Equip people with AI to enable them to lead with emotional intelligence - Interview with Miranda Collard of TP

0:00So welcome to the next edition of the Punk CX podcast. With me today, I have Miranda Kollacht, who is the CEO of the Americas at TP, which is formerly known as Teleperformance. Now, Miranda has spent more than 30 years on the front lines as a CX agent, but also in the boardroom. And she also still takes customer calls, which I'm super excited to hear. And we're going to find out a bit more about that a little bit later. She has a really, really deep understanding of the BPO industry and has held roles with oversight of operational delivery coupled with various support departments at TP and has experienced across a broad spectrum of industry verticals.

0:33So, Miranda, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing? Thank you so much. Very well, Adrian. Thank you. Very happy to be here. You're very welcome. Now, also I need to ask, anything that I missed in the intro that you'd like to add? No, I don't think you've missed anything. You did mention I'm now currently the CEO of The Americas, which is I'm 11 days into the role. The paint's not dry. Yes, exactly. So I'm drinking from the fire hose, but very excited about the opportunity to really create the next generation for teleperformance. And I'm at that point in my career where I look towards legacy, which is a very exciting place to be in.

1:14Awesome. Well, congratulations on that. Thank you. So foremost. But I also want to, as I said in the intro, I said that you still take customer calls and i wanted just to for a second time applaud that because it's something it's not a thing that i hear very often and it's something that i try and encourage people to do because it just collapses that distance from sort of leadership to kind of like the little front line and also the customer experience but i wanted to dig into it if i if i may and i wanted to ask you can you tell me about it and how it works and why you still do it and more importantly how often do you do it?

1:50Yeah, no, it's a great question, one that I get often. I started as a frontline expert for TP 32 years ago. It was a much simpler interaction, by the way, in those days versus what we're experiencing from the complexity of these days. But for me, it's always important to stay grounded in who we really are and how we're hoping to show up every day, both for our frontline employees and for our customers. I can tell you systematically the technology and working the systems I'm not so good at, but I love when I have an opportunity, you know, to visit one of our campuses and we're walking around to do some side-by-side listening.

2:39And if there's an escalation or just a fun opportunity to take over and have one of those customer interactions while While the employee is fiercefully helping me with the systems and the knowledge management tools and such, you know, it's a great way to connect with the people. And it's also a great way for me to connect and keep my skills honed on, you know, what the frontline is really experiencing. I wish I could do it more often, but when I cannot, I'm constantly listening and reviewing interactions, you know, even remotely, at least once a week, I'm doing those interactions. And then whenever I have the chance to be in the campus, I try and drop down as often as possible.

3:23Awesome. I mean, I have a radical kind of idea. I mean, that's, I guess that's my kind of want really. This is the Punk CX podcast after all. um that you know license fees and training and all these things aside um i would love to see a situation where everybody in an organization including the contact center people spend time on the phones or on the channels sort of like dealing with customer kind of problems i mean that for me is like a bit of a utopia an idealistic sort of thing and there's a lot lot of things will get in the way of making that happen but i think that would be incredible if somebody was able to do that at scale you know we've got the diaries and the scheduling and all the kind of the the technology there to facilitate that it's only just learning and as you say kind of like familiarity with technology and licensing and all that sort of type of things that would that would stop it but i think that would just be a fantastic situation in terms of just to have everybody really understand what's going on with customers.

4:24I think it'd be mind-blowing. I could not agree with you more, Adrienne. And I'll tell you, one of the things for me, especially not only now in the transformation we're experiencing now from customer experience, from an AI perspective, but even over the generations, I've obviously been around a long time. So there's been a lot of different innovations that have come to play. And you You can sit in a boardroom and you can sit in a conference room and you can seek for clarity and you can seek for answers and what the right path forward is. And so many times if you would just walk 20 feet out the door and listen and curate and ask the right questions, you have a wealth of information and answers at your disposal.

5:13And it shouldn't be broken up by a wall, right? It should just be an integrated system of great people wanting to do great things and innovate together for those answers. But I always find working with the frontline, they know a vast more information than I would ever know by even data or just not listening enough. But it's just an incredible, powerful tool to be able to cultivate that from the people. I remember writing something last year where I said, actually, to be successful in this era, you have to harness the power of two AIs. And I said, there's artificial intelligence and then there's agent intelligence.

5:55because what we don't acknowledge is that we have a network of biological supercomputers at our disposal that we just do not access. It's absolutely true. In fact, I get pretty maniacal about the fact of what we're able to transform right now, which is so exciting for people like me that have been a part of the frontline for so many decades. We have spent you know decades looking at training we've spent decades looking at QA and quality and data and information systems and how many systems you're logging into and all of these transformative effects to say if we could just do this if we could just change this then we would be a much powerful expert connecting with the complexity and the empathy that you really hope that we can in that customer experience and now there's literally no reason not to do those things which is beautiful which is beautiful and so exciting for people that have been around for so long yeah and i think that's the thing is a lot of it to do with like mindset sort of like in the shift and it's not we're not really held back by the technology but i wanted to come back to something that you expressed to me when we were setting up in this podcast, where you express a view that the future of CX isn't about bots versus humans.

