5 takeaways from Spark to drive contact center transformation

5 takeaways from Spark to drive contact center transformation

Ittai Geiger
December 12, 2024 • 8 minutes

At the most recent 2024 Spark, LivePerson’s product launch event, we announced that we’re pairing messaging communication channels with voice, and introduced a suite of GenAI agent assist tools for a more modern contact center transformation.

Here at LivePerson, we love this event because it brings together peers and industry leaders focused on driving change within their organizations. The world is rapidly changing and we all must adjust alongside. Yet amidst all the change, one thing remains constant: people still love to have conversations. The ways and digital technologies we use to converse might vary, but this very human need is persistent, as contact centers and customer service reps know very well.

LivePerson CEO, John Sabino, kicked off the day by sharing, “I spend a lot of time talking with our customers and the word that’s top of mind today for enterprise leaders that we work with is transformation. Whether they’re focused on a digital transformation, an AI transformation, or a full-scale enterprise transformation, the world’s largest brands are in the midst of a fundamental shift in how they do business, and it’s all focused on transforming that customer experience.”

The path to enterprise digital transformation starts in the contact center. The goal isn’t to transform for technology’s sake, but to drive measurable value within the enterprise and deliver what customers really want.

This Spark event on contact center digital transformation was action-packed. In case you missed it, here are some key takeaways.

1. “Good enough” isn’t actually good enough

A good conversation is one that resolves well for the consumer, where their needs are met and they feel heard. The consumer just wants to get in and out, quickly.

Thus far, the digital capabilities from many CAS and CRM or ticketing vendors have proven to be not quite good enough to meet this need. Digital channels have attempted to replace voice entirely, and while they are great, the reality is that voice calls aren’t going away. There will always be instances where someone wants to talk to another human — and it may also be the most efficient way to handle an issue.

“One of the key reasons AI is so powerful is that it helps reduce the noise by automatically resolving the most routine customer inquiries, so your agents can be freed up to be efficient and handle important customer calls that require that human touch,” Sabino explained.

This is why LivePerson is taking a best-of-breed approach to the modern Contact Center as a Service, partnering with vendors to bring voice conversations into a unified Agent Workspace.

2. AI should be human-centric

Contact centers are innately human-centric, and AI should be as well. There are many opportunities to digitize and automate within traditional contact centers, but at LivePerson we believe it starts with using AI to make your contact center agents’ job easier.

“I believe AI gives people the fuel to do a better and more impactful job, which ultimately results in happier customers,” said Sabino.

Customers expect consistent service across all platforms, and LivePerson is excited to bring voice into the fold. The new Agent Workspace for Voice combines voice and messaging to create a seamless experience for both agents and customers.

When you combine voice and digital channels, you can improve agent efficiency, reduce training time, and decrease operational complexity. The Agent Workspace for Voice is powered by new, best-of-breed voice integrations that allow brands to bring their current voice provider into the LivePerson platform.

By unifying the experience for messaging and voice agents, brands can standardize their business processes, systems, and contact center operations while delivering a connected experience for the customer. Our new technology called Copilot offers a suite of generative AI agent assist tools that boost agent productivity and improve customer satisfaction.

Get to know AI Copilot

Copilot is here to help — humans, that is. Take a look at what Copilot offers:

(Learn more about the key features of Spark-introduced customer experience solutions in our product announcement.)

3. Conversations drive customer service — and revenue

Conversations happen throughout the entire customer journey, from pre-sales through customer service, post-sale. These conversations provide information about customer expectations and contain opportunities for revenue generation.

Madhura Deshpande, Vice President of Digital Shopping and Sales at Signet Jewelers, shared how they’re leveraging generative AI tools to mine their conversations for selling signals. “We actually found 30 really high potential conversations that have strong selling signals,” she said about their initial test of 100 conversations. The team is now qualifying those leads.

Signet uses LivePerson and AI extensively to empower their sales agents and orchestrate a personalized buying experience, earning them a 90% CSAT score.

Mr. Cooper, the largest mortgage company in America, also employs AI for similar purposes.

“We want to connect you quickly to the right person who can help you with your unique needs,” said Chris Maloney, Chief Marketing Officer.

4. Measure what matters for the best contact center transformation

Customer satisfaction is key metrics as Frost Bank knows. Frost prides itself on a contact center experience that connects a customer to a human without navigating a phone tree or chatbot. “When you call or message us through LivePerson, you get an agent right away,” Jacob Coull, AVP, Contact Center Product Owner explained.

Frost is looking forward to adding AI chatbots to find efficiencies, like removing inactive messaging conversations from the agent workspace until they become active again.

Frost’s customer satisfaction score is 91%.

5. The ROI for AI comes from enabling your agents

LivePerson clients find that AI shows a quick return on investment when deployed in the digital contact center. Agent-facing AI tools allow agents to be more efficient and serve customers with more context.

“We’re laser focused on helping our customers realize the ROI of AI,” said Alex Kroman, LivePerson’s Chief Product and Technology Officer. “What we’re releasing is a set of AI agents tuned to handle key conversational use cases.”

In this way, you keep your conversations factual and helpful, assisting your human agents to work more efficiently.