Chris Gillen - A Closer Look - CX With AI And Humans Working Together
·14 min·1 clip
Chris Gillen surveyed 1,700 U.S. consumers about their true feelings on interacting with AI for customer service.
The episode begins with hosts Mark Hillary in São Paulo and Peter Ryan in Atlanta introducing the show and their upcoming participation in the CX Outsourcers conference. They mention Chris Gillen, who will give a keynote at the event, and note his company A Closer Look focuses on consumer intelligence. Gillen joins for a preview of his talk on the contact center of the future and AI's role. He reflects on the change since last year's CXO in Glasgow, when ChatGPT had just launched. Gillen shares that call centers lag in AI adoption despite business successes elsewhere. He highlights a large consumer survey his firm conducted, asking over 1,700 U.S. consumers about their feelings on interacting with AI in customer service. Gillen plans to share these results at the conference. He discusses common starting points for AI implementation, such as using bots for mundane tasks to reduce costs, citing Klarna's claim of AI doing the work of 700 agents. Gillen introduces his equation AI plus HEI equals success, where HEI stands for human emotional intelligence. He mentions a prototype plug-and-play generative AI tool for call centers. The conversation shifts to misconceptions about AI, with Gillen emphasizing that data transformation is necessary and most companies aren't ready. Hosts contrast early media predictions of job replacement with Gillen's view that AI automates processes, not entire jobs, potentially reskilling workers. The episode concludes with thanks and promotional details.
