Designing the Modern Contact Center:  Recap of EITK CRS Workshop 

As customer expectations continue to evolve and AI reshapes service delivery, contact centers face a clear mandate: transform into agile, intelligent experience hubs that balance technology with human empathy. At Execs In The Know’s Customer Response Summit, PTP led a forward-looking workshop for about 40 CX and contact center leaders who are ready to move beyond “business as usual” and embrace the next era of CX. 

Why This Matters 

CX quality has been on the decline in recent years, even as investments and advancements in technology accelerate. Customers expect seamless, empathetic, and consistent experiences across every channel, but too often they encounter friction, impersonal, and fragmented. 

Workshop participants offered their insight and shared some of their organizations’ top CX challenges:

• Managing customer, employee, and leadership expectations.
• Designing and delivering effective change management programs for CX initiatives, particularly AI-related deployments.
• Educating customers to help them better understand policies, contact channels, and interaction outcomes.
• Defining, understanding, and communicating “the why” of new initiatives to gain buy-in.
• Driving adoption of new tools for both customers and employees.

To address those challenges head-on the workshop focused on: 

1. Orchestrating connected omnichannel journeys across voice, chat, email, and social. 
2. Modernizing voice platforms with next-generation IVR (NGIVR) and agentic AI.
3. Managing change effectively, gaining frontline buy-in, and aligning new tools with enterprise priorities. 

Ways to Address Common Challenges

1: Orchestrating Connected Omnichannel Journeys 

Consistency across channels is no longer optional; it’s a requirement. Customers expect the same quality of service whether they reach out by voice, chat, email, SMS, or social media. A seamless experience reduces friction, builds trust, and makes it easier for customers to resolve issues without repeating themselves. When channels are aligned, customers perceive the brand as unified and reliable.

Too often, customers encounter unnecessary obstacles in their journeys. These friction points might include being stuck in “IVR jail,” switching channels and having to start over, or hitting mismatches between contact preferences and available service options. Best practices focus on designing with the customer in mind: aligning digital and human touchpoints, offering intuitive self-service options, and ensuring smooth transitions between channels.

Agentic AI and next-generation agent assist tools are transforming how customer interactions are managed. Features such as auto compose, partial automation, auto summary, and AI coaching empower frontline agents while streamlining workflows. These tools don’t replace human agents; instead, they enhance their ability to focus on empathy-driven moments that matter most.

AI cannot handle everything on its own. Effective customer experience requires thoughtful human-in-the-loop (HITL) design, ensuring smooth AI-to-human handoffs. This is where organizations must strike a balance: deterministic bots can handle structured tasks reliably, while generative AI and agentic AI can manage more dynamic interactions. However, when escalation is required, customers should feel like the transition to a live agent is timely and seamless.

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the glue that connects the technology with the human experience. While AI delivers efficiency, EI ensures that interactions remain personal, respectful, and empathetic. Balancing automation with empathy allows organizations to leverage AI’s power while freeing human agents to focus on high-value conversations that drive loyalty and trust.

2: Modernizing Voice Platforms

Traditional IVR systems rely on menu-tree call flows: the familiar “Press 1 for…” approach. These rigid structures often frustrate customers, leading to high abandonment, lower than expected containment rates, and poor routing outcomes. Because they are siloed from other digital channels, legacy IVRs rarely offer continuity across touchpoints, leaving customers to repeat themselves when moving from voice to chat or email. Personalization is also limited, as these systems lack context-awareness or the ability to adapt to individual needs.

Next-gen IVR (NGIVR) changes the game by leveraging conversational AI and natural language understanding. Instead of rigid menus, these systems recognize customer intent, understand context, and can even detect emotion to guide interactions dynamically. NGIVRs create personalized journeys by integrating directly with backend systems, providing real-time data such as account details or order status. They also support multi-turn dialogue and orchestration powered by AI, making conversations feel more natural and productive. With modular design and low-code/no-code tools, NGIVRs are easier to update and scale, allowing businesses to stay agile as customer needs evolve. The key benefit is clear: these platforms shift voice interactions from static scripts to responsive, intelligent conversations that modernize the voice channel into a proactive front door.

