Michelle Schroeder of PolyAI shares how AI is transforming contact centers into brand assets through personalization, automation, and strategic alignment.
Hi Michelle, welcome to AITech Park! We’re delighted to have you. To start, could you share your professional journey and how your experience has led you to your current role working with AI in contact centers?
As the SVP of Marketing at PolyAI, a leading provider of voice AI for enterprise contact centers, I bring over a decade of experience fostering innovation at B2B SaaS companies. I am passionate about merging great product marketing with creative demand generation. Prior to PolyAI, I held the role of Chief Marketing Officer at Ometria, a customer data and experience platform built for retail that helps marketers get great campaigns to market faster, increase loyalty and CRM revenue, and send more personalized messages throughout the customer journey. My diverse background, spanning both marketing and contact center operations, positions me to drive the transformation of contact centers through the strategic integration of AI technologies. Today, I’m responsible for elevating the brand, driving demand and ensuring the company’s solutions address evolving customers’ experiences and needs.
The use of AI is transforming contact centers from cost centers into brand-building assets. What are the key drivers behind this transformation, and how can companies make this shift?
With AI transforming contact centers from cost centers into brand-building assets, conversational AI and AI voice assistants can deliver personalized customer experience at scale, overcoming historical challenges in the voice channel. By leveraging advanced machine learning and spoken language understanding (SLU) technologies, brands can better understand customer interactions and gain valuable insights to create more meaningful connections. AI-powered voice assistants are programmed to align with the brand’s values, ensuring a consistently branded experience every time. Meanwhile, human agents can focus on more complex, empathy-driven interactions that require their unique skills and emotional intelligence. This powerful synergy between automation and the human touch is reshaping the role of contact centers in delivering exceptional customer service.
How does implementing conversational AI ensure both brand consistency and personalization in customer interactions, and what impact does this have on customer satisfaction?
Implementing conversational AI in contact centers offers a unique opportunity to resolve brand inconsistencies. At the frontline of customer interaction, contact centers are more often than not a customer’s first touchpoint to the brand and play a pivotal role in shaping brand perception and loyalty. However, companies often overlook the link between their outward-facing brand image and customer service experience. If the contact center experience isn’t prioritized when customers reach out for support, it doesn’t matter how immersive the front-end brand interactions are — the disconnect between the two highlights a need for seamless, brand-aligned contact center communications.
In your view, how will contact centers play a larger role in shaping brand perception and customer loyalty in the years to come?
There is a huge demand for contact centers to evolve beyond predetermined lines of conversations and impersonal interactions to more empathetic, personalized experiences to ultimately shape brand perception and customer loyalty in the future. The ability to leverage AI and advanced analytics to understand customer context and provide relevant, timely support is becoming increasingly important. Contact centers should be seen as sources of valuable customer insights that can drive improvements across the entire organization, from product development to marketing strategies. Overlooking the benefits of investing in your contact center in the short term will have far-reaching consequences for your business in the long term.
AI voice assistants are becoming more prevalent. How do these technologies enhance customer service and improve operational efficiency in contact centers?
AI-powered voice assistants can deliver substantial benefits to contact center operations, including reduced call volume, mitigation of seasonal demand spikes and improved customer insights through structured conversational data. By automating repetitive tasks, AI enables human agents to focus on more complex, emotionally driven interactions, leading to better customer experiences and enhanced agent retention. AI also allows contact centers to scale support more efficiently, as the technology can be deployed quickly and requires minimal training data to understand new customer contexts. Overall, the strategic integration of AI is helping transform virtual assistants into brand ambassadors, fostering stronger customer loyalty and delivering measurable business impact.
How important is it for contact center operations to align with overall brand identity and marketing goals, and what are some best practices to achieve this alignment?
It’s critical for the contact center to align with overall brand identity and marketing goals. Collaboration between the contact center and the marketing team maps out the entire customer journey and identifies touchpoints where the contact center can contribute to a seamless and branded experience. Equipping agents with the knowledge, skills and authority to represent the brand effectively addresses customer inquiries and concerns in a way that aligns with brand values.
