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Artificial intelligence is set to define the future of banking. Learn about how banks are using machine learning, RPA and other AI-powered tech.

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Six AI technologies set to define the future of banking

Protecting your company's reputation in an evolving digital world isn't always easy. Between cyberattacks, phishing, fraud and other harmful behaviors, companies have a lot of ground to cover when it comes to preserving their brand.

These concerns are often compounded when working with a customer experience (CX) provider. Not only do you need to ensure that your brand promise is met in an outsourced environment, but also that your customer and company data is protected.

When selecting a customer experience provider, risk mitigation should be a top consideration. The right partner will make sure you're covering every angle to care for the security of both your brand and your customers — at every touchpoint.

What should you look for in an outsourcing provider?

When it comes to customer experience outsourcing, brands typically have two primary concerns: preserving customer data, and keeping all systems that might compromise operations tight as a drum, says Steve Jablonski, vice-president of information security at TELUS International. These concerns are often driven by an idea that outsourcing some aspects of your business means giving up control — but that's not the case when the right checks and balances are in place.

Companies and their outsourcing partners need to set clear parameters about how to proactively prevent harm, and how to respond if it ever occurs. Setting a strong communication foundation in your outsourcing relationship enables your brand to work in concert with your partner to avoid and mitigate risk. With that at the core, here are three additional factors to consider when assessing an outsourcing partner.

Training: Team members are the first line of defense

With both online reputation management and protecting customer data, organizations frequently wonder where to begin. The answer is: start with employees. Team members are often the first line of defense against security breaches and ever-present bad actors. "Think of your CX team as a human firewall," says Jablonski. "You have to prepare your customer care representatives for battle by providing them with comprehensive training."

Rather than taking a one-and-done approach to customer service training, partners should treat it as an ongoing process, every part of which can strengthen and enhance the customer care team. As threats become more sophisticated and ill-intentioned parties find new ways to infiltrate your defenses, it's important that your team's knowledge base has comparably advanced documentation.

That said, it isn't just outsiders that are cause for concern. When assessing a CX outsourcing partner, businesses often want to know what's being done to mitigate insider risk and to keep employees from jeopardizing the system. While it's smart to ask questions related to brand loyalty and engagement, you should also consider whether teams are being sufficiently trained to prevent all manner of attacks and breaches, adds Jablonski.

Outsourcing partners must have processes in place to mitigate risk from internal and external individuals intent on committing a crime and innocent insiders who fall victim to phishing links. Phishing simulations and security awareness training are useful protocols in a world where threats are subtle and ever-changing. Team members should also know what to do if they suspect a colleague is acting nefariously. Training employees to recognize patterns is crucial, Jablonski says, "because you can't always get ahead of the threat."

Technology: Taking advantage of economies of scale

According to recent research conducted by TELUS International and Statista, leaders named data security and compliance as the number one challenge impeding their digital customer experience goals in 2023. The same research found that transparency and data security were considered the most important qualities for an outsourcing provider.

Collaborating with the right digital CX partner can provide brands with access to best-in-class software with the proper security checks. "There needs to be solid due diligence when buying secure software," Jablonski says of outsourcing partners. "Robust patching, internal scans and penetration testing should occur on a regular basis." A good outsourcing partner not only does everything in its power to safeguard your company; it also takes the pressure off brands to identify and invest in the new technologies needed to deliver a secure and scalable CX.

Put security management processes under the microscope

Outsourcing providers should be investing in market intelligence to stay on top of potential threats. Jablonski suggests that the right partner will "leverage paid and public intelligence to stay current. Your provider should always be collecting information and taking action." They should also have a strong network in place for sharing brand and industry information, he adds.

Look for a partner that prioritizes security at all levels and makes a point of obtaining their third-party certifications demonstrating their commitment to protecting brands like yours. Regulatory compliance and certifications like ISO27001 offer a solid foundation for cybersecurity. NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology at the U.S. Department of Commerce, is a good resource for publications, reports and other information about the standardization process, while the NIST 800-53 framework serves as a comprehensive guide to strategies, systems and controls that businesses should employ based on risk, cost and an organization's capabilities. Other options include industry-specific certifications, like HITRUST in the healthcare space.

Regardless of the approach your outsourcing partner opts to take, key controls like multi-factor authentication and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) should be standard. Consider your potential partner's stance on working from home and bring your own device (BYOD) management, too. From data leakage to loss and infection, related policies should be treated with the utmost caution and care.

