This week I am attending the Arch Summit in Luxembourg. This is a very unusual event because it’s the only one I know of globally that focuses on both the large corporate and startup business communities. The event is designed to help these two communities meet and benefit from each other.

If you look at the event website then it’s clear that they have taken inspiration from TV shows such as Shark Tank and Dragon’s Den. The emphasis is on innovation and helping young startup companies source additional funding and advice.

I believe that events like this are critically important for the customer experience (CX) community at present. Take a look at any business journal featuring an exploration of the future of CX and the technological innovation is astonishing. Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing, Robotic Process Automation. Anyone thinking about how CX will work in future needs to learn an entirely new vocabulary that is full of acronyms such as RPA, AI, and VR.

The problem is that most of the customer service experts (like Webhelp) are busy working on behalf of their clients and those clients usually have some well-defined service levels. They want innovation and advice on the future, but they don’t want anyone messing around with their customers, just as an experiment. On the flip side, most of the small companies designing highly innovative new solutions do not have access to large scale customer service centres where they could road test their solutions in a live environment.

This is why it’s so important to be present at events like the Arch Summit. A case study on the event website describes how a small software company called ChatLingual managed to partner with Vodafone on a customer chat solution because they met at the event last year.

It’s this serendipity that is important. The Arch Summit is creating a platform for innovators to demonstrate their ideas in front of companies that already have a large customer base. Both the small companies and the larger ones benefit from this arrangement – the small companies are finding clients and partners and the larger companies benefit from being able to introduce new ideas to their own clients in a low-cost low-risk way.

This is precisely why Webhelp has a division called ‘The Nest’ that is exclusively focused on helping high potential startups ‘crack’ customer experience from the outset, helping them devise CX strategies and scale effectively. They benefit from our global experience, and we learn how industries are being disrupted and are at the forefront of new, innovative offerings.

To conclude, it’s clear that customer service is changing and technology is a key driver of this change. Customers want increased personalisation and more interactive service. This leads to a requirement for data analytics and the use of AI chatbots and AI systems that can support agents in the contact centre. The pace of change is so rapid that it can sometimes feel like new technologies are created just to transform the customer experience. Events like the Arch Summit are a great way to stay on top of what is going on and to cement partnerships for the future. I know that our clients appreciate that we are constantly seeking new ideas and are able to offer them advice on what their customers may be expecting next year.

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I’m really enjoying speaking to startups and corporates at the Arch Summit. If you are going to be there then please say hello or connect via my LinkedIn.

 

 

 

Author: Matt Camille, Account Development Director for Webhelp UK