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Navigating the Future of CX at Customer Contact Week Nashville

February 3, 2026

The keynote sessions at Customer Contact Week (CCW) Nashville delivered a powerful blend of strategic innovation and human-centered leadership. Industry experts and legendary figures explored the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI), operational transparency, and the enduring importance of empathy in the customer journey.

Key Takeaways & Highlights

• AI is a Tool, Not a Silver Bullet: Lance Gruner emphasized that AI cannot fix broken processes. Applying AI to flawed systems only accelerates failure; companies must first “walk the property” to experience their own customer journey firsthand.
• The Shift from Cost Center to Growth Engine: Leaders are encouraged to view customer experience teams as strategic assets rather than mere overhead. These teams hold the “secret sauce”—the raw data and customer voices needed to beat the competition.
• Balancing Automation with Personalization: Young Energy’s Bruce Gilbert shared how conversational AI can reduce agent burnout by handling mundane tasks, allowing human agents to focus on complex, high-empathy interactions.
• Building Long-Term Trust: Transparency is the foundation of brand loyalty. Whether through digital tools or live agents, providing consistent, honest answers is critical to retaining customers in an era of shortening attention spans.
• The “Three Ps” of Leadership: Legendary broadcaster Dick Vitale closed the session with an inspiring reminder that Passion, Preparation, and Perseverance are the keys to winning in both business and life.

Read the Complete Transcript

Roseann Rogers:

Hi, everybody. We awake? We’ve got our coffee. I’m Roseanne Rogers. How are y’all doing? Let’s go. We are coming up. Okay, so how was all red last night? Yeah. It’s great. I also heard some of you made it to Post Malone’s new bar, perhaps last night, so it’s pretty good. Post Malone is now. He’s. He’s embraced Nashville.

He was actually shopping at Nordstrom’s the other day with his cowboy boots. But although he had a Dallas Cowboy shirt on, I was like, remember what you are in Nashville? We were the Titans, right? Although both teams are not doing well, but we didn’t bring that up, of course. But he is certainly you know, that’s one thing great thing about Nashville is people are so friendly.

They’re great. They’re embracing and so, so wonder. That could be the week could be here because there’s so much energy. We’ve learned a lot in the last couple of days. We’ve had some amazing sessions, success, advancements. Also the resilience right of how we are going to be better at our jobs and how we’re going to do this. And so it’s been an exciting couple of days.

Also, you’ve learned from industry experts. We all learned a lot. Do we know more about AI than ever before? Yeah. Do you think you can probably do a panel yourself? Maybe so, because we’ve learned a lot. That’s been the hot topic, right? And we’ll continue to be a hot topic as well. There’s also been, like I mentioned, opportunities for networking that have been great.

The exhibit hall has had an expo hall has been amazing. 70 different exhibitors have been there. Do you meet, greet, talk about what they’re doing in the industry to help you do your better, your job better, but also win some great prizes too. I got some good swag so I’m excited about that. And then also two it’s just networking, right?

Networking being able to. How many of you all have been doing your connecting. You have been fantastic. I mean, I’ve got several. I was excited because it was also a great icebreaker. If you don’t know somebody like, hey, let’s connect. Right? It was it was perfect. It’s ingenious. Also, speaking of connecting the demo drive, who’s purchasing the demo drive when you’re in the expo hall, if you get more than ten sponsors, you’re going to be eligible and be put into the drawing, which is going to happen today at lunch.

I’m going to be doing it at the CMP lounge after lunch. But you have to be present to win, so you can’t go to the airport, you can’t leave. You can’t go back on Broadway and go to Jason Aldean or Kid Rock star. You have to be right here, okay? And then you can go, because then again, my theory is, well, it is 5:00 somewhere, right?

So it’s all good. And that theory holds right here in Nashville. It’s always when people come to visit me. I live here now. I used to live in Louisville, lived in Nashville, went to Texas. I’m back in Nashville. But when I do the tours, it’s usually at 10:00 in the morning because I just can’t, you know, the crowds, right?

So enjoy yourself while you’re here. If you do have to rush to the airport. Safe travels to each and every one of you. But make sure you turn that little badge back in your blinking badge before you leave. Just a little housekeeping reminders. So, are we ready to get the party started this morning? I’m excited. Thank you.

Knew that Michael needed it. I’m excited because I get to introduce a friend of mine. So I’ve only been in Nashville five years, and it’s all about connections. We talked about that in networking. Rain and Lance greenery has been let me tell you, a friend of mine since I came to Nashville, but he’s also a connector, which was great.

He really introduced me to several different people, and that’s why I’m here today. I can thank him for that. I might have to give him. He’s my new agent. Maybe I might have to give him something on that. But he has a new book out. And there it is. Ten things I Hate About You. A playbook for leaders.

Lance is amazing because he has so much experience globally as far as the customer experience and transformation and how he does what he’s done it for years, and he’s continuing to speak and to get out there and help you. And what I think it’s amazing about Lance is he has so much knowledge to share with you how companies can fix mistakes.

We don’t just say, hey, we got mistakes, but we have solutions, right? And he’s a solution person and you’re going to get to hear from him right now. So when it is Lance, along with Doctor Michael Bertram, he’s going to come out and talk about his brand new book, ten Things They Hate About You. But then the solutions that companies can actually lance, Michael, come on out there waiting on you.

They want me to get off stage.

Speaker 1:

It’s your turn. Up next, ten things they hate about you. Go fix the experience. Keep the customer. Please. Welcome to the stage Lance Gruner and Michael Birch.

