Latest / The Tech Matchmaker / Transforming BPOs with AI and Technology | John Coulter from Five Star on The Tech Matchmaker
Transcript
- Gina Gibson: Welcome to the Tech Matchmaker, the show where contact center challenges meet their perfect tech match. I'm your host, Gina Gibson, and in just 15 minutes, we serve up the smartest, coolest innovation shaking up the contact center industry. Whether you're searching for your next solution or just love staying ahead of the curve, we've got the insights to keep you in the know. Let's dive in and discover what's next. I promise you it's going to be fun. Hello everybody. Today we are chatting with John Coulter, who is the vice president of Five Star Call Centers about optimizing contact center performance in the BPO space. John, thanks so much for joining us today. It's great to see you. Thanks for hanging out with us on the Tech Matchmaker. I hope today's spotlight sparked some fresh ideas and real solutions for your contact center. Want to dive deeper into the tech we featured? Hit up the show notes for all the links and extras and be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if there's a challenge you want us to tackle, don't be shy, reach out. I'll catch you soon with more innovation, more use cases and more ways to keep your business moving forward. John Coulter: Always great to see you. Thanks for having me on today. Gina Gibson: Absolutely. Let's start with the basics. Tell us all a little bit about yourself. John Coulter: Yeah, a little about me. I've been in the contact center space for 20 years. I've been with Five Star for 14. ⁓ Kind of on the operational innovation, kind of new business development side is kind of where I run for my vertical. You know, it's kind of fun, you know, how we worked and what we did five years ago is significantly different than what we do today. So super excited to kind of dive through. Gina Gibson: Stay curious, stay bold, and keep exploring what's next. John Coulter: The evolution of Contact Center since I started, you know, manually dialing, believe it or not, versus all the great technologies that exist today. So kind of part of my role is just staying up to date on the greatest and, you know, what's true, what's not true, and how technology is evolving our worlds today. Gina Gibson: Excellent. I always like to ask everybody to, John, tell us one thing about yourself that we may not find on LinkedIn. John Coulter: ⁓ I was a soccer coach for all of my kids for, gosh, 10 years would be one thing I don't brag about because I think I got yelled at by enough parents as it was over that course of my lifetime. Gina Gibson: Excellent. So John, us what does Five Star exactly do? What are the services you offer and who is Five Star? John Coulter: Yeah, so ⁓ in the industry, obviously, we're BPO, business process outsourcer. I would say that's evolved significantly, especially over the last few years. You know, we used to just be primarily agents, so people who needed help staffing, ⁓ kind of managing the day to day of their, you know, CX or PX. But now it's really kind of evolving. into new roles into the technology space with digital agents, a lot of the self-help and AI tools that exist. A lot of companies are leveraging people like Five Star and other groups within the industry to really help them improve their customer or patient experiences. Gina Gibson: Excellent. And who should, who do you think, John, when you're for those people listening, like who should consider using a BPO? Because you said, you know, it started just as agents and seats, but it's now evolving into more of a technology ad. Can you help them understand what the benefits are of using Five Star? John Coulter: Yeah, an example would just be myself or our senior leadership team. You know, I'm actually the baby of the eight of us on the senior leadership side with 14 years at Five Star. The rest have been here significantly longer, but just the... best experiences we have within contact centers. Most companies don't keep up to date on the newest technologies, the newest things they can be doing to improve customer satisfaction, reduce expenses, really start building out what their AI journey looks like. So a lot of groups are using companies like us to really help them build out their new CX practice and kind of bring it into the 2025 realm of where AI actually is. today. Gina Gibson: And is that one of your differentiators would you say like, you know, in a market that might be considered flooded in the BPO space, like what are your other differentiators? Because I know. John Coulter: Yeah, I would say that. There's a few different I think our size is one of our greatest strengths, you know, we got about 1200 agents 900 in the US and then we actually have a near shore center as well So for people who need bilingual needs or maybe a reduction in expenses, we're able to pivot there as well So cost is definitely one but ultimately the I would say experience on the technology side, you know as a BPO one of our greatest strengths is we provide technology but about half of our clients provide technology that they may or may not be proficient with. So we are kind of becoming experts in you name a technology stack and we probably ride along on it now with our 40 clients that we support really in a couple different verticals we support. You know really big in healthcare, product and technical support and retail have really kind of I would say has been our biggest growth over the last three years for sure. Gina Gibson: And you bring up an interesting point, right? Like where the customer brings you technology. I think we've all experienced places or times where you'll go into a site and they might be only using maybe 20 % of the features and functionality, right? So is that something you then help the customer discover and say, wow, did you know with this software we can also be doing, you know, John Coulter: A lot of the time, would say, you know, half of our customers, use their tech, which is perfectly fine. So we're kind of the staff augmentation. So we're the agents, but then we're ultimately helping optimize that tech, as you said. A lot of times we're not experts in it either. So we need to tap someone like you to say, Gina, I need help, ⁓ kind of on their AI readiness or what other options exist today. ⁓ So we've got people like you, we work within the industry to really help our partners just use their technology. to the fullest. We'd rather have them, we know what's possible with all the technologies, we just don't know