Contact Center Show – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Détails du podcast

Informations techniques et générales issues du flux RSS du podcast.

Contact Center Show

Amas Tenumah & Bob Furniss

Business & Entrepreneuriat

Fréquence : 1 épisode/21j. Total Éps: 96

This is the public square for all things contact center. This is where the world's best Call & Contact center professionals come to get better at delivering a great experience for customers. Your contact center mentors - Amas Tenumah & Bob Furniss

Lire plusRéduire

Site

RSS

Classements récents

Dernières positions dans les classements Apple Podcasts et Spotify.

Apple Podcasts

Aucun classement récent disponible

Spotify

Aucun classement récent disponible

Liens partagés entre épisodes et podcasts

Liens présents dans les descriptions d'épisodes et autres podcasts les utilisant également.

http://linkedin.com/in/amastenumah/
22 partages
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobfurniss/
19 partages
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikestockactual/
2 partages

Qualité et score du flux RSS

Évaluation technique de la qualité et de la structure du flux RSS.

Qualité du flux RSS

À améliorer

Score global : 28%

Historique des publications

Répartition mensuelle des publications d'épisodes au fil des années.

Year

Derniers épisodes publiés

Liste des épisodes récents, avec titres, durées et descriptions.

Why Contact Center Training Is Still Broken in 2026

lundi 22 juin 2026 • Durée 19:02

The more important question might be: why are we still struggling with the same training problems we've had for twenty years?

In this episode, we tackle a challenge facing nearly every contact center: new hire training that produces high attrition, slow ramp times, and inconsistent performance.

The conversation started with a client losing roughly half of its new hires during training and another portion during nesting. Despite new technology, the outcomes felt painfully familiar.

We explored some uncomfortable questions:

Are organizations hiring the right people for the job?
Do recruiters actually understand the roles they're filling?
Are training programs teaching agents what to know instead of how to find answers?
Why are contact centers still trying to memorize information that changes every few weeks?
How much time do leaders spend observing their own training programs?

Bob argues that many training failures begin before day one, with hiring processes that prioritize filling seats instead of finding the right fit.

We also discuss one of the biggest missed opportunities in modern training:

AI is changing how agents work, but many training organizations haven't changed how they train.

As AI-powered knowledge systems, agent assist tools, and automation become standard, training leaders need a seat at the table. Yet in many organizations, training teams are disconnected from the technology decisions that will fundamentally reshape agent performance.

One of the biggest insights from the discussion:

The real opportunity isn't using AI to automate training.

It's using AI to automate the things training used to spend time on so trainers can focus on the skills that matter most:

Building rapport
Problem solving
Judgment
De-escalation
Relationship-building
Handling difficult conversations

Technology changes.

The fundamentals don't.

Topics discussed:

Why new hire attrition remains so high
Hiring mistakes that create training failures
Teaching agents how to find answers versus memorizing answers
The role of nesting and floor support
Why training content quickly becomes obsolete
The disconnect between training teams and AI initiatives
Agent assist and the future of onboarding
Tough skills versus technical skills
Why fundamentals still matter in modern contact centers
How AI should reshape training priorities

Lire plusRéduire

AI Is Replacing Tasks. The Real Question Is What Happens to Relationships?

jeudi 11 juin 2026 • Durée 18:44

Bob just returned from Italy with a story that should make every customer service leader pay attention.

At train stations in Venice and Florence, there were no employees to help. Just kiosks. If you wanted a ticket, you figured it out yourself. If you had a question, there was nobody to ask. It wasn't a glimpse of the future. It was the present.

That experience led us into a bigger discussion about AI, automation, and what customer service becomes when human interaction disappears.

We unpacked a recent Anthropic report showing that customer service roles have some of the highest exposure to AI-driven task automation. But exposure to tasks is not the same as elimination of jobs.

The deeper question is this:

Is customer service simply a collection of transactions, or is it fundamentally about relationships?

We discussed real-world results from an enterprise deployment of agentic AI where:

Escalation rates were 4x higher when customers interacted with AI versus humans.
Customers were significantly more likely to demand supervisors from bots.
Contact volume increased by 50% in less than six months.
Companies discovered that delivering bad news remains far more effective when done by a human.

History suggests that new channels rarely reduce demand. Email didn't reduce contacts. ATMs didn't eliminate bank tellers. They changed the nature of the work.