Despite the rise of digital channels, voice remains a vital component of customer service. The difference today is that voice must function as part of an omnichannel ecosystem rather than a standalone channel. Customers expect seamless transitions; for example, when contactors start an inquiry in chat, they expect an escalation to voice without losing context.

Modern systems must retain information across touchpoints, so customers never need to repeat themselves. A consistent experience across voice, chat, messaging apps, email, and web or mobile interactions is now the baseline expectation. In this environment, NGIVR acts as an orchestrator, fluidly handing off conversations to human agents, chatbots, or messaging threads while preserving full context.

Agentic AI brings an even deeper transformation to the voice channel. Unlike traditional AI, which primarily responds to queries, agentic AI can act on behalf of users, taking initiative, making decisions, and orchestrating workflows. These AI agents interpret not just what customers say, but what they mean and need. They can navigate complex backend systems to complete multi-step tasks, such as rescheduling an appointment, issuing a refund, or troubleshooting a product issue. Agentic AI also offers proactive help (for example, asking, “Would you like me to handle that now?”) and continuously learns from feedback to improve.

The use cases are broad and impactful. Voice-first AI can power scheduling, provide order updates, and support account management. It can perform intelligent triage and routing, ensuring that issues reach the right channel or human agent. It can assist agents in real time by suggesting responses or solutions during live calls. And it can extend interactions beyond the call by following up through the customer’s preferred channel. Together, NGIVR and agentic AI transform voice from a legacy utility into a powerful, adaptive experience that blends automation, intelligence, and empathy.

Section 3: Managing Change in AI Deployment

AI isn’t just a technology deployment: it fundamentally changes workflows, decision-making, and even the roles of frontline employees. Without deliberate change management and robust communication, AI initiatives often stall because: 

• Unclear purpose and benefits: Employees don’t understand why AI is being introduced, leading to fear or resistance. Leaders should communicate the benefits to the customer, the employee, and the brand.  
• Job security concerns: If AI is seen as a threat rather than a tool, adoption slows and morale drops. 
• Lack of structure: Without testing and a phased approach, projects can overwhelm teams or fail to scale. Change initiatives often fail when leaders neglect to define a specific objective and the metrics to assess progress.

Change management provides the scaffolding to move from awareness (“AI is coming”) to adoption (“AI is part of how we work now”). It ensures communication, training, and reinforcement happen at each stage. Change management activities also communicate alignment with enterprise priorities and leadership expectations. 

AI projects succeed when they’re not framed as “shiny objects/next big thing/flavor of the day” but as enablers of broader business goals. Alignment creates credibility and secures resources. For example: 

• If the enterprise priority is customer loyalty, CX leaders should show how AI-enabled personalization reduces churn. 
• If the priority is operational efficiency, highlight how AI deflects routine contacts while empowering agents to resolve complex issues faster. 
• If the priority is employee retention, position AI as a “digital assistant” that reduces repetitive work and stress. 

When AI initiatives clearly map to enterprise outcomes, leaders gain buy-in faster from executives and frontline employees alike. Frontline agents are the linchpin of AI success in CX. They are the daily users, and their perception of AI will shape adoption. Effective strategies include: 

• Involve them early: Use pilots where frontline teams test AI tools and give feedback. 
• Show personal value: Demonstrate how AI reduces repetitive tasks and supports empathy-rich conversations. 
• Provide recognition: Highlight stories where human + AI collaboration improved outcomes. 
• Buy-in grows when employees move from awareness to enablement where they have the tools, training, and confidence to use AI effectively. 

Four Phases of An Effective Change Management Program

Why Now 

The future of CX will not be built sequentially; the “fixing” systems first and later adding AI is not the strategy for leading enterprises. The most forward-thinking organizations are moving in parallel, modernizing infrastructure while piloting AI to accelerate learning and results. 

This workshop highlighted that parallel approach, combining the best of human empathy, agentic AI, and omnichannel design to transform interactions into measurable business impact. We’d love to keep the conversation going or start a new one! Reach out for a personalized session with the PTP experts.  

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