THE RIGHT APPROACH IS TO BUILD A COLLABORATIVE SYSTEM WHERE AI ENHANCES THE CONTACT CENTER HUMAN WORKFORCE...
When leaders internalize that reality, the conversation shifts. It becomes acceptable, even necessary, to make broader changes around policy, data quality, and ownership to harvest the ROI that AI can offer.
It’ s not about reducing the contact center workforce. Instead, it is about building a system that handles growth and complexity with less friction, one that frees human talent for the work only humans should do.
The right approach is to build a collaborative system where AI enhances the contact center human workforce so that they can keep pace with rising volumes while changing the underlying mechanics of service for the better.
EMBEDDING CUSTOMERS IN THE WORKFLOW
Contact centers have spent decades optimizing interaction handling. Now you must optimize workflow orchestration with the customer inside it.
Customers increasingly arrive already identified and contextualized. They’ re in an app, logged into a web portal, or conversing with a bot that can pass the customer ' s state forward. That context is an asset that allows you to move from reactive triage to guided progression.
Here’ s what embedding the customer in the workflow really means:
• From tickets to tracks. Instead of treating each contact as a fresh transaction, recognize it as a segment on a defined track, such as onboarding, billing inquiry, service outage, cancelation risk, and claims fulfilment.
• Co‐navigation, not mystery. People are calmer and more trusting when they can see the steps, status, and ETA.
Surface the work to the customer( what’ s been done, what’ s next, and what’ s needed from them) and let the customer provide their feedback in the process.
It’ s a conversation that you can mine for insight, so wherever possible, capture their reactions and thoughts. Let them tell you if the process isn’ t getting them where they need to go. Silence breeds repeat contacts; transparency reduces it.
• Customer‐led triage. With context, you can ask smarter questions and let customers route themselves safely.“ It looks like you updated your address yesterday; are you calling about the new delivery?” You’ re leveraging what you already know to shrink discovery.
• Use your UIs. Historically the only interface we have with a customer is the interaction itself. If they’ re on the phone, we have to talk them through it. If they’ re on a webchat, we type.
However, if the customer is authenticated and, in a portal, you can surface information in whatever way makes sense to inform the workflow and the conversation.
• State that persists. Whether the customer is in a bot, a portal, or on a call, the workflow state should travel with them. Repetition is the enemy of trust. Persistence is table stakes.
Embedding customers in workflows creates a shared truth. It reduces effort, cuts repeat contacts, and exposes root causes in real time. It also surfaces to the customer all the work being done for them.
When you know where you stand, can see that someone’ s working to fix our issue, and feel part of the solution, you’ re just happier about it. Most importantly, it reframes service as progress through a system, not a series of disconnected conversations.
BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER
The critical cognitive shift that must occur is to move from considering the immediate interaction to understanding and enhancing the workflow behind it.
• Interactions are transactional; they’ re about managing the fallout from the broken process.
• Workflows are foundational; they’ re an understanding of how things really work for the customer.
When you instrument those workflows with data, amplify them with AI, and place the customer inside them, three things happen:
1. Root causes light up. You can see where the system breaks and what that break costs.
2. Change becomes fundable. Clear evidence plus credible ROI makes investment easier to approve.
3. Experience compounds. Transparency and continuity reduce effort for customers and agents, and each cycle makes the next one better.
WHY IT MATTERS FOR YOUR PEOPLE
The frustration of being the front line is real. It is not just about broken processes, taking the hit has a real human cost.
Tracks expose milestones, owners, and dependencies. They allow you to identify what breaks within the system, to cause the interaction in the first place.
• Signals that teach the system. Every pause, backtrack, and upload is a signal. When captured and fed back, these signals reveal friction points and broken policies faster than any post‐mortem.
36 CONTACT CENTER PIPELINE