Above all else, when selecting an outsourcing partner you should aim to find a company that values your brand and customers as much as you do. "Your customers are our customers," says Jablonski of TELUS International's mindset. A quality outsourcing partner should share your commitment to defending against threats, while also working to improve your customer experience.

Risk mitigation should be a top consideration when selecting an outsourcing partner. Learn what to look for to ensure your brand is protected.

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protecting brand

Protecting your customers and brand in an outsourced environment

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TELUS International, in partnership with Statista, surveyed 250 enterprise leaders to explore where they plan to invest in digital customer experience (CX) technology in 2023. Uncover the results.

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Survey results: Digital customer experience priorities for leaders in 2023

The digital world continues to shift rapidly. Discover what's next for content moderation to help you navigate the changes in this evolving industry.

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What's next for content moderation in 2023 and beyond?

Telemedicine has grown exponentially during COVID-19. Here are five digital transformation and CX lessons we can glean from its meteoric rise.

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Five CX lessons from the rise of telemedicine

Learn how to make your company’s healthcare customer service a more empathetic, humane experience.

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The most important quality for a healthcare customer service agent to have

In a virtual doctor’s office, a patient observes as the doctor ages her digital twin — a virtual copy of the patient that draws from real-time data — to show the long-term effects of her recovery from surgery.

Physically, the doctor and patient are hundreds of miles apart. But in the metaverse, they are face-to-face.

The metaverse is a parallel digital environment where extended reality technology and blockchain enable people to interact virtually in a secure way. There, a patient and doctor are able to push the limits of conventional healthcare.

It may sound futuristic and perhaps even revolutionary, but the imagined scenario might be more rooted in reality than you think. While gaming, entertainment and social gatherings have a tendency to dominate the discourse on tech evolution, metaverse healthcare is opening the doorway to a whole new patient experience and approach to wellness and mental health support.

According to the Global Wellness Trends Report: The Future of Wellness 2022, the wellness metaverse is “inevitable.”

“Wellness is now front and center in consumer’s minds — and at the forefront of business and government strategies around the globe — and the world is seeking new technologies that can far better engage and impact the health of many more people,” write the report’s authors. “From virtual reality and augmented reality to merged reality and haptics, the coming wellness metaverse will create vast opportunities for each sector of the $4.4 trillion global wellness economy.”

How the metaverse is transforming the health and wellness industry

According to American think tank the Brookings Institution, only 43% of health centers said they were capable of providing telehealth prior to COVID-19. In 2020, that number increased to 95%. Insurance claims for telehealth services also skyrocketed during the pandemic from around 529,000 in February 2020 to 12 million in April 2020.

Clearly, the healthcare and wellness industries are in the midst of a transformation driven by the adoption of technologies like AR, VR, artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, robotics and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) — a concept akin to the Internet of Things (IoT) where sensors in medical devices and advanced analytic platforms help to capture patient and customer data.

Some of these technologies are already taking root. VR, for instance, has been gaining traction within the healthcare and wellness sector because of its unique ability to immerse users into an experience. It has been used as a pain management tool by doctors, as corrective therapy for ailments like lazy eyes by optometrists and as a method for treating phobias, anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Blockchain is another key technology for healthcare. It offers an opportunity to encrypt and decentralize patient and customer data, allowing individuals to control what information gets shared, and with whom.

The metaverse may be used to link these technologies in one place alongside emerging technologies like digital twins, ultimately enhancing customer experience (CX) and the patient experience by bringing virtual healthcare into a single environment.

For health and wellness providers and brands, this creates new ways to offer treatment. It also allows patients and customers to seamlessly switch between different types of care. For example, with a VR headset, a user could enter the metaverse for a meditation session, followed by a fitness session or doctor’s appointment, all without leaving the virtual world. It could be seamless, with relevant data following them as they move through the wellness metaverse.

However, the experiential and experimental aspects of the metaverse demand a strong commitment to the patient experience. Without it, brands may risk their reputations and their customers’ well-being.

The metaverse customer experience in healthcare

For brands operating in the metaverse, the blurred lines between real and virtual life will require a level of consistency, especially in an environment like health and wellness that has a habit of bringing out people’s vulnerabilities.

Omnichannel support is key so that customers can engage effortlessly between brand interactions. A positive customer and patient experience will be defined by how easy it is to move and access help both inside and outside the virtual healthcare sphere — and humans are critical to this equation. According to a recent TELUS International survey, 49% of respondents said “if they could only receive customer support in one way for the rest of their lives, their preference would be speaking with a human on the phone.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean users will want to leave the metaverse to receive support. Rather, they need live agent support options regardless of where they’re interacting with your brand.

