The Buzz with ACT-IAC
The Buzz with ACT-IAC
Live at the 2025 Contact Center Annual Summit
In this special live edition of The Buzz, Pete Tseronis interviews key industry leaders on the critical role of contact centers in delivering services, especially through digital and omni-channel strategies. Key speakers, including Martha Dorris of Dorris Consulting International; Amanda Chavez from Qualtrics; Mia Jordan from Salesforce; Marcellus Walker, Jr. from the Office of Unified Communications; Gundeep Ahluwalia from NuAxis Innovations; MaryAnn Monroe from Maximus; Tanya Slater Lowe from the U.S. Department of Labor; Crystal Philcox from Philcox Consulting, share insights on improving customer experience using technologies like AI, sentiment analysis, and automation. The summit emphasized empathy, data-driven decision-making, and the pivotal role of contact centers as the entry point to agencies. Practical lessons, success stories, and future projections for contact centers are also discussed, providing actionable strategies for government and industry leaders.
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Intro/Outro Music: See a Brighter Day/Gloria Tells
Courtesy of Epidemic Sound
(Episodes 1-159: Intro/Outro Music: Focal Point/Young Community
Courtesy of Epidemic Sound)
Yohanna: [00:00:00] Welcome to this exciting live edition of the Buzz Today we're thrilled to bring you highlights from the 2025 Contact Center annual Summit Powered by Act, iac, Doris Consulting and Caresoft. This event has been an incredible success, thanks to our amazing attendees. Whether you joined us in person or are tuning in now, we're confident you'll gain valuable insights and make meaningful connections.
Yohanna: Let's dive into some quick interviews with our dynamic speakers.
PETE: Hey, I am here with Martha Doris, founder and CEO of Doris Consulting International colleague, friend. We're here at Caresoft today, big contact center. Somebody you fired up.
Martha: Uh, definitely fired up. This is a dream come true for me.
PETE: Yeah. What, what do, what do, you've done a lot of stuff with customer experience, Martha.
PETE: I mean, you're, you're a known entity inside the beltway and beyond, but [00:01:00] what's today about for you?
Martha: I've known for. Years, decades actually, the amount of money that the government spends on contact centers, and nobody's been paying attention to contact centers and, and the importance of it to the delivery of services, including digital services.
Martha: And you can't have an omni-channel experience without contact centers. And, and really they're, they're so fragmented within agencies, so. There was nothing in the DC area that dealt with contact centers related to government. Everything was in Nashville or Las Vegas. So I wanted to do something to bring con government, contact center leaders and industry partners together so that they could start learning from each other, networking, sharing.
Martha: And so that's what today's about.
PETE: Yeah. It's, it's about connecting the dots. Yep. And to, to your point. And building the bridges and building bridges. Um, but for, for our, for our guests and folks who see this is the contact center in many cases is the entry point. To the agency, to the mission, and [00:02:00] you with the digital services and the, the, you know, evolution of, of data centers and contact centers, it's a pretty important piece of making sure that government and industry understand that's that front door.
PETE: Is that fair? Well,
Martha: yeah, and people normally, if they can do it online, that's the preferred channel. In, in some cases, not all age groups, whatever, but when they can't do it online and when it's a a bad experience, what do they do? And they're in a really. Critical part of their life and they need information about a service that they need.
Martha: They pick up the phone and when they pick up the phone, they need somebody who answers the phone first. Right. Secondly, has empathy for the problem that they have. Mm-hmm. And gives them an accurate answer to their question and helps them.
PETE: So what are you hoping today? What, what's your goal? You're fired up.
PETE: I'm fired up. It's also, again, always great to see you. What, what are you hoping people walk away with today? It's a full day event.
Martha: Yes. Um, I mean, it's, we, you know, we. The theme of it is delivering digital services through best in class contact centers. So we'll be [00:03:00] talking about what is a best in class contact center?
Martha: How does data play an important role? What are some success stories from government agencies that are doing things? What are some success stories from industry and some of the contact centers on the industry side? And then what does the future of contact centers look like? Including, you know, artificial intelligence, obviously the impact on the workforce.
Martha: Um, you know, agents, the government, you know, when they, when the government has an issue with answering questions, they wanna hire 5,000 agents. Well, that's not the environment that we're in right now. They need to figure out how to use technology to offload some of those simple questions and simple, uh, answers to the public when they need them.