Conversational AI, especially in the contact center, helps bridge the gap between the contact center and the brand, driving a more collaborative and personalized customer experience for potential and current customers. Advanced voice assistants powered by effective AI provide 24/7 support, automate routine tasks, and enhance customer interactions. Tracking revised KPIs that include operational excellence as well as CX measures the impact of refined contact center workflows on brand perception and customer satisfaction. By prioritizing alignment and adopting these strategies, contact centers can become revenue epicenters for brands, fostering stronger customer relationships and driving business growth. This evolution ultimately bolsters customer loyalty.
What are the biggest challenges businesses face when implementing AI in their contact centers, and how can they overcome these obstacles?
The primary challenges in integrating AI in the contact center lie in the implementation strategy, rather than the actual technology. Successful integration requires an iterative approach, focusing on small steps and quick wins instead of implementing everything at once. Companies must first invest in education to ensure they understand how AI fits their unique environment, customer base and processes. Prioritizing customization is also crucial, as every business has specific needs that require tailoring the conversational AI. Maintaining a close relationship with the AI provider is essential, as unexpected challenges can easily happen, and businesses want to trust that their partner can solve any issues that arise. By following this thoughtful, step-by-step approach, companies can overcome implementation obstacles and harness the full potential of AI to enhance their contact center operations.
What personal strategies do you recommend for companies looking to integrate AI solutions while maintaining a human touch in customer service?
To strike the right balance between automation and human interaction, companies should augment their contact center models with conversational AI that handles high-volume, repetitive tasks but still knows when a call needs to be escalated to a human. This frees up human agents to address the more complex, emotionally sensitive issues that require empathy and emotional intelligence. Continuous AI training and fine-tuning are essential to ensure smooth operations and a seamless integration between the two. Key factors for success include ensuring AI complements rather than replaces human agents, using AI to streamline processes and provide real-time support to agents, and maintaining a human-centric approach for sensitive customer interactions. This synergy between AI and human skills represents the future of customer service, delivering efficient, scalable and fundamentally human-centric experiences that strengthen brand loyalty.
For businesses just beginning to explore AI for their contact centers, what advice would you give them on starting out and making the most of this technology?
When implementing customer-facing AI in contact centers, businesses must consider several key factors. The virtual assistant’s voice and tone (even if chat based) should match the conversation context and brand identity – while an upbeat voice works for general inquiries, sensitive situations require more compassion. Data utilization is equally crucial. Leveraging call information leads to personalized interactions and more efficient issue resolution.
The benefits extend to both agents and customers. When AI handles routine FAQ calls, it reduces call volumes requiring human intervention, leading to decreased wait times and typically more positive caller behavior. This results in reduced stress levels for agents, improving job satisfaction and retention.
Success ultimately depends on maintaining a strong partnership with your AI provider. Through ongoing collaboration, businesses can address challenges, follow best practices, and successfully integrate AI while enhancing their contact center operations and brand loyalty.
As we conclude, do you have any final thoughts on how contact centers will evolve with AI and what brands should focus on to stay ahead of the curve?
The contact center is often the most direct and impactful interaction point between brands and their customers, making it a critical strategic asset. However, many companies still view the contact center as an expensive necessity rather than an opportunity to strengthen brand perception and loyalty. By underinvesting in contact center technology and staff training, brands risk severe damage to their reputation and customer relationships. As contact centers evolve to become more automated and data-driven, brands must shift their mindset and prioritize these frontline operations as key competitive differentiators. Leveraging AI-powered solutions to enhance efficiency, personalization and agent empowerment will be key to delivering exceptional customer experiences and maintaining a strong brand position in the market.
Michelle Schroeder
SVP of Marketing for PolyAI
Michelle Schroeder is the SVP of Marketing for PolyAI, a leading provider of voice AI for enterprise contact centers, and has been fostering innovation at B2B SaaS companies for over a decade. She’s passionate about merging great product marketing with creative demand generation, but also about running, making music, and raising her 3 young girls.