’re getting a little bit distressed. Maybe the customers getting a little bit distressed as well. You could jump on, and you could support the agent with those
00:28:05.400 Tom McGarry you have those options there. And again, it’s just a few different ways of helping and supporting the agent as you go through
00:28:13.530 Tom McGarry that’s kind of the end of the of the demo section. that’s what happens when we are
00:28:20.100 Tom McGarry when the agent is on a call. when we’re on a live call
00:28:23.100 Tom McGarry But what happens afterwards. after we’ve got the calls
00:28:27.940 Tom McGarry we’ve made the calls. We spoke to the customer
00:28:31.240 Tom McGarry There’s obviously a coaching piece after the fact. that’s where spoken. AI comes in
00:28:36.640 Tom McGarry that’s our speech analytics platform that we have
00:28:40.210 Tom McGarry using this, my got my screen here. yeah,
00:28:47.860 Tom McGarry essentially, it’s a way to support the users after the after the live call is finished
00:28:53.000 Tom McGarry It gives you the insight to kind of understand what’s really happening in the conversations. it does show you what topics were discussed on calls. It will show you sentiment analysis. how positive was a call, how negative was a call you can check for keywords
00:29:06.490 Tom McGarry and key phrases. , , was Dpa said
00:29:10.070 Tom McGarry things that. did we go through everything that we needed to go through on that call. it’s it’s a good way to do it in kind of a
00:29:18.180 Tom McGarry higher tier. Qa. Users Qa. Agents. They can’t listen to every call manually spoken. AI kind of takes some of the legwork out of, and it does more of the the overall
00:29:28.870 Tom McGarry it goes through everything, and obviously every call is important
00:29:33.210 Tom McGarry every call you do it? It could be worth money to yourself. It could be worth a contract to somebody. It’s important to the customer. with that upskilling your users
00:29:43.820 Tom McGarry after the fact will benefit obviously yourselves as a business and the customer themselves as well. it’ll improve your business as a whole
00:29:52.400 Tom McGarry , Kay, if you could just jump to the next page for me, please
00:29:56.340 Tom McGarry thank you. again, some of the top ways. It identifies it, as I mentioned before, it does it at scale
00:30:02.190 Tom McGarry
00:30:03.300 Tom McGarry there’s many calls that go through the system. Your Qa teams, your team leaders. They can’t listen to every single one. , using spoken AI, we can flag conversations where the agents might need to support, or there might be a compliance issue that’s been missed
00:30:17.570 Tom McGarry you can do that. It just raises different coaching opportunities you’ve got there
00:30:22.180 Tom McGarry we’re also tracking script adherence. again, you might have a script. They have to say . The guys might have to go through terms and conditions, otherwise the sale isn’t valid, or there might be kind of regulatory things that you need to run through as well. this can track for gaps in that. we’re not making assumptions. We’re not just assuming that A phrase has been said, you can make sure that the agent did follow the terms and conditions, and if they didn’t do, they need extra coaching. And do they need to make sure that they are reading these and going through them?
00:30:51.477 Tom McGarry Again, services, high impact conversations. some conversations can be quite a sensitive nature. They can be from, , vulnerable people, that that need that help. did the did the agent. Did they manage that well, do they need help with it?
00:31:05.650 Tom McGarry It can just be about sitting down with that recording and everything that’s been that’s been said
00:31:11.737 Tom McGarry and just working through it and kind of saying, Yes, we can
00:31:15.490 Tom McGarry We can help you. With that we can coach you. We can improve that. And again, that improves that not only the agent, but the customer’s point of view as well include improves your business as a whole
00:31:25.760 Tom McGarry also we benchmark and we recognize top performers. it’s not just about where the guys need coaching. And the guys need help. It’s also about kind of celebrating. Look how well these guys are doing. And these guys are a shining standard that everybody else should be working towards. these guys are really good. We identify objections. And how well the agents dealt with the objections
00:31:45.590 Tom McGarry you can then start using that in your training and coaching with other users, and say, Look how look out! Well, Kaylee did with this one
00:31:52.560 Tom McGarry and she and she did it by doing this this and this. you can use that as a kind of training exercise for the for the other members of the team. It also kind of highlights, , average talk times, average queue times and things that. you can kind of see on the talk times. Why is such a buddy’s talk? Time,
00:32:08.760 Tom McGarry this? They got through everything on the call. It was tight, and your talk time is a little bit longer. It’s a little bit short. What do we need to work on there to kind of help out?