PETE: Love it. If you're not in rest in today, you should be, but regardless, we're gonna get great stuff at it today. Mm-hmm. And it's always great to see you and, uh, you too. Thank you. Let's have an awesome day. Exactly. Thanks Pete. Thanks, mark.[00:04:00]
PETE: I am here with Amanda Chavez from Qualtrics. Yes. Who just yes. Did I say that
Amanda: properly? You did. It was perfect.
PETE: Fantastic. Well, I loved your panel, your discussion, and I really. On behalf of ACT dac, uh, we're, we're talking to those who are supporting today's, uh, program, which is the Contact Center Summit in Reston, Virginia.
PETE: Brought on, brought to you by Doris Consulting International Act, dac, and of course, Caresoft. Um, Qualtrics, the company, it's mission, it's in the contact center space. What distinguishes your company and why are you excited to be leading the effort?
Amanda: Sure. Well, I think what distinguishes our company is that a lot of the things that were talked about on the panel today included like transcription and sentiment analysis and being able to, uh, have pulses to be able to get information about, you know, what the real experience people are having is.
Amanda: And I think. What's so unique about Qualtrics is that we are a do it [00:05:00] yourself kind of application to be able to get that. So that means that there aren't a lot of consulting costs associated with integrating the software. So you can do it yourself and it's up and running, and you can collect that sentiment, make meaning out of it, and use that to improve the customer experience.
PETE: Yeah, I heard that a lot and I'm hearing it a lot about sentiment analysis and being a technologist, you know, and understanding technology can enable anything in the workforce, but I think what this. Today is conveying to me, and I'm a listener, I'm in the audience. As much as I'm enjoying talking to you, of course, is, you know, the takeaways when people walk away.
PETE: Um, you, you mentioned, um, you didn't say plug and play, but it's not something that requires the significant, you know, time to ramp up and That's right. Um, you know, on the sentiment side, do you have any. Perspective on just how do you manage all the data that's coming in the analytics we hear about, like how do you, how do you work with that to, to understand the sentiment but then to make the product better or [00:06:00] solutions even better?
Amanda: Sure. So I, you know, I'm, uh, old enough to have, uh, done a lot of, uh, quantitative research where it is manual, where you gather that feedback and you, uh, you know, the, the interview data that you've collected. And having to code it all itself. And there I say that because that sounds like it was a million years ago, which in my case it was.
Amanda: But that is still happening. Like that is absolutely still happening where people, I've heard of agencies too, where. You know, data comes in and there is somebody who reads line by line what that is. It's just not possible to scale. First off, that's, I don't believe that's a great use of resources. And secondly, that's very difficult to scale.
Amanda: Uh, you know, a human cuing through all of that data trying to, uh, make meaning out of it. I mean, through the, the magic of ai, we're in a different world now. So, you know, to be able to gather that data, pick out the similarities in the data, pick out the patterns, pick out, you know, the trends and the insight or the trends that you're [00:07:00] seeing and rise, raise that to the level of insight I.
Amanda: Um, I, I mean, I think it's, that's what we do, but I think that's where, you know, obviously, uh, the world is going too, just because that manual approach, I mean, it's not very effective and again, it doesn't scale.
PETE: And whether that's for commercial partners or the federal government or as we heard, you know, folks from the DC government, this ability to make data decision.
PETE: Or data-driven decision making is critical in today's day and age. Would you agree?
Amanda: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I, I think that too, that's the new focus of this administration as well, is to, you know, become a more forward-leaning AI based government where you can use the data that's coming in instead of going off of your gut and going off of your, your own biases.
Amanda: Being able to get, you know, real data on the customer experience. And not only the customer experience too, just how your, like technology or how your services are being received as a matter of, you know, [00:08:00] like ratings too for, for the government,
PETE: Amanda, data without context. Is great, but with context it becomes information and it's something that we can, you know, take advantage of to, to understand our customers.
PETE: And I, I heard that message conveyed, uh, on your panel and, and is that something that you're continuously working on at Qualtrics to make sure that that information is contextual?
Amanda: Absolutely. And it's so funny that you're mentioning that. I just had a conversation with a colleague the other day about how when you have data for data's sake and you have no context.
