Over the last several weeks, organisations have faced unprecedented challenges and disruptions, some in a fight for their survival. The world has had no option but to adapt. But we also have had the opportunity to adapt quickly and intelligently.
A few weeks ago, we held our London Customer eXperience Summit as a virtual event. Over 100 customers and prospects attended via live broadcast. Ironically, months ago, we scheduled our featured keynote – Chris Jewell of the British Cave Rescue Council, a member of the team that in 2018 rescued 13 boys trapped in the cave in Thailand. Chris shared his story with our virtual attendees – underscoring that the situation was hopeless, had never been seen before, and there was no plan. Chris shared how people stepped-up – across every function and at the leadership level – to manage through the life-or-death crisis.
Chris and the team mapped out a plan that was informed by imperfect, incomplete and changing data, stayed agile, adapted, and focused. Despite being deeply aware of the risks and justifiable fear, they remained committed, focused, and smart. They executed the plan, adapted along the way, and saved the lives of all 13, without further loss of life or injury to the rescue team.
The story Chris shared was timely and inspiring – especially now as we all need to think differently about the nature of business and workforces. Businesses across the world are adapting – by remaining committed to their people and their customers – and executing focused and smart plans. They are embracing technology and moving away from purely manual processes.
Nuance is fortunate to be in the position to help our customers as they navigate new challenges to maintain business continuity, for their customers and employees. Our technology is enabling financial services, retail, telecom, and travel organisations to service the large influx of inbound and outbound engagement via high-performing automation. For example, customers are implementing:
- virtual assistants to enable self-service on voice and digital channels
- predictive analytics to anticipate and communicate a resolution to the customer before they call, and
- voice biometrics to defend against the onslaught of fraudsters using social engineering attacks taking advantage of overwhelmed agents trying to help legitimate customers.
However, today, the story is not about AI driving down costs or speeding up time to resolution. It’s way more than that. The story is about fundamentally helping all of us stay connected and engaged, minimising disruption, and continuing to meet new and unexpected challenges. At Nuance our commitment to improve the connections between people, organisations, and brands has never been stronger. Our expanded commitment is to also do our part in helping our customers and the world get through this together – and come out even stronger on the other side.
To do so, we are providing a growing number of our enterprise customers with free capabilities to help address the increased intensity and operational stress that COVID-19 is placing on their customer engagement systems and teams.
Most of all, we want to thank everyone on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic who are caring for those in need. For those of us that are not medical professionals, but want to do whatever we can to help – we will do our best to help and honor your commitment by staying home, flattening the curve – and helping each other stay connected, so we can all get through this together.
Although the word “thanks” doesn’t quite seem powerful enough – there is deep gratefulness, kindness, and sincerity intended. Nuance thanks all our frontline healthcare workers, their families – and everyone impacted by COVID-19 – for staying strong on the journey to the other side of this pandemic.
