There is nothing more instructive than observing people in their natural habitat. In Pontremoli, some 40 kilometres from La Spezia, the locals come to one of the terraces on the market square for a doppio. Two old, cheerful ladies sit down next to us and order a 'cappucho'. While one mumbles something about a telephone, the other does not hear that it is her mobile that rings from her handbag.

A half-successful transformation: both women may have 8-core CPUs clocked at 2.8 GHz in their handbags, but their supercomputer doesn't have an algorithm on board that takes hearing loss into account.

The town of Pontremoli, with a few thousand inhabitants in the northernmost tip of Tuscany, has become one of the most important Italian destinations for international home workers and digital nomads. At least that's what the Italian Wikipedia page says; so far I've only seen my own laptop on a terrace.

Similar half-transformations can be found on your way to La Bella Italia. Previously, you gave the toll booth attendants cash or a credit card, but in recent years you had to arrange your payment yourself at a toll booth where the attendant had been cut. Now, payment is made via a 'toll badge' under your windscreen. It works well, unlike the website (plus app) that goes with this semi-European solution. But we Dutch are spoiled with CX, UX, EX and TX.

Regardless of how big the problems and traffic jams would (again) become if the internet were to break: if those toll badges – or the alternative: payment based on license plate recognition – work well, then those toll gates could disappear altogether. Transformation everywhere; we are literally and figuratively on our way. For some travelers, permanent change is a torment. For other travelers, it is a blessing: even faster, even cheaper, even easier. Humanless does mean that you have to arrange extra support in other places for people who get stuck in the humanless processes devised by humans.

Humanless

'Humanless' – that's not a word I came up with myself, but one that Richard Basset (VP of CX and Automation at NICE) deliberately used as a vision of the future of customer contact. Basset was responding to a question from Charlie Mitchell, fellow trade journalist at CX Today: what can we expect in the field of CX in the next two or even five years? Difficult to predict because of the high speed of innovation. But Basset didn't mince his words: contact centers actually want 'humanless' Interactions are increasingly automated, although Basset is convinced that people will continue to call or contact via social media or other channels.

Anyone who finds the concept of humanlessness hysterical should listen to Sam Altman. The CEO of OpenAI admitted in an interview in early 2024 that he had a bet going on with some friends in an app group: that within a year there would be a “one-person billion-dollar company.”

The authors who brought up Altman's bet in their piece on iBestuur want to go one step further: they talk about the zero-person company. Not exactly inclusive and diverse, shall we say. The latter also applies to the compound of the jury that will award the CCMA Future Award. Also an example of transformation, but then towards history instead of future.

Halfway through the transformation?

Not only is the direction of transformation sometimes unclear, the end station is often unknown. Have we just begun or are we halfway? The automation and digitalization of customer contact are in any case still far from perfect. The ultimate nightmare of the humanless contact center: having to explain to the chatbot that he or she does not understand you. Where would we be without real agents? Happy summer holidays!

(Ziptone/Erik Bouwer)

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