the behind the scenes of how to build it. So that's where we use someone like you to really help us. Gina Gibson: Excellent, and it's always fun working with you guys for sure. Tell us a success story, John, of one of your customers or a couple of success stories of how you guys have helped somebody out. John Coulter: I would say, you know, we help everybody I hope, right? That's why they use us. I would say, you know, one of our greatest strengths, if you call any one of my 40 customers, they like doing business with us. We're good people, we're fun or engaging. You know, I think the success stories really are the partnerships. We have a client that's been with us for over 20 years and really we've helped them on their technology journey, right? They used to be, you know, 600 agents in their peaks and now they're more like 100 just because of all of this automation and all of the fun things we put into place for them. You know, I think one of the things we've done really well for that client is we did an intent mining study. Here are your inquiries. Here's what we think we can automate. And then we slowly, gradually built out a really nice digital roadmap for them and built digital agents over a year span for them to really help drive down their costs and provide, you know, a better customer experience. You know, it's challenging ramping that many agents, you know, seasonally throughout the year for them and we do it multiple times a year for them ⁓ so it's really been a win for them and their customers. So that's just you know again super fun client 20 years with us ⁓ just a great story so. Gina Gibson: And then that longevity is something I know I've talked about with you and Joel about the retention rate of your customers too. I think that's very unique in this space that you have a very high retention rate of customers and truly earn the name Five Star. So congratulations and kudos to that. What's next for Five Star? Like, what do you guys see coming down with AI and all the different technology? Are there any new partnerships or expansions or what do you guys have on the future cusp? John Coulter: Yeah, you know, I think there's one tech, you and I have talked about it and we talked about it in Vegas, which I think will change the world. My personal opinion, which is the real time interpretation, the speech to speech interpretation. unbelievable technology that's coming. I know you know them well and I know that group very well. I think that's great. You know, I think the translation is one of the biggest pieces in the future. You know, I think the days of kind of using the, you know, live agent to speak Mandarin and then translation is going away where I think that'll be one of the greatest techs coming down the pipeline for really any contact center to just provide a better, better customer experience. Gina Gibson: Well, and the barriers it's going to remove, right? Like, we then become worldwide as opposed to, you know, just North America and Nearshore, opens up every door possible. John Coulter: Where's the best labor in the world at a specific price point? I mean, you can take the accent out of those inquiries. ⁓ So yeah, super excited to see where that technology goes ⁓ for sure. know, other things we obviously work on are the, you know, digital agents, as we call it. You know, I think there's a lot of... ⁓ Truth and verse or you know false verse reality of what's actually possible, you know, we see a lot of those simple inquiries You know if you can put it in a knowledge base, we can probably build, you know an FAQ or a bot for it But those more complex white we always say, you know urgent emotional and complex is what we do So those haven't been quite as automated yet still need a live agent to really support support those increase Gina Gibson: Absolutely. And for our listeners and anybody considering using a BPO, what are some of the criteria you would say, hey, like consider using a BPO. John Coulter: would say as you look at the technologies that exist out there. ⁓ You know, there are some really great technologies we use in a recruiting process. We use them in a training process and really a workforce management to kind of optimize workflows. You know, it's not cheap to buy that technology. So a lot of groups really choose to outsource it then because the BPO is already have it all. And we use it for all 40 of our clients. it's, you know, hiring recruiting is industry specific. If I'm hiring a retail agent, that's a lot different than a health care professional. So we've got a lot of that stuff built and it's already baked into kind of our cost structure. So it's a little bit easier for us to do it than I would say most companies out there. Gina Gibson: Excellent. And John, I've always been a fan of James Lipton. So to wrap the podcast, we do a few little rapid fire. ⁓ What is your favorite word? John Coulter: In business or professional, I guess, or in fun. I'm going with innovation, which is probably my favorite in a business world, because that's just what I do all day every day, so super fun. And I would say fun is my, on the personal side, is what I like to do. Gina Gibson: You can pick two, you can have two. Excellent. And what's your least favorite word? John Coulter: No, on the business side for sure. think there's the art of the possibility now is with technology, so it's super fun just always trying to find a way to do things. So I would say no, no for sure is not, I'm not a fan of that word. Gina Gibson: And what excites you the most? John Coulter: It's every change. I think that's a great thing. You know, I think as a company, we've embraced it. We know it's coming. think businesses know it's coming. ⁓ You know, I think what is it's like 3.2 billion in AI today and by 2030, it's 100 billion, some crazy number like that. ⁓ innovation and continuing to grow and have fun with, you know, whatever you're trying to work on. Gina Gibson: Excellent. And John, if somebody wants more information about the different technologies or your services at Five Star, who should they reach out to? John Coulter: They can reach out to me, John Coulter, or they can go to our website. We list a little bit of our technology that we use out there as well. ⁓ But plus, I think you know probably as much about my technology as I do, so they can always ask you. Gina Gibson: Excellent. Big thank you, John, for joining us today. It's always great to chat with you and it's always great to hear what Five Star is doing next. So thank you so much for joining us. John Coulter: Thanks Gina.