AI may do the same.

At the same time, organizations are racing toward automation while learning that token costs, increased interactions, and customer behavior may complicate the promised economics.

The technology is arriving at bullet-train speed.

The question is no longer whether AI is coming.

The question is:

Who are you in an AI-first world?

Will your company become a vending machine that happens to sell products?

Embracing AI in Quality Assurance: A Double-Edged Sword for Contact Centers

dimanche 1 février 2026 • Durée 21:03

Summary

In this conversation, Amas Tenumah and Bob Furniss discuss the implications of AI in quality assurance within contact centers. They explore the benefits of AI, such as increased coverage and trend spotting, while also addressing concerns about accuracy and the potential for AI to replace human interaction. The discussion emphasizes the importance of using AI to enhance human capabilities rather than eliminate them, and the need for effective coaching and data utilization to improve agent performance.

Main Content:

Understanding AI in Quality Assurance
The podcast opens with a light-hearted discussion about the weather, but it quickly shifts focus to a pressing topic: the use of AI in quality assurance. Amas and Bob agree that deploying AI in this area can be beneficial, especially regarding monitoring agent performance. One of the primary advantages they mention is the ability to achieve 100% call coverage. Traditionally, QA teams may only review a small percentage of calls, leading to inaccurate assessments of agent performance. With AI, contact centers can analyze every call, providing a more accurate picture of quality and performance.

Spotting Trends and Gaining Insights
Another significant benefit of AI mentioned in the podcast is its capability to spot trends in customer interactions. Bob highlights the importance of understanding call spikes, such as the recent increase in calls related to a coupon offer. AI can analyze large data sets quickly, allowing managers to respond to customer needs more effectively. This capability not only improves the customer experience but also empowers managers to make informed decisions based on real-time data.

The Risks of Relying Solely on AI
While Amas and Bob are enthusiastic about the potential of AI, they also express concern over its limitations. One critical issue is the accuracy of AI assessments. Amas warns that AI systems are often trained on human data, which can lead to discrepancies in scoring calls. He emphasizes the need for a human touch in QA processes, suggesting that AI should assist rather than replace human judgment. Without human oversight, there's a risk that AI can misinterpret nuances in customer-agent interactions, leading to misguided conclusions.

Is AI a Threat to CRM?

dimanche 25 janvier 2026 • Durée 17:00

Summary

In this episode, Amas Tenumah and Bob Furniss delve into the current state of Software as a Service (SaaS) and its intersection with artificial intelligence (AI), particularly in the context of contact centers. They discuss the recent downturn in stock prices for major SaaS companies like Salesforce and ServiceNow, attributing this to Wall Street's skepticism about the actual impact of AI on these platforms. Amas expresses concern that the hype surrounding AI is outpacing the reality of its implementation, suggesting that many companies are not yet ready to fully embrace AI-driven solutions. Bob echoes this sentiment, emphasizing the importance of expertise and experience in successfully implementing these technologies.

AI hype is ahead of customer readiness.
Wall Street is skeptical about SaaS companies' future.
Vibe coding may not replace the need for expertise.
Experience in implementation outweighs potential of new tech.
Both extremes of AI adoption are currently inaccurate.

Sound bites

"Service now stock hasn't been this cheap in like four years."
"There's two different stories going on here."
"Both extremes are wrong today."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Current Market Overview
00:53 The Impact of AI on SaaS Companies
03:42 Building vs. Buying: The New Paradigm
07:18 Navigating Contract Renewals and New Technologies
10:49 The Future of AI in the Contact Center Industry
13:38 Conclusion and Key Takeaways

Lire plusRéduire

Stop Chasing Vanity Metrics

dimanche 18 janvier 2026 • Durée 18:32

Most customer experience goals are meaningless. In this episode, Bob Furniss and Amas Tenumah dismantle the way contact centers set annual CX metrics and explain why leaders keep optimizing numbers that customers neither notice nor value.

Using insights from a John Goodman article on CX goal-setting, the conversation exposes the disconnect between executives, customers, and frontline teams—and why automation, deflection, and "respectable" percentage improvements often make service worse, not better.

This episode is about shifting from internally convenient metrics to customer-impactful outcomes.