Amanda: Behind it, you can make some really dangerous and consequential decisions that really have direct impacts on citizens of the United States of America. So I think it's. Absolutely critical to have context for that data. That's exactly what Qualtrics does too. Provides that context, provides that meaning so that you can make better decisions.
Amanda: Well
PETE: I heard that. Thank you for swinging by. Oh, thank you. And we appreciate you and uh, good luck.
Amanda: Thank you so much. [00:09:00] Likewise. It was a pleasure. You
PETE: bet.
PETE: Mia. Jordan, great to see you. Thank you. Yeah, we're live here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At the uh, Reston Contact Center Summit, uh, put on by dors Consulting International Caresoft and Course Act. Diac. And man, I loved your comments. It was a great panel you were just on. I appreciated a lot of the discussion around contact centers and Yeah, customer enablement.
PETE: But there's this theme of customer sentiment and empathy. Yes. Um, and, you know, how is Salesforce embracing that, knowing that technology. Can be an enabler, but, but what's the impact you feel and what distinguishes Salesforce?
Mia: Sure. Well, first and foremost, you know, it Salesforce being a, a platform that, that offers, um, contact center support.
Mia: But all of the automation that really, um, I think, um, meets the [00:10:00] desires of customers, which is about, you know, how do we accelerate. Um, our customers to done as we heard earlier. I love that. I love that phrase. Let's, um, that's Mia. Um, so anyway, I'm joking. So, um, how do we accelerate our customers to done and, and having that omnichannel, um, offering is what I think most of our customers aspire to get to.
Mia: Right? Having more than just phone, having more than just email. But chat, but also social media. Yes. I haven't heard that much today about social media being, um, an option, but when we're talking about sentiment, you know, one of the features that as we've developed this agentic layer right, with our agents, um, it is the ability not just for managers to be able to listen into a call, but to actually train the agents to listen for certain tones.
Mia: Certain key words and I was just talking to someone about a crisis hotline. Mm-hmm. Um, and being able to pick on the, pick up on those, those things and be able to flag that [00:11:00] to, um, a supervisor or a manager in real time. Wow. That they need to pick up immediately. That's not something you have to wait on.
Mia: Right. That's something that can happen in real time and I think that's an amazing, uh, feature and capability that's coming to you live in the June summer timeframe. Okay? Right. It have it sneak preview, fed ramp, it'll have its fed ramp approval around that time. And so that's the, that's what we are encouraging customers right now to get into a proof of concept.
Mia: Test it out, try just do it right. Just do it. We heard that. Exactly. Just get
PETE: on and do it. There's no script and best practices we're learning each and every day. Fair enough.
Mia: That's right. That's right.
PETE: Well, Mia, listen, I know, uh, we got a jam packed day, but thanks for taking some time. Thank you. This is great.
PETE: It's great to see you and uh, I'll be seeing more of you.
Mia: All right. Take care. Thanks.
PETE: Thanks, Mia. Thank you,
PETE: Marcellus. I just had a [00:12:00] great time listening to some of your comments here at the Contact Center Summit in Reston, Virginia. Mm-hmm. And you know what you do and the mission you support. I was wondering if you could share a little bit of what you took away from that session and what you wanted to convey to the audience.
Marcellus: Absolutely. I, I, I took away some great things, especially from our private industry, uh, agents that were on, on the panel with us. Um, they shared a lot of great ideas, uh, which at least gave me the idea that, hey, DC we're heading in the right direction. And so I. Just having that public safety, uh, speak as well, uh, along with the Salesforce information was, was very helpful.
PETE: And, and what, what, what would you say is your primary role and what you try to do each and every day of the week when you're supporting DC government?
Marcellus: So, I, so I always say my primary role is to make sure that I'm supporting those agents on the call for, they are the lifeline of our operations. Uh, they come to work every day, and so my role is to support them, make sure that they have the resources that they need.
Marcellus: Uh, make sure that they understand the job that they're doing and how [00:13:00] important the job is, and also look for those opportunities to develop them as leaders, hopefully in the future as well.
PETE: Yeah, and I really liked how you discussed the technology enablement role. Yes. But also how sentiment and empathy are a big part of your customers in those, those end users.
