 From around the globe, it's theCUBE with digital coverage of AWS re-invent 2020. Sponsored by Intel and AWS. Welcome to theCUBE's live coverage of AWS re-invent 2020. I'm Lisa Martin and I have a CUBE alumni joining me next. Erin Kelly, the GM of product marketing at AWS. Erin, welcome back to the program. Thanks Lisa, it's great to be here. Likewise, even though we don't get to all be crammed into Las Vegas together, excited to talk to you about Amazon Connect. Talk to our audience about what that is and then let's talk about it in terms of how it's been a big facilitator during this interesting year that is 2020. Great, yes, for sure. So Amazon Connect is a cloud contact center where we're really looking to re-invent how contact centers work by bringing it into the cloud. It's an omnichannel, easy to use contact center that allows customers to spin up contact centers in minutes instead of months. It's very scalable, so it can scale up to tens of thousands of agents, but it'll also scale down when it's not in use. And because it's got to pay as you go business model, you only pay when you're engaging with callers or customers, you're not paying for high upfront per agent fees every month. So it's really been a great service during this pandemic as there's been a lot of unpredictable spikes in demand that customers have had to deal with across many sectors. And we've been talking for months now about the acceleration that COVID has delivered with respect to digital transformation. And of course, as patients has been wearing them globally, I think with everybody, when we're calling a contact center, we want a resolution quickly. And of course, as we all know, as we all in any industry are working from home, so are they. So I can imagine during this time that being able to have a cloud contact center has been transformative, I guess to help some businesses keep the lights on, but now to really be successful moving forward, knowing that they can operate and scale up or down as things change. Yeah, that's exactly right. And so one of the key benefits of Connect is the ability to very quickly onboard and get started. We have some very interesting examples like Morrison's, which is a retailer in the UK. They wanted to create a new service as you highlighted, which was a door step delivery service. And so they needed to spin up a quick new contact center in order to handle those orders. They were able to do it and move all their agents remotely in about a day and be able to immediately start to take those orders, which is really powerful. Another interesting example is the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training, which part of their responsibility is to deliver unemployment benefits for their citizens. Obviously a huge surge of demand there, they were able to build an entirely new contact center in about nine days to support their citizens. They went from an average of about 74 call volume, sort of capacity per minute to a thousand call on capacity per minute. And in the first day of standing up this new contact center, they were able to serve 75,000 Rhode Island citizens with their unemployment benefits. So really a great example of having that cloud scalability, that ability to bring agents remotely and then helping citizens in need during a very, very difficult time. Right, so a lot of use is private sector, public sector. What are some of the new capabilities of Amazon Connect that you're announcing at reInvent? Yeah, so we announced five big capabilities this during reInvent yesterday that really span the entire experience. And our goal is to make it better for agents so they're more efficient. That actually helps customers reduce their costs but also create a better collar experience so that CSAT can go up and the collars can get what they need quickly and then move on. And so the first capability is Amazon Connect Voice ID which makes it easier to validate that the person calling is who in fact they say they are. So in this case, Lisa, let's say you're calling in, you can opt in to have a voice print made of you. The next time you call in, we're able to use machine learning to match that voice print to know, yes, it is Lisa. I don't need to ask Lisa questions about her mother's maiden name and her social security number. We can validate you quickly. As an agent, I'm confident it's you so I'm less concerned about things like fraud and we can move on. That's the first great new feature. The second is Amazon Connect Customer Profiles. So now once you join the call, rather than me as an agent having to click around to different systems and find out your order history, et cetera, I can get that all surface to me directly so I have that context. I can create a more personalized experience and move faster through the call. The third one is called Wisdom. It's Amazon Connect Wisdom, which now based on either what you're asking me or a search that I might make, I can get answers to your questions pushed to me using machine learning. So if you may be asking about a refund policy or the next time a new product may launch, I may not know, rather than clicking around and sort of finding that in the different systems is pushed right to me. Now the fourth feature is real time capability of contact lens for Amazon Connect and what this does is while we're having our conversation, it measures the sentiment based on what you're saying or any keywords. So let's say you called it and said, I wanna refund or I wanna cancel, that keyword will trigger an alert to my supervisor who can see that, oh, this call may be going in the wrong direction. Let me go help Aaron with Lisa. Maybe there's a special offer I can provide or extra assistance, so I can help turn that call around and create a great customer experience, which right now feels like it's not going in that direction. And then the last one is Amazon Connect Tasks where about half of an agent's time is spent on tasks other than the call, follow-up items. So you're looking for a refund or you want me to ship you a new version of the product or something. Well, today I might write that on a sticky note or send myself a reminder and email. It's not very tracked very well. With Amazon Connect Tasks, I can create that task for me. As a supervisor, I can then assign those tasks and I can make sure that the follow-up items are prioritized. And then when I look at my work queue as an agent, I can see both calls, my chats and my tasks, which allows me to