7:24It's not this kind of combative thing. It's about equipping your people to lead with effective AI implementation that both balances both emotional and artificial intelligence. And I wanted to, because you mentioned empathy kind of a little bit earlier. I wanted to ask you, can you explain what you mean by that? Yeah, no, absolutely. It's literally my favorite topic. I believe over the decades of change and all of the technology waves that we've surfed, if you will, that what has always ended up on the outset of that is a more complex interaction requirement, which means a greater purpose of connection on the human to human.

8:09My hope and belief is that the AI and the technology, particularly that I know that TP is vastly developing and doing in with our partnerships, that we are required to ensure that those frontline experts are equipped with that right technology, whether it's agentic, whether it's transformative, whether it's consultative, whatever it may be, so that when that connection needs to happen, that it is so meaningful and that we are providing it with a level of empathy, compassion, and really driving the right experience for the person. Because if you think about what interactions will be left in that, they're highly emotional.

8:58So we've enabled, I think we're up to about 60 ,000 people right now through very key trainings on the emotional intelligence component of who we know we're going to have to be and show up with and for in that human to human interaction. And what I like to always keep in my frame of mind when I'm thinking about how meaningful that is, I will draw parallels to my mother calling in to her health insurance company and what and and I'll ask her please just always put me in on a third party I want to listen to your interaction how she felt what it meant what she needed and what she received in those and when you start to drive that personalization of what it means for you and the people you love and those around you you can quickly ascertain what that feeling needs to look like and people can connect with that our frontline can connect with those stories and so it's been an incredible journey for us nice and but i also know that because i did quite a lot of uh sort of thinking and writing and thinking about the implications of all these different sort of developments in in the the world of service and experience and and i know that um you know as technology is kind of maturing They call it an evolution or a revolution, whatever is your want.

10:30I know that the type of careers that are going to come, self-service matures, the type of careers that are going to be coming into contact centers are likely to get more complex and a bit more complicated and may require access to other knowledge and systems and things around an organization. So I wanted to understand, does that mean that you're having to change the relationship that you're having with your clients in order to integrate more closely and build different and better relationships with them. So rather than being a service provider, which is over there, you end up becoming knitted together.

11:08I literally could have said that better myself. My role in the organization was the global chief flying officer prior to my CEO appointment, I feel extremely blessed and humbled to have the deep relationships within some of the most incredible organizations around the world, number one. I feel like there has been a partnership transformation over the years of how we need to work even more closely together on what those efforts are and what that future looks like. And you could always count on a little bit of industry chaos to mold that together better right to accelerate it i guess yeah i mean and we're all in the same boat together and we're we're equally trying to solve the same problems we're equally trying to solve all of this transformation of fell fast and you know pivot and real time and all of those different things so it's tech it's really a great place for us to be together yeah Yeah.

12:12And within all of that is this kind of this new wave of technology, which is driven, it's like AI everything. Yeah. But we've seen also a lot of research. I've seen a lot of research and there's a lot of research that gets banded around that says that, and I'm not going to mention the latest MIT sort of one because it's a small sample size, but there's some other reports that have come out from both IBM and Accenture, which have much, much bigger sample size and view across a whole bunch of projects and they've said that they have had challenges scaling their ai initiatives and also delivering significant kind of value and and i want i know that you can work with well more than half of apparently the top the the forbes top 100 and i wanted to understand like tell me about some of the real results that they you've been achieving with kind of like them and also kind of like where are we where are you seeing the most success is that just in service and support or across and and other domains yeah no great question i think it's definitely it's certainly across different domains when you think about the domains and or the verticals there's a different approaches based off the expertise and you know um you think about the banking landscape and you have compliance and OCC and all of those different things that you have to have meaningful considerations for, as well as the healthcare.

13:42When you think about the consumer and the tech, of course, the tech companies are well advanced in this. And it's a beautiful dance to watch, quite frankly, where they're being super successful in some areas, but you know, they're used to failing fast in others. So making those real time pivots. And typically the rest of the industry is fast followers, just as you should be, because this is what these organizations have been doing for decades upon decades. And I think what we've seen the most success on with partnerships and organizations is a vast correction of what's possible in what we already do.