What You'll Hear

Why CX goals are often chosen because they sound reasonable, not because they solve customer problems
How executives chase a single "magic number" instead of understanding service complexity
The fundamental incentive gap between customers and senior leadership
Why customers and frontline agents are aligned—but executives aren't
How automation and bots optimize company metrics while frustrating customers
Where AI actually helps: analyzing volume, root causes, and systemic friction
Why average metrics (ASA, AHT) distort reality and reward the wrong behavior
How poor goal-setting punishes leaders who successfully automate the "easy" work
The risk of letting someone else define your goals if you don't take control
A real-world example of automation done right—and how bad metrics mislabel it as failure

Key Takeaways

Vanity metrics don't fix customer experience
Deflection and containment may look good internally while actively harming trust
CX leaders must own the narrative or be trapped chasing numbers they don't believe in
AI should surface customer pain, not just reduce contact volume
Goals should reflect customer outcomes, not executive convenience

Resources Mentioned

Who This Episode Is For

New Year Predictions — What 2025 Got Wrong, What 2026 Gets Right

mardi 13 janvier 2026 • Durée 13:02

2025 predictions — graded AI-powered knowledge

Bob's 2025 prediction: AI would dramatically improve knowledge in contact centers.
Result: Early but mostly wrong.

The technology moved, but the data did not. Knowledge bases were too fragmented, too dirty, and too poorly governed for AI to meaningfully improve frontline work. The industry instead spent another year chasing bots, automation, and surface-level "AI assistants."

Grade: C+

The failure was not AI. It was the state of enterprise knowledge.

Remote work reversal

Bob's 2025 prediction: Work-from-home would shrink and revert toward pre-COVID norms.
Result: Correct.

Remote and hybrid work has fallen to within five percentage points of pre-COVID levels. Companies quietly reversed course not because it helped customers or employees, but because leadership never learned how to manage distributed teams.

Hybrid was the worst of both worlds: frontline leaders juggling physical rooms, video calls, and dashboards without the training or structure to do any of it well.

Grade: A

Why remote work collapsed

The reversal was not ideological. It was operational.

Executives defaulted back to what felt controllable: physical presence. Organizations refused to do the hard work of re-engineering leadership, coaching, quality management, and accountability for a distributed workforce. They solved a people problem with proximity.

Amas' prediction for 2026

Voice comes back.

Digital channels absorbed most of the AI hype: chat, bots, messaging, and self-service. But customers never stopped calling. Voice is where frustration spikes, where trust is tested, and where automation breaks down.

Amas' call: 2026 will be the year voice reasserts itself as the center of the customer relationship — and the CCaaS market will look radically different by 2027 because of it.

Bob's prediction for 2026 What the industry is claiming Amas' 2026 wish Bob's 2026 wish Core takeaway

HOLD — The Suffering Economy of Customer Service

lundi 5 janvier 2026 • Durée 33:42

Amas Tenumah explains why customer service is not "broken" but intentionally designed to fail. Drawing on decades inside contact centers, historical research, and real corporate incentives, he argues that long waits, deflection, and automation-first strategies are features—not bugs. The conversation dismantles common CX myths, challenges executive complacency, and frames consumer behavior as the only force capable of triggering real change.

Core Themes

The Suffering Economy of Customer Service:
When service is universally bad across industries, it's systemic. Incentives—not incompetence—drive outcomes.
Why This Is a "How Dare You" Book:
The indictment is aimed squarely at executives who treat service as a cost center while overfunding marketing narratives.
Marketing Replaced Service as Trust Mechanism:
Historically, service was marketing. Industrialized marketing severed that link, allowing companies to tolerate bad service and buy growth instead.
Metrics That Poison Service:
Deflection, containment, and avoidance KPIs reward companies for not talking to customers—while punishing leaders who try to deliver what customers actually want.
Wait Times Are Engineered:
Hold times are budgeted, modeled, and accepted. They are designed friction, not operational accidents.
AI as Distance, Not Salvation:
AI is currently deployed to protect companies from customers, not customers from friction. It scales avoidance unless incentives change.
Executives Don't Experience Their Own Service:
Many leaders despise customer service—just not their own. Forcing executives to call their own 1-800 numbers is revelatory and uncomfortable.
The Revolt Is Consumer-Led:
Change will not come from CX professionals alone. It comes when consumers punish bad service with their wallets and reward companies that respect their time.

Notable Moments

The opening story of the 1750 BC clay tablet complaint—the first recorded customer service grievance—reads like a modern Amazon review.