Marcellus: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, as we probably know in DC a lot of people have things to say, and so we have to take all of that information in. Um, be able to apply it, apply it where necessary, and then make sure that we provide some type of response resources to that as well.
PETE: Well, Marcellus, man, I love your passion.
PETE: I was really appreciate your comments. Keep doing what you do, my friend. Yes, thank you. Appreciate it. All right.
Marcellus: Thank
SENTURE AD: you so much. Ready join C and a distinguished panel of government and industry leaders for a dynamic discussion on how emerging technologies are making a real world impact. This isn't just theory.
SENTURE AD
PETE: I'm here with Gundeep, my colleague and friend from my days back in the Department of Energy and Department of Labor CIO. Great to see you buddy. Good to see you too. Yeah, man, it was amazing. Yeah, I know.
PETE: We're having a great day out here in Reston for the contact Center summit and seeing you walk in, I was fired up and I wanted to pull you aside and look. Tell me a little bit about what you're doing right now, but more importantly, what do you think today's about and what are some things you want to leave, uh, here and, and [00:15:00] maybe bring back to your colleagues and stakeholders?
Gundeep: First of all, thank you for the opportunity. I think this, you know, events like this, they just fill me up with positive energy, right? As the possibility of the future. Uh, so I'm, I'm the Chief Innovation Officer at New Access now. Um, and we are in the business of automating. And unlocking efficiencies while delivering value to the American citizens.
Gundeep: Right. Everything you
PETE: did when you were a fan, my friend, everything that
Gundeep: we did and now from the different vantage point. Yeah. Um, so I think, uh, this, this unlocks a lot of opportunity. Uh, we have always been a customer experience based company. Mm-hmm. But now we are bringing automation, AI into that. Uh, come stop at our, our booth will do.
Gundeep: There's a phenomenal, uh, demo that we have put together as well. So we are, what we are trying to do is integrate things, but also unlock, uh, uh, the, the efficiencies using ai. Right? So it's, it's an amazing. Um, you know, when you talk about [00:16:00] CX alone, people used to get like, eh, is that a soft thing? Uh, no. It is a part of how we deliver services now.
Gundeep: Uh, and we've brought AI and automation to bear as well, to unlock efficiencies, uh, which is the, has been a, a name of the game for a long time. But now it's got gotten even like front and center in, in today's day and age.
PETE: So let me pivot off that. You know, you've been in the federal space, kde, you've been a Chief Information Officer, and you understand the role that technology plays in enabling mission.
PETE: We use that a lot, right? In the government space. What would you say to the government community as they explore. Contact center value and what, what to distinguish from product to product. There are a lot of good solutions out there, but what are some things that the Fed should be thinking about when acquiring a product or solution?
PETE: Yeah, and I,
Gundeep: I think that the biggest thing here is a cultural shift. Okay. I think we are measuring the wrong things, and what I talk about is. Taking a [00:17:00] agency from SLA to XLA. Okay. Don't measure how, how quickly you answer the phone, but measure how well you created value for the person calling you and what their experience impact.
Gundeep: Right. Okay. Okay. So we are very good at the, in the government and our contracts to measure output. We need to start pivoting to outcomes I love, right? And I think that is the pivot. And the technology's there, right? I used to feel frustrated. I still had the, the same, let's go to the outcomes in the past.
Gundeep: But now AI and the technologies are at a place where in simple integration between, uh, Amazon Connect. ServiceNow, your ticketing system and your deck tools like, which tells you like, Hey, don't keep reinstalling drivers in order to fix a team's issue. Figure out if there is another install that has happened.
Gundeep: And by integrating all of this and implementing a little bit of [00:18:00] AI on top, which is what we are doing. Uh, it unlocks that value that hu is humanly not possible now. I mean, you have logs coming outta solar winds, outta your laptop, your Splunk, and all of this. You can't navigate that, those logs as a human being.
Gundeep: But what we can do is once that information is given to us, you can give better experiences to people who sometimes have actually given up on our IT teams, right? They're going like, I'm not, I'm not gonna even call.
PETE: Well Gundeep, I that, first of all, it's resonating, you know, the volume. The velocity, the variety, the veracity of data.
PETE: It's, you gotta make sense of it at some point. Yeah. And I think your application, uh, that you're talking about of AI and, and so forth is, is gonna help unlock a lot of that sentiment and customer experience. And, uh, you know, I appreciate, uh, all, all you're saying there, and, and frankly, I, I think you know what I'm taking away from just hearing you.