14:23So when I mentioned things like new hire training, you think about new hire training of the past, we're talking six to 16 weeks. We're talking nesting programs. We're talking a multitude of systems, sometimes of 12, 14, 16 that you need to activate, right, to really handle that interaction. So we're seeing a lot of great activity and partnership on how we increase value in that life cycle, which is something that is super, super important while the rest of the things from an AI perspective really come along. But when you look at things like AI and where we've been able to adapt like a international fast fashion brand, they were experiencing a high amount of refunds and using AI and solutioning across the board.

15:20your real-time understanding what's driving that, what about the product, how do we pivot and change, and then how do we create a more consultative expert at the front to really help adapt and overcome that. And immediately in the short term, you start to see an 11 % improvement in that number, and it's just leveraging real-time data and information to make that real-time impact. And there's likely hundreds of examples of those small things that are really working that will start to support the bigger effort from AI holistically end to end. And I guess that's also indicative of the 11 % around fast fashion and things.

16:09But that's also indicative of the partnership approach that you're taking. Absolutely. actually you can surface that in the contact center with your data you can go oh this is a thing but then you've got to pipe it through to the decision makers around whether maybe with the recommendation how about this and then they they get that they go yeah do that and then or they have to change something on their end and then you can execute it and then it you know the feedback loop starts that it starts to happen so that you're kind of that's i guess you when you when you're dealing with an outsourcer but you're surfacing some of these insights you almost have to take that closer partnership kind of model to be able to execute and act on those kind of insights that are happening, as you say, in real time.

16:51Yeah, absolutely. Because if you think about the journey map, the end-to-end journey map, we all used to work together to really solve from an end-to-end and go through. It was exciting. It was about experience. It might've been about MPS. It might've been about retention, maybe sales, driving revenue, all of those things. now there's an underlay of that same journey map that is technology and it could be a multitude of technologies it could be the stack that's written against it but as those things start to happen you then have unintended outcomes that are beautiful come to surface so when you reduce the refunds and exchanges by 11 real time and you start to bring that consultative portion of an interaction coming forward, then all of a sudden you see that your revenue per order is up 27%.

17:44That wasn't the problem statement at the beginning. No, not at all. But it's a beautiful outcome because you're constantly evaluating that journey map together on mechanically things that are happening and the customer behaviors that are being adopted because of it. Perfect. um now those are some examples i guess that um are there other examples that you think these are my favorite stories that you just think they've surmounted a mountain as it were and they've just kind of triumphed things i mean can you share me share with me a couple of stories of that because we like yeah my favorite stories are always the ones where i walk away saying i want to get my hands on that.

18:31I want to touch that. I want to get my hands on that problem statement. I would say one of my other really incredible stories is for a multinational food and beverage company that we were working with. And as you can imagine, the sales is very important in that element, as is the customer retention and the churn. And we really wanted to optimize some of those outcomes of what, you know, they needed to achieve and what we wanted to make sure we were partnering to achieve. And the team did a sensational kind of design thinking session together to really bring in, you know, different elements of AI along the way, not just from an identification, but as a precursor of attributes that might drive that churn or, you know, might hurt that customer relationship so that as those interactions were happening, we were able to insert some of those characteristics and AI tools in between it that would signal the team that we need to do something a little bit different and really optimize the outreach of that individual.

19:46So we were now proactively outreaching to these customers based off these signals and really driving an influential outcome where the retention was increased and the, you know, the amount of business that this organization was receiving was even much better. So that's kind of exciting. And, and in those little elements, it's so important that the frontline is a part of that, because these are the things that they say all the time. If you just did this, if we just tried that. So it kind of, that one feels like a full ecosystem for me, generally speaking, where, you know, it was frontline expertise.

20:30It was a great partnership. It was transparent design thinking. It was clear problem identification. And when that success breeds and matches back to that frontline, it's a beautiful experience, right? Because they were a part of something very big and beautiful for that partnership and it seems to me throughout all of this is that actually the thing that's that you're doing is like despite all of the the advancements in technology and the excitement and potential around that around it is like going you're still taking a very human first sort of approach it's like it's at the center of kind of what you what you do you're leading with that it's almost like it's human kind of backed by sort of are unenabled by kind of technology and i know that different people are taking slightly different approaches some people are going to be very tech first and but you're it feels like you're being very human first i mean how's the market perceiving kind of that is that kind of differentiating yourself amongst all the noise that it's technology right now yeah no i think that's a great question we were we were absolutely first to adopt you know this ai ei approach to our organization, likely because we've been through this in a lot of different aspects of the business, but we know definitively that interaction that will remain because something will remain, it's going to be more complex and require a different skill set.

22:05There's no other organization, in my beautiful, humble opinion, than TP that's more enabled to be able to transform with the industry while the businesses are transforming at the same time. We obviously believe and know that the more simple transactions that have been automated for three decades now will continue to be automated and they'll continue to have work streams that take the more simple things, the agentic AI, the generative AI, that all of those things are still going to play a very, very important role. So we're riding that out and we're a part of that. And we're leaning in with the technology with a clear understanding that what's left and continues to evolve.

