As contact centres face rising customer expectations, increasingly complex interactions and pressure to embrace AI, successful transformation is about more than simply deploying new technology. We caught up with Rishi Kumar, CX Transformation & Business Strategy Lead at Magellan, to discuss reducing effort across the customer journey, creating a more human-centred contact centre, finding the right balance between people and AI – and why frontline conversations can provide valuable insight for the entire organisation…
Tell us about Magellan and CX Suite.
Magellan helps organisations transform the way they deliver customer service. Our CX Suite is a modular CCaaS solution, designed particularly for organisations whose needs don’t fit neatly into a standard, out-of-the-box platform.
That’s really where our strength lies. We take the time to understand the organisation, its customers, existing technology and the operational challenges within the contact centre and across the wider customer journey.
Rather than trying to change everything at once, we help customers take practical steps, introducing the capabilities they need and developing the solution over time.
Every organisation has a different starting point and a different pace of change. We work closely with our customers to help them modernise in a way that works for their business, without losing sight of the service their customers need today.
Tell us about your role and what you do?
I specialise in customer service transformation, contact centre strategy and CX solutions. My role sits across business strategy, customer experience and technology.
I work with organisations to understand what they’re really trying to improve, whether that’s simplifying customer journeys, supporting frontline teams, reducing operational complexity or making better use of automation and AI.
For me, transformation shouldn’t start with a product or a list of features. It should start with the problem we’re trying to solve, the experience we want to improve and the outcome we want to achieve.
What have been the biggest challenges and opportunities for contact centres?
The biggest challenge is that contact centres are being asked to manage several pressures at the same time. Customer expectations continue to rise, the interactions reaching frontline teams are becoming more complex, costs remain under scrutiny and, on top of all that, leaders are being asked to make decisions about AI incredibly quickly.
But there’s also a real opportunity. Contact centres see customer frustration, operational friction and changing behaviour before almost anyone else in the business. Used properly, those insights can improve products, processes and customer journeys, not just individual interactions.
Customer service shouldn’t simply be the place where problems are dealt with. It can help the wider organisation understand why those problems are happening in the first place.
What should be the biggest priority for contact centre leaders this year?
Making service easier for customers and employees.
Many organisations are introducing new technology, but customers still encounter repetition, fragmented journeys and difficulty reaching the right person. Employees often have to move between several systems while trying to understand and support the customer.
The priority should therefore be removing unnecessary effort. That means simplifying journeys, giving employees better context and using automation where it genuinely makes an interaction easier.
Efficiency matters, but it should be the result of better service design, not the only objective.
What technology will have the biggest impact?
A – AI will clearly have a major impact, but the interesting question isn’t how much AI we can introduce. It’s how effectively people and AI can work together.
We believe in keeping humans in the lead. AI should take away repetitive work, make relevant information easier to find and give employees better context when they’re helping a customer. But it shouldn’t remove their ability to think, question or make decisions.
We’re moving towards a blended workforce where AI and automation handle the tasks they’re well suited to, while people focus on interactions that require judgement, empathy, reassurance or accountability.
Ultimately, success won’t be measured by how much AI has been deployed. It will be whether customers get better outcomes, employees feel better supported and the operation works more effectively.
What does a genuinely human-centred contact centre look like?
A genuinely human-centred contact centre gives customers choice without making them work hard to get help. Self-service should make straightforward things easier, but when something becomes complex, sensitive or urgent, getting through to a person should be simple.
The same principle applies to employees. Technology should give them better information, remove unnecessary administration and support their judgement, rather than dictate every part of the interaction.
That’s where our Total Experience approach comes in. We don’t see customer experience, employee experience and operational performance as separate things. They’re connected. If employees have the right tools, information and authority, and operations are designed around genuine customer needs, better customer experiences follow.
What is the most surprising thing you’ve learnt about the contact centre sector?
Every day, customers are telling organisations what’s confusing, what’s not working and what they need. Frontline employees hear those signals first-hand, but too often that knowledge stays within individual conversations or operational reports.
There’s a huge opportunity to turn those conversations into insight that influences product development, policy, communications and wider business strategy. The contact centre shouldn’t just resolve customer problems, it should help the organisation learn from them.
What is the most exciting part of your work?
Connecting with people who see the same problem from different perspectives.
I really enjoy bringing those different perspectives together and turning a broad ambition into something practical. Often, that means bringing everyone back to a few simple questions, like, What are we trying to improve? Who will notice the difference? And how will we know it’s worked?
What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given?
One of the best pieces of advice I’ve received came from my colleague and friend Nigel Thorley was “Listen to understand, not simply to respond.”
It’s something that’s stayed with me because it applies equally to customer service, leadership and transformation. The people closest to a problem often understand it better than anyone else. If we listen properly before jumping to an answer, we generally make better decisions.