PETE: It just gets me all fired up in a good way that. Outputs are one thing, outcomes and impact or another. So [00:19:00] yes, buddy. Thank you, man. Good to see you. It's good to see you, my friend. Thank you so much. All right. Yeah, thanks a lot. Take care.
PETE: All right. Uh, MaryAnn, I loved hearing you and Tanya have your convers conversation. Thank you, Amir, with MaryAnn, uh, Monroe. Hi, Maximus, managing director. Uh, awesome human being. Former federal employee. Yes, with a lot of experience. I've walked a walk with you, um, Marianne. I took away something that made me go, whoa, I want to Google that.
PETE: I. Hmm. And it was this concept of customer science. Yeah. Can you elaborate a little bit on that? Because that's something I think would be compelling for anybody who wasn't here today and can learn a bit about.
MaryAnn: Yeah. Yeah. We talked about that on our panel and uh, Tanya actually brought it up and we were talking about it that, um, we're no longer living in.[00:20:00]
MaryAnn: In a world where we just live by customer satisfaction, that there's so much intelligence that we have at our fingertips in serving the public with government services. We have so much data at our fingertips. We have the operational data that gives us a lot of information about our operations, but we also have a lot more customer data, especially as the emerging technologies and the innovative technologies are helping us understand, um, the intent of our customers and why they're, they're contacting, um, agencies, the sentiment of them and, and having this information and more of this.
MaryAnn: Um, customer information that then is intelligence that helps us drive programs forward. And one of the things we actually didn't talk about on the panel, um, we didn't have enough time is, is really using that customer information and the intelligence that we have [00:21:00] to not only just be reactive in, in delivering a service, but also drive.
MaryAnn: These services to being much more proactive and more predictive in how we ultimately deliver better services and, and, and, and moving along that continuum at a faster pace, leveraging the technologies that we have. Here today that help us do that.
PETE: I, I appreciate that. And it's even more crystallized in my brain as you're saying.
PETE: It is, you know, having been in government and, uh, we know there's tons of data, and now with this interconnected world, we live in this ubiquitously connected world. I like the idea of the science behind what do, how do we make sense of this data? That's right. And I heard about the sentiment, and I'm hearing about, you know, taking text and get, you know, leveraging emotional intelligence and being active listeners when it comes to contact centers.
PETE: So to that end, Maximus does this for a living and in spades. What makes Maximus unique when you think about context center support and services [00:22:00] and tools?
MaryAnn: Well, I think what makes Maximus unique is the wide array of. Of people and the public that we serve every day. Millions and millions of people from all walks of life, from veterans seeking disability, medical examinations to people that are seeking, you know, medical, uh, benefits, health benefits to loan borrowers.
MaryAnn: To just people seeking tax information. I mean the, the array of people that we serve and the information that we have that we can leverage to really. Drive agencies to really be much more mission focused. Mm-hmm. And outcome focused. Mm-hmm. Um, we have that here at Maximus and um, that's just one of the reasons I, I love doing what I do.
MaryAnn: When I think about delivering, [00:23:00] uh, personalized and proactive government services, we have the capability to do that and we're doing that. Here and I, I think the American people deserve that. And that's really where we're driving. We really wanna see us moving. Um, it's Pete, it's important to always focus on the interactions and the efficiency and effectiveness of the interactions and the government services we provide.
MaryAnn: We wanna take it a step further and really impact those big life outcomes and those mission outcomes that the agencies we're working with are trying to drive back to the public.
PETE: I, I love it. Slam dunk. Drop the mic because again, you, you're humanizing. Uh, your company, you're humanizing how data can inform society.
PETE: Yeah. And most importantly, impact, um, the sectors that we depend on everyday financials or healthcare or energy. So thank you. Thank you. Thanks for talking to me. Exactly. I, I, I, exactly. I mean, I enjoyed it as well, and we, I. We look forward to [00:24:00] talking to you again.
MaryAnn: Alright, sounds good. Thank you. Cool. Thank you.
MaryAnn: Awesome.