00:32:17.410 Tom McGarry And then, lastly, it’s it’s consistent. It’s data led feedback. when you are having those coaching sessions, those one on one sessions with the users
00:32:26.170 Tom McGarry the stats are there, and the data is there, and they can say, I don’t think my calls were that long you could say, Well, look at your average talk. Time spoken. AI is is showing it here, and it’s showing
00:32:35.720 Tom McGarry that your average talk. Time is a little bit longer than the normal average talk time, you can use that. And the stats are right there to help and kind of train. it’s a really really powerful tool that will kind of help. Coach your users, help, , help coach you as a business, and it will improve everything from your customer feedback as well
00:32:53.550 Tom McGarry and I think that is the end of my demo section, I’ll hand back to Kaylee
00:32:58.200 Kayleigh Tait Thanks, Tom. Yeah, I think
00:33:01.000 Kayleigh Tait it’s clear with AI and automation
00:33:04.990 Kayleigh Tait The the more we introduce AI and automation into the customer. Conversations
00:33:13.730 Kayleigh Tait it. It’s removing that routine work and teams dealing with more complex conversations, our emotionally charged conversations
00:33:25.310 Kayleigh Tait supporting your team with
00:33:29.583 Kayleigh Tait the right tools. What insights training, coaching just becomes more and more important to give them the best chance of having success themselves, but also achieving successful outcomes for your business as well. Tom, thanks for taking us through some of those different ways in Max contact that you can do that
00:33:50.820 Kayleigh Tait Sorry I skipped on the slide bit too quickly. There. just a few takeaways before we get onto questions. Just as a reflection point
00:34:00.339 Kayleigh Tait but one of the most important decisions that you’ll make in your contact. Strategy is when and where to put AI to work, and where does it make sense to have
00:34:12.880 Kayleigh Tait connections to the to human agents or just human agents. Initially taking those conversations forward. The answer isn’t always one. Size fits all and our research shows that 70% of customers do prefer to speak to a person when explaining this situation. that includes the complex queries, the complaints and emergencies and things that we mentioned at the start of the call. That came out of the research
00:34:40.295 Kayleigh Tait But that’s not to say that automation doesn’t have a place it absolutely does. It’s about that balance between , what do customers want and say they want versus? How do I serve them fast? Efficiently, but also not degradate. The customer. Experience too much that it starts to have a negative impact on your wider business. Retention rates
00:35:04.523 Kayleigh Tait and revenue as an organization. It can have a strategic impact when it comes to Cx AI works brilliantly for triaging conversations. Faqs routing. And as we know, it can reduce, wait times
00:35:20.660 Kayleigh Tait and gather context before an agent or one of your team has to pick up that conversation as well. it it ha definitely has its place. But the key is escalation. And making sure that you’ve got that clear, seamless handoff from self service to a human agent aware, are really what makes the difference? In that customer contact strategy
00:35:46.480 Kayleigh Tait Because when that moment matters when a customer comes frustrated or worried, or just needs help
00:35:52.730 Kayleigh Tait Nothing really replaces a human at the end of the line. build your AI into your strategy, but always leave space for that empathy, and that moment when a human might need to step in. And that’s how you get the best of both worlds. And we said at the start. Some of this is a bit trial and error, but you will know more than anyone, and based on the insights across your contact center. Where it might be most appropriate to
00:36:21.240 Kayleigh Tait get those efficiencies, and where , it is more efficient to have a human on the call. Taking the lead with that conversation
00:36:29.180 Kayleigh Tait
00:36:31.210 Kayleigh Tait that is the end of our presentation. thanks very much, Tom, we’ll go through any questions before we close out. Let me just stop sharing this screen now, I can see these questions
00:36:47.610 Kayleigh Tait Oh, gosh
00:36:51.370 Kayleigh Tait no, I’m not going to. I can’t figure out how to use that. We’ve just started to use zoom, and I cannot see
00:36:58.340 Kayleigh Tait Alright. Let me go to the questions
00:37:06.770 Kayleigh Tait set up
00:37:08.180 Kayleigh Tait How do you decide when to use AI and when to route a customer to a human
00:37:13.727 Kayleigh Tait I think great question. I suppose this is what this conversation is about, but knowing when is the more difficult part. But from what we’re seeing and talking to clients about, it’s the intent and the complexity of the call, we said, there’s certain points when
00:37:30.240 Kayleigh Tait it just makes sense to have someone talking at the end of the the line, or you’re dealing with a particular customer. Maybe it’s a certain spend. It might be a certain demographic of client that , that serving them in a particular way is one more efficient from a cost perspective, or it has better a better outcome
00:37:54.032 Kayleigh Tait I said AI is great for that initial triage, and handling those repetitive low risk
00:38:02.082 Kayleigh Tait Queries or inquiries, but when a conversation needs that emotion, or that it, the path, might not be as clear as to how this conversation is going to be resolved. That’s when we are suggesting. And we’re talking to clients about is when a human might need to step in
00:38:23.750 Kayleigh Tait That’s why the best strategies, aren’t you? AI, only it’s a combination of
00:38:31.110 Kayleigh Tait human and AI together, and how they work together is a really crucial part of the contact strategy. your system in general should route
00:38:42.570 Kayleigh Tait topics, route conversations to the right person based on topic, tone urgency, and that can all be automation that can be built in as well into the Max contact platform. You’ve got skills based routing. that conversations are reaching the right person at the right time as well. that they’re escalated in the best way and dealt with quickly. And efficiently
00:39:08.650 Kayleigh Tait hope that answers the question of what we’re seeing. Let me just bear with
00:39:15.160 Kayleigh Tait Tom, I think you’re probably best with this one. What impact does smart routine have on performance?