be more efficient. It allows me to follow up faster with you, my customer. And overall, it's gonna help lower the cost and efficiency of the contact center. So we're really excited about all five of these features and how they improve the entire lifecycle of a customer contact. And that can be table stakes for any business in terms of customer satisfaction you talked about that. I always say, customer satisfaction is inextricably linked to employee satisfaction. They need, the agents need to be empowered with that information in real time, but also to be able to look at, I want them to know why I'm calling, they should already know what I have. We have that growing expectation right as a consumer. So the agent experience, the customer experience, you've also really streamlined it. I can just see this being something that is, like I said, kind of table stakes for an organization to reduce churn to be able to service more customers in a shorter amount of time and also employee satisfaction, right? That's right, that's exactly right. Trader Gorills, which is one of our beta customers using some of these capabilities, they're seeing 25% faster handle time, so shorter calls and a 10% increase in customer satisfaction because now it's personalized. So when you call in, I know what grill you purchased. And so I have a sense based on the grill you purchased what your question might be or what special offers I might have available to me. And that's all pushed to me as an agent. So I feel more empowered. I can give you better service. You have greater loyalty towards my brand, which is a win for everyone. Absolutely, that empowerment of the agent, that personalization for the customer. I think again, we have that growing, demand and expectation that you should know why I'm calling and you should be able to solve my problem. If you can't, I'm gonna churn and find somebody else who can do that. That's a huge risk that businesses face. Let's talk about some of the trends that you're seeing. And this has been a very interesting year to say, Belize, what are some of the trends in the contact center space that you guys are seeing and that you're working to help facilitate? Yeah, absolutely. So I think one of the biggest trends that we're seeing is this move towards remote work. So as you can imagine with the pandemic almost immediately, most customers needed to quickly move their agents to a remote work scenario. And this is where Amazon Connect was a great benefit for, as I mentioned before. We saw about 5,000 new contact centers created in March and April at the very beginning of the pandemic. So that's a very big trend we're seeing. And now what we're seeing is customers are saying, hey, when I have something like Amazon Connect that's in the cloud, it scales up, it provides me a great experience. I just need really a headset and an internet connection for my agents. I'm not dealing with VPNs and a lot of the complexity that comes of trying to move a non-premises system remote. We're seeing a huge surge of adoption and usage around that. The ability to very quickly create a new contact center around specific scenarios or use cases has been really, really powerful. So those are the big trends, moving to remote work and a trend towards spinning up new contact centers quickly and then spinning them back down as that demand moves or those situations move. Great, and as we're all experiencing, the one thing that is given during this time is the uncertainty that remains, scaling up, scaling down, volume changes, but looking as if a lot of what's currently going on from home is gonna stay for a while longer. I actually now think about it, if I'm calling into a cable service or whatnot, I think one of the agents is actually on their couch at home, like I am working. So I think it's being able to facilitate that because is transformative. And I think, I think, I'll step out on, let me say, very potentially impact the winners and the losers of tomorrow, making sure that the consumer experience is tailored, it's personalized to your point and that the agents are empowered in real time to facilitate a seamless and fast resolution of whatever the issue is. Well, and I think you hit on it earlier as well. Agents wanna be helpful. They wanna solve a customer problem. They wanna have that information at their fingertips. They wanna be empowered to take action because at the end of their day, they wanna feel like they helped people, right? And so being able to give them that information, say from wisdom or being able to see your entire customer profile right when you come on board or know that you are Lisa and have the confidence that I'm talking to Lisa and I'm not, this is not some sort of fishing exercise. These are all really important scenarios and features that empower the agent, lowers costs significantly for the customer and creates a much better customer experience. For you, the caller. Absolutely and we all know how important that is these days to get some sort of satisfying experience. Last question Erin, talk to us about, as we all look forward to 2021 for many reasons, what can we expect with Amazon Connect? Well, we're gonna continue to listen to our customers and hear their feedback and what they need, which what we certainly anticipate is continued focus on that agent efficiency, giving agents more of the information they need to be successful and answer customers questions quickly, continuing to invest in machine learning as a way of doing that. So using ML to identify that you are who you say you are, finding that right information, getting data that I can use as an agent to handle those tasks and then automate the things that I really shouldn't have to take steps as a human to go do. So if we need to send you a follow-up email when your product ships or when your refund is issued, let me just put that in the system once and have it happen when it executes. So that level of automation, continuing to bring machine learning in to make the agent experience better and more efficient, which ultimately leads to lower costs and better C-SET. These are all the investments you'll see as we continue forward next year. Excellent, Seth. Erin, thank you so much for joining me on the program today and sharing what's next and the potential and the impact that Amazon Connect is making. Thanks Lisa, it's great to be here. For Erin Kelly, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE's live coverage of AWS re-invent 2020.