PETE: Tanya Slater, Loeb Director, department of Labor, national Contact Center. It was awesome to hear your comments today. Oh, thank you. At the, uh, Caresoft and Doris Consulting International and. Act, IAC Contact Center Summit. So it's a pleasure to meet you in person. Yes. And I just wanted to say, mm-hmm. You know, I really appreciate how you kind of humanized.
PETE: The role of a contact center in supporting the mission of not just the Department of Labor, but the constituency. Can you just talk a little bit more about why you're so passionate about conveying that? Absolutely.
Tanya: It's about the people. We are here to serve the people of the American public, and so we have to be humanized at the contact center in order to do that.
Tanya: There's nothing wrong with implementing a little AI to help us get those volume. Calls out the way, but that doesn't help when [00:25:00] someone is really in a situation where they've lost their job. They need some real human empathy. Someone to say, ma'am, I'm so sorry to hear that you lost your job. Let me see what I can do to help you.
Tanya: You can't get that kind of sincerity out of ai, and that's why it's important that we train our customer service representatives to have that empathetic and also strategic approach, which uses a process. To get a great experience.
PETE: I, I, I can appreciate that as a, as a former Federal Chief Technology Officer, I always talked about technology not being a problem.
PETE: It can be an enabler.
Tanya: Mm-hmm.
PETE: Uh, but when it comes to this context center and this sentiment, we heard a lot today, or we're hearing about, and empathy and emotional intelligence, I, I just wanna. Underscore, that's what I heard you talk about and you mentioned I'll, you know, maybe explain your, your park acronym.
PETE: Mm-hmm. And how important that is to when you're, when you're calling an agency or you're going through some challenges and, and again, just being that voice to someone in need. Yes. Can you talk [00:26:00] about how Park plays into it?
Tanya: Oh, absolutely. Park really plays into almost everything I do every day. Park is an acronym that I put together many years ago to remind myself of.
Tanya: What I need to do, and P stands for professionalism. Always be professional. Mm-hmm. A stands for attitude. Have a great attitude. R stands for respect. Respect what it is you're doing and the people you're doing it with. And knowledge. Okay. It's for knowledge. Yes. And you have to be knowledgeable about what you're doing.
Tanya: People can tell if you don't know, and so you need to make sure that. You understand what you do and know how to communicate it to others. That's how people see value. If you're able to communicate what you do, if they don't know what you do, they'll just walk the other way.
PETE: Amen to that. So let me leave you with one last question and I'd love to hear this.
PETE: 'cause when I was a fed again, I was quite often asked, uh, when it was always seemingly about a buy and sell transaction. I'm like, Hey, industry, come in and help me solve some problems. [00:27:00] What's your message to industry in this context center evolution in terms of you want to come in and talk to the government about its requirements for say, a contact center.
PETE: What's the homework they need to do? Is it understand who our constituency is? It. We need some capabilities like AI or uh, the cloud. But what, what is it you'd be saying to industry or anybody who knocks on your door, calls you to say, Hey, can we sit down and have a chat? What do you want them to walk away with more information about labor, more what you care, or, or is there something you're looking for from them?
PETE: Not what keeps you up at night, right? Yeah.
Tanya: No, no, no. And that's a great question. And it got me thinking. My, my wheels are turning, basically when a vendor approaches me, number one, I am looking for them to take a walk through the park. I love it. That's number one. I love it. And I need them to be extremely knowledgeable about their product.
Tanya: There shouldn't be many questions that I have for them that they can't answer. Yes, they should also come to me with comparison of their competitors. That is very important. Give me your comparison list. How do [00:28:00] you compare? No different than when we buy a car. We take a look at a Nissan and a Toyota and we say, which one has a sunroof, which one doesn't, and here's the price.
PETE: What distinguishes you?
Tanya: Absolutely. We are, as government employees and executives, we are consumers and they are coming here to basically sell us a product. We want to know about the product, give me the information. Really, if. If that can be accomplished, which unfortunately many vendors do not come prepared.
Tanya: They come with a lot of questions for us, but they don't have answers for us. So that would be my advice.
PETE: My my takeaway was, yes, come prepared, do your homework, and ultimately help me solve a problem that needs my mission. Wonderful.
Tanya: Yes. Yes.
PETE: Tanya, it was so awesome to meet you. What a pleasure to meet you.