22:51I liken it to Jurassic Park. Life will find a way, you know, what continues to evolve that we have to be ready for that. And we have to be supporting the people and the education and the tools and everything that they need in order to meet the market where it needs to be met in that. So I feel like we've been very firm in our convictions and provocation of where it's headed. We've been through this before, and we know at the end of the day, we have to take both sides of that from the technology, as well as what's left, and for the people that are there handling those interactions. Perfect. So, um, any other favorite stories you want to add or any other sort of things that you want to add before I, um, before I can ask you some quick fire questions to wrap up?

23:43Oh no, I love the quick fire. Let's do it. So let's do quick fire. So what I always like to do, cause we talk about different sort of things. I always, and, and have a bit of a rummage around on these podcasts. Um, I always like to ask people, boil it down, gonna give me your best advice and the way i've been doing that recently is to say imagine you're sort of speaking to a bunch of leaders that are service and experience leaders um and you have to complete this sentence and the sentence is if you want to improve your customer or employee experience miranda says do this dot dot oh miranda would say you absolutely need to know definitively what you're trying to solve for.

24:31Get the problem statement right. Don't just do technology and transformation as a check in the box, right? There has to be a real problem statement. And when you understand that, you can curate so much data, information, ideas, and innovation from all of those people around your business. And I guarantee if you're looking for five answers, you'll get three of them from that group of individuals. Awesome. Thank you. So my second one, and it has to be a punk related one, because this is the Punk CX podcast. I said, so what company or brand do you think takes a more punk approach to customer experience and why oh that's a great question you know without mentioning any names um there are so many great examples by the way uh to answer that question but i'll lean on where i've spent a lot of my time here recently which is a very large global tech company and one One of the most recent meetings we had with very senior leaders across this organization was sensational.

25:52We had the opportunity to, I called it speed dating. We speed dated where there was 10 different sections and tables set up inside of this organization with all of the business owners, all of what they were trying to sell for and all what they were trying to do. and we had an opportunity to go and do what you and I are doing now just kind of this quick Q &A what are you doing what are you and it was so innovative so inspiring and even when we came back to have follow-up notes you know many times you think okay it's not really going to go anywhere from here but the the work product and the partnership and what everybody's doing together because of that has been just sensational.

26:42It's like one of those things where there's no ideas or bad ideas. We're really just trying to solve things together. When I think about this organization and this company, leveraging partners like TP and others in their procurement network, I think that's incredible that they're saying enough to say, I don't have to know all the answers. I have people out here that can help me, that see me, that want to know more and want to be a part of this beautiful process going forward. So I was absolutely blown away by that. Awesome. What a great story. And talking about stories, I always, my last question, and I've been asking this for a little while right now, is that, and I ask people to tell me a good news story, because I think we can probably all agree there's a lot of doom scrolling going on right now um and so Miranda can you tell me a good story a good news story or so we can end on a positive note so tell me something tell me what's the most interesting positive or exciting thing that you've seen in the last week no I mean that's a great question and by the way I'm a cup half full girl I like to see the beauty and possibility in all things so I really appreciate that question you know um over the last you know 11 days week as we've started to announce the organization.

28:04I've received a lot of great messages, heartfelt messages, emails, phone calls, text messages from so many incredible champions that I've been lucky to have in my career and in my life. And I got one particularly from an individual in our organization that sent me the kindest note about how much she has watched me and paid attention and appreciates the value of what she sees me doing as breaking the glass ceiling. And it occurred to me in all of my TP women work and D and I work that I've done throughout the organization in and out of TP that, you know, it is a blessing to have these unseen champions and people in your life that is a constant reminder that your value is outside of the noise too.

29:02You're in the day-to-day, you're in the huddle, you're, you know, getting out of the fires, you're doing all of these things, but there's meaningful people and meaningful interactions happening and watching to see who you are, how you are, how you show up, be yourself and do all of the things. So I think the most meaningful thing for me this last week is the reminder and the constant reminder that we are all connecting for something and we're all connected together. And I think all of that kindness, particularly in the world today, could go a long way. awesome well thank you for the sharing that story and again congratulations on your recent promotion thank you and appointment and that's all i have for today i just wanted to say thank you for sharing some time with me today thank you for sharing your insight and your experience and yeah no that's been great so thank you so much thank you so much adrian it's been my pleasure Wow, what a great interview.

30:10I hope you enjoyed it. I know I did. Find out more about me and the work that I do at adrianswinsko.com. Do leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. And if you have any comments, feedback, or questions about the podcast, then feel free to send me a message to podcast at adrianswinsko.com. And do tune in again. Thanks very much.