Practical Takeaways Resources Mentioned

Empowering Sales Teams through AI

lundi 8 décembre 2025 • Durée 22:23

Summary

The conversation explores the integration of AI in sales, focusing on how it enhances customer engagement and improves sales efficiency. Bob Furniss discusses the importance of using data to empower salespeople rather than reducing their numbers, emphasizing a customer-centric approach to AI in sales.

Takeaways

AI can enhance customer engagement in sales.
The focus should be on empowering salespeople with data.
AI is not just about reducing costs but improving efficiency.
Sales strategies should prioritize customer needs.
Data-driven insights can lead to better sales outcomes.
AI can make sales calls faster and smarter.
The role of AI is to support, not replace, sales personnel.
Understanding customer needs is crucial in sales.
AI tools should be designed to assist sales processes.
The future of sales lies in the integration of technology and human touch.

Lire plusRéduire

Unlocking Value in Contact Centers with Brad Cleveland

vendredi 21 novembre 2025 • Durée 26:32

Summary

In this conversation, Amas Tenumah, Bob Furniss and Brad Cleveland discusses the three levels of value that contact centers create: efficiency, customer satisfaction and loyalty, and strategic insights provided by AI. He emphasizes the importance of these levels in improving products, services, and processes.

Takeaways

there's three levels of value that contact centers create
Level one is efficiency
customer satisfaction, loyalty, if we do a good job
it's the strategic insight that AI can provide
it can still tell us, hey, here's a trend I'm seeing
Here's an opportunity to improve products and services
AI doesn't have to be perfect to provide value
Strategic insights can drive business improvements
Understanding trends is crucial for growth
Contact centers play a vital role in customer experience

Titles

Unlocking Value in Contact Centers
The Role of AI in Customer Service

Sound bites

"Level one is efficiency"
"customer satisfaction, loyalty, if we do a good job"
"it's the strategic insight that AI can provide"

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Contact Center Show
00:27 AI and Its Impact on Customer Interactions
00:31 Future Jobs in the Contact Center Industry

Lire plusRéduire

Stacy Sherman: Why 'Satisfied' Is the New 'Fine' And 12 Reasons That's Not Good Enough"

mardi 18 novembre 2025 • Durée 22:45

Low-Cost, High-Impact CX Improvements

The Power of Language:

Transform "I can't" into "How can we"
Shift from "I have to" to "We get to"
Being "impeccable with your word" (inspired by The Four Agreements)
Words trigger emotional responses that shape customer perception

Getting CX Buy-In Across Organizations

The Alignment Problem:

CX initiatives fail when metrics aren't shared across departments
Success came when executives adopted the same CX metrics as the CX team
Without shared goals, customer insights get shelved with "we'll get to it later"

The Pilot Program Strategy:

Start small before asking for big budgets
Show proof of concept with intentional, measurable pilots
Use success to rally and align different areas of the company

Real Example - CX Day Success:

Introduced first-ever CX Day celebration at 145-year-old engineering company
Started small despite skepticism
Now an annual tradition that continues after her departure

Rethinking CX Metrics

Beyond Traditional Measurements:

NPS and effort scores are starting points, not endpoints
"Satisfaction" is no longer good enough (it's the equivalent of "fine")
New focus: Emotional altitude across every touchpoint

The Emotional Impact:

Brains constantly cycle between thinking and feeling
Emotions create lasting imprints that shape brand perception
Research shows: 12 positive experiences needed to overcome 1 negative
Measure emotional highs to identify gaps and successes

The Future of Contact Centers The Power of Customer Voice The Fundamental C-Suite Challenge Notable Stories Takeaways for Contact Center Leaders

Podcasts Similaires Basées sur le Contenu

Découvrez des podcasts liées à Contact Center Show. Explorez des podcasts avec des thèmes, sujets, et formats similaires. Ces similarités sont calculées grâce à des données tangibles, pas d'extrapolations !

À propos Méthodologie Contact Me soutenir Politique de confidentialité

Contact Center Show – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Détails du podcast

Classements récents

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Liens partagés entre épisodes et podcasts

LinkedIn7

Qualité et score du flux RSS

Historique des publications

Derniers épisodes publiés

Podcasts et contenus similaires

Podcasts Similaires Basées sur le Contenu

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Podcasts Similaires Basées sur le Contenu

LinkedIn7

Other17

Amazon2