PETE: And thank you. And, uh, we had a great time listening. To you today. Alright. Okay. Thank you[00:29:00]
PETE: Crystal Philcox. Great to see
Crystal: you. Good to see you too. I
PETE: love it. I love it. We're out here in Reston, Virginia at. The, uh, contact center summit and shout out to Doris Consulting to, of course, Caresoft and Act. Crystal and I are colleagues and Crystal, I am just talking to some folks as they come off stage.
PETE: Mm-hmm. About, you know, what was something that struck you in the moment and, uh, your topic was a, correct me if I'm wrong, private sector. Some of these strategies and success and use case stories that we can learn from, um, or those can learn from in the federal government. Um. You know, Verizon, capital One, Johnson and Johnson, those are some heavy hitters.
PETE: So, so yeah, it was good. Yeah. What was the intent and what do you think the audience hopefully took away
Crystal: from that? Yeah, so really we were just intending to, um, you know, get out into the government space, what is happening out in industry in terms of what folks are doing on their contact centers, um, and.
Crystal: Uh, wow. What a great, um, bunch of information, uh, just got dumped. It was fantastic. [00:30:00] Um, you know, I, I was really struck by this, um, idea of the way that they view their contact centers as so integral mm-hmm. To the entire delivery of the services that they're, that they're delivering. Right. And making sure that, um, everyone in the organization is really viewing.
Crystal: That contact center as kind of the front line Yes. Of getting information. Yes. Right. And really organizing the way that the data is coming in. So like. Like one person said, we, we got rid of email. We just don't do that anymore. It's just unstructured data. Mm-hmm. Right. Which I was like, well, of course. Why?
Crystal: Yeah, that's perfect. Right. You know, have 'em fill out a form, have it right. And then they're using really cool tools to, um, identify sentiment and identify, um, you know, pull out really, uh, get, dig into the, the details about what kinds of issues are coming in. And then they can immediately get those back out to their front line of assist, uh, you know, do standup meetings, training, alerts.
Crystal: Um, it's just, it's amazing what's happening.
PETE: Yeah. [00:31:00] You know, as a former Fed, and we've always talked about this, is we can learn so much from industry and then when industry has an opportunity to come in and support the federal mission, regardless of the agency, we're at that point now we're contact centers.
PETE: I, I, I heard the word or the phrase earlier about their tentacles. I think Tanya from Department of Labor said mm-hmm. You know, the contact center has tentacles across, you know, yes. Not just the agency, but also into. You know, the constituency in the general public. But, uh, I loved what you were saying and I loved also that, you know, this technology as an enabler is a thing.
PETE: Oh. And while AI and chatbots and cloud are important, i I, I love this sentiment, intimacy thing that I'm
Crystal: taken away from today. Today, yes. Well, and what's really cool about how. People are using AI is, um, on the one hand, they're starting to take all of the more, a little bit easier kinds of issues and just let AI handle that.
Yohanna: Yes.
Crystal: Right. AI can just handle that kind of stuff and they, and, and. On the backend, when you're into those more complex issues [00:32:00] and you really need to talk to a human, AI can then like look at what's happening there and pull out things that they can start to, yes, populate in these other self-service channels in websites and chats and all that kind of stuff.
Crystal: So yeah, really
PETE: cool. Yeah, absolutely. And again, that speaks to the, there's data. There's information with context or fuel data with context is that information. We talked and heard a lot today about contextualizing this volume and massive amount of data that is just streaming into and out of government.
PETE: So yes, uh, man, I could talk to you for hours. Yeah. But those are some great nuggets. It's great to see you as always too, as always. And, uh, best of luck in your next adventure. Thank you. If you want talk, uh, what are you gonna be doing, you think?
Crystal: Uh, yeah. Well, I am gonna be out just. You know, focusing on helping businesses, um, differentiate themselves in the space and, um, understand all the complicated acquisition stuff that's gonna be rolling out.
Crystal: Uh, pretty soon
PETE: well do that [00:33:00] relationship thing and, and that teaching thing. 'cause you're, you're. Nobody better, so, oh, thank you. It was great seeing you, you again to see you. Thanks, crystal to
Yohanna: see you. Yep. Thank you for joining us at the Contact Center Annual Summit. If you're passionate about technology and eager to explore more incredible events, make sure to visit Act IAC dot.
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