The human element is also critical to delivering one of the most important aspects of healthcare: empathy. As the metaverse continues to evolve and new technologies emerge, the learning curve for some users may be steep. Having an engaged, knowledgeable and empathetic support team ready to handle queries is intrinsically important to your CX success.

Additionally, the growth of digital healthcare and wellness is giving birth to new online communities. For example, boutique fitness chain Trib3, has become one of the first fitness operators to strike a deal to launch a gym in the metaverse. In its digital world, users will be able to take part in workouts and group fitness classes. That means that as people begin to gather and interact together in these virtual communities, brands will ultimately be responsible for ensuring that users feel safe and welcome. To protect brand reputation and ensure a positive customer experience, brands will need to give trust and safety a frontline role in their metaverse strategies.

In tandem with personal safety, privacy and data security in the metaverse are critical to its success in delivering personalized healthcare. It is, after all, a heavily regulated industry in the U.S., with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requiring the protection and confidential handling of personal health information.

Ensuring ongoing compliance and patient security will require brands to stay nimble with their data security strategy as rules and regulations evolve to fit the metaverse.

We can’t fully predict the impact of the metaverse on the health and wellness industry, but there’s no question that technology is already pushing the limits of healthcare. At its core, the metaverse is rooted in experience. For brands to keep in step with the next frontier of CX and patient experience, there needs to be a clear strategy in place — and the right partner with the expertise and understanding of emerging technology and best practices — before you take your first (virtual) steps in the metaverse.

Are you ready for metaverse medical care? This is what health and wellness brands need to consider when designing customer experience for the metaverse.

metaverse health

As the metaverse transforms health and wellness, don't forget about CX

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Outsourcing Locations E-book Feature

This e-book explores:

Deliver around the globe CX

Where in the world? 

Want to speak with an expert?

Besides partnering with a trusted vendor, it’s vital to determine which outsourcing destination is right for your business and brand. From locations in the U.S., to nearshore and offshore options around the world, this e-book highlights some of the top locales for consideration, and the factors to keep in mind as you make your decision.

Discover some of the top outsourcing destinations for consideration and the factors to keep in mind as you make your decision.

Selecting The Best Outsourcing Location | Free E-book

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Selecting the best outsourcing destination for your business

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Streamlining operations and kickstarting the digital transformation journey - preview image

Uncover how TELUS International’s business process consultants helped a leading financial services brand optimize its operations, enhance its customer experience (CX) and begin its digital transformation journey.

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Streamlining operations and kickstarting the digital transformation journey of a leading financial services brand

Learn the commonalities and differences between augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality and extended reality, including popular use cases.

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extended reality

Extended reality 101

Recalls. You think they’ll never happen, until they do. Discover customer service best practices for healthcare product recalls.

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Do no harm: Managing the customer service challenges of healthcare product recalls

By enabling medical devices, infrastructure and software to communicate through the internet, the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is transforming the healthcare industry. Read more.

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IoMT

The Internet of Medical Things is just what the doctor ordered

Player support outsourcing isn't just for Triple-A studios. Learn about the benefits of outsourcing for growing games companies.

games outsourcing

What growing games companies can gain from outsourcing

Learn how digital twin technology is using real-time virtual representations to revolutionize the customer experience.

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Digital twin

Digital twin technology: what it is and why it matters

Germany's diverse and talented workforce make the European nation an ideal CX outsourcing destination. Read up on all the benefits.

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germany

Don't overlook Germany as a CX outsourcing destination

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This e-book covers:

Get a pulse on trends in healthcare CX

Enhance your patient experience

The digital era has issued in a new frontier for the healthcare industry. Never before have consumers been so empowered when it comes to their health, and with more information, comes increased options and greater competition. Discover industry trends, best practices and expert insights from TELUS International, serving the customer experience and digital services needs of today’s healthcare leaders.

Discover patient experience trends and best practices for today’s healthcare leaders.

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The Patient Experience: Optimizing customer service for better health outcomes

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IDC Info Snapshot - CX

Discover the advantages of partnering with an experienced CX service provider to scale your operations in this IDC Info Snapshot.

The Patient Experience: Optimizing customer service for better health outcomes

This e-book covers:

Get a pulse on trends in healthcare CX

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