00:39:23.740 Tom McGarry it really positive impact , cause it’s obviously the you want to get the call through to the right people. You don’t want the users on the call triage it and transferring the call off you want them concentrate on on their purpose. whether it be selling or customer service. You don’t want them trying to have to find somebody and send it off again. the biggest benefit is probably on 1st contact resolution. that call comes in, it comes through to the right person, and they deal with it on the call instead of being sent around. It’s also
00:39:52.970 Tom McGarry it helps from a customer’s point of view, that customer journey you don’t want the customer being frustrated because they are being transferred from A to B to Z. You want them to get through to the person they want to speak to and answer the question that they’ve got to ask
00:40:06.090 Tom McGarry essentially, yeah, it’s it’s 1st contact. Resolution is the biggest one. But then it’s it’s more customer journey and journey of everybody. Really. it’s it’s feedback from customers as well. But yeah, the smart routing definitely helps with that
00:40:19.910 Kayleigh Tait Great. I’ll just
00:40:21.970 Kayleigh Tait We’ve got no more questions left. I’ll give it a minute, because at this point, usually we get a question pop in as we’re about to end the call
00:40:33.530 Kayleigh Tait Okay?
00:40:35.020 Kayleigh Tait Well, thank you. Everyone for your attention today. If you would to know more about AI and automation, and how it can support you and your team, or how to build strategies. That route customers to the right person at the right time. Then please reach out to us. We’ll send out the email afterwards, you can reach out to us there, and one of our team will be in touch and then
00:41:00.960 Kayleigh Tait hot off the press. But our next webinar will all be about. Ai and automation again. And introduce you guys to AI agents from Max contact, which will be exciting. we’ve got the 2 sides of this conversation. Which will continue in June
00:41:20.660 Kayleigh Tait just check that. Thanks, Tom. No more questions, we’ll leave it there. Thanks a lot. Everyone
00:41:28.210 Tom McGarry Cool. Thanks, everybody
00:41:29.300 Kayleigh Tait See you soon
Your Questions Answered
Question 1: How do you decide when to use AI and when to route a customer to a human?
Kayleigh Tait’s Response:
This is precisely what our conversation addressed today – knowing when to deploy AI versus human agents is the more challenging decision.
The determining factors are intent and complexity of the call. Based on our research and client conversations, certain scenarios clearly benefit from human interaction:
When humans excel:
- Complex queries requiring emotional intelligence
- Situations involving specific customer demographics or high-value accounts
- Conversations where the resolution path isn’t immediately clear
- Interactions requiring empathy and trust-building
Where AI works brilliantly:
- Initial triage and call routing
- Handling repetitive, low-risk queries
- FAQ responses and basic information requests
- Gathering context before human handoff
The most effective strategies aren’t AI-only solutions – they’re integrated approaches where AI and humans work together. Your system should route conversations based on:
- Topic complexity
- Emotional tone of the customer
- Urgency level of the request
- Skills-based routing to match customers with the right agent
MaxContact’s platform enables this through intelligent routing that considers all these factors, ensuring conversations reach the right person at the right time for optimal resolution.
Question 2: What impact does smart routing have on performance?
Tom McGarry’s Response:
Smart routing delivers significant performance improvements across multiple metrics:
First Contact Resolution (FCR): The biggest impact is on first contact resolution. When calls reach the right person immediately, they get resolved on that initial interaction rather than requiring transfers or callbacks. This eliminates the need for agents to triage calls and redirect them elsewhere.
Agent Efficiency: Agents can focus on their core purpose – whether that’s sales, customer service, or debt collection – rather than spending time determining where calls should go. This targeted approach means agents handle conversations they’re trained and equipped for.
Customer Experience: From the customer perspective, smart routing eliminates the frustration of multiple transfers and queue jumping. Customers reach the person they need to speak with without navigating through endless automation loops.
Operational Benefits:
- Reduced average handling time through proper call distribution
- Improved agent utilisation and productivity
- Better customer satisfaction scores
- Decreased call abandonment rates
The customer journey becomes smoother when they connect with the right team member immediately, leading to faster resolution times and improved satisfaction ratings. This creates a positive cycle where both operational efficiency and customer experience improve simultaneously.
Key Metrics Improved:
- First Contact Resolution rates
- Customer satisfaction scores
- Agent productivity metrics
- Average handling time
- Call abandonment rates
Smart routing essentially ensures that every conversation starts on the right foot, giving both the customer and agent the best chance for a successful interaction.
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