Speaker 4:

Well, good morning, everyone. What a delight to be here. And what a special opportunity to sit with my friend Lance and talk about not only the intersection of AI and customer experience, but his new book that really, I think frames for all of us exactly how we should be thinking about this space. Good morning Lance.

Speaker 5:

Good morning Michael. I am excited to be here. I tell you, it’s great. It’s great. I love this community. I love being here and, and having my friend here with me, so I appreciate that.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. So I wanted to start with this. You know, I I’m in private equity. We invest in lots of companies. We’ve been using AI now for about five years. But, we’re having to learn a little bit about what it is and isn’t. So can you talk to us a little bit about customer experience, conversations around AI and really what it does and doesn’t do and where the reality is.

Speaker 5:

You know, it’s it’s kind of the topic of every top of everybody’s mind. It’s, a lot of the conversation we’ve been having here, the last couple days, even even earlier this year. It really is something. And, and I’ve been working with AI, whether it’s developing it, using it, partnering with companies for over ten years. And here’s what I do know.

I do know it’s not a silver bullet. And, you know, a lot of the people that were on stage yesterday and the conversations that have been going on all confirm it is not a silver bullet. It really is used to, you know, make teams smarter to fix certain problems. Yeah. But it really isn’t just about the cost play.

It isn’t about reducing costs. It really is something that when done right, it is amazing is an amazing tool to be use. But again let me say it’s not a silver bullet. And one of the challenges, Michael, a lot of companies that we’re seeing is and we’ve heard it from people that talk about AI, they’re overlaying AI on top of broken promises and broken processes.

Yeah. And so if you really want to use AI, you really have to take an inside look at your processes and make sure that those are fixed. Because what’s happening is if you’re using AI and you have broken processes, you’re just going to fail faster or you’re going to identify things faster that that need to be fixed.

Speaker 4:

It just makes customer frustration at warp speed.

Speaker 5:

It does. It does.

Speaker 4:

In your book, you have a, area. You talk about walking the property. Talk to us about what that means and why it’s so important.

Speaker 5:

Well, you know, walk the property. Funny. Don’t mind. Michael, is is that that was the original title of the book?

Speaker 4:

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 5:

It was. And and I that was the working title. And, when, I met with my editor and they basically said it sounded like a real estate book, so they said, no, not your plan. This was not my plan. And so we worked together and came up with the title. But what walking the property does is I those people that know me, I’m originally a hotelier.

Yeah. And one of the things that made a great leader in the hospitality industry was we walked what the guest saw, and every day we would walk the property, we’d look to see how the landscaping looked, where the fingerprints on the doors, how was people being greeted? If you were going to an event, you would see what the customer the guest is experiencing walked the property.

Really, it’s a metaphor to basically say you really need to look at your processes. You need to look at your end to end journey. You need to make sure that you’re experiencing what your customer is experiencing. And you know too many decisions and processes are really made or decided in in in a boardroom. Oh yeah. And it’s important for leaders, as you know, Michael, to get out there and really experience it firsthand.

What the customer customer sees.

Speaker 4:

You can get a very warped perception from the boardroom of what reality is, because you’re drinking so much of your own Kool-Aid. Yes.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. No. Exactly. And and and not and experience it. Not necessarily when things go right but also go wrong. Yeah. Because it can make sense on paper with a certain processes and a certain procedure. And in and there are companies that like to hide behind those t’s and C’s and they hide behind those processes. And it really is comes down to a trust factor.

Yeah. And it really is. You don’t want to destroy that trust because today customers want to make sure that they trust the companies that they’re doing business with. And that’s the quickest way to destroy trust.

Speaker 4:

So let’s stay on that thread. What do you think is the biggest disconnect between what customers really want and what companies are actually delivering?

Speaker 5:

Customers want simplicity. They want speed, and they want to make sure that their companies that they do business with is transparent. And, you know, it really needs to make sure it resonates through all the policies, all the procedures, whether it’s billing you know, and that is an area that quickly can destroy trust. But they want that. They want the ability that they want a seamless connectivity.

They want to be able to handle it, whether it’s digitally. But at the end of the day, then they may want to, connect with a human if something goes wrong.

Speaker 4:

So who owns fixing that disconnect?

Speaker 5:

You know, fixing that disconnect while it’s everyone’s everyone’s problem to fix if you’re in it. But at the end of the day, it really is the C-suite. It really is the C-suite. That is where it is your problem to fix, because depending on how you are structured, depending on how you look at your team, I mean, that is your secret sauce, the team and people that actually touch the customers.

That is the key differentiator between you and your competition.

Speaker 4:

So if that truth doesn’t get to the chief operating officer, chief marketing, or even the CEO, things that actually don’t change much.

Speaker 5:

No, they don’t. And and they, they have their it’s like almost like an alternate universe of what they think and feel. But until you get out there and actually see what the customer is seeing and feeling and actually the the result of your policies and your processes and the technology that you put in. At the end of the day, they really want to make the customers want it to work.

And and, you know, there are experiences each and every day. We all have it where we enter into interface with, you know, interact with something digital. We, go into a store, we go into it and there’s things that are not working. And you sit there and you get frustrated. Yeah. You know, at the end of the day, it’s transparency.

It’s needs to make sure that it works.

Speaker 4:

So if you had to make a bet, what’s the biggest change you think we’ll see in customer experience and how companies address customer experience over the next 3 to 5 years?

Speaker 5:

So I think the speed of which AI is being adopted, I think AI is going to be huge. And with a genetic AI, you know, it’s it’s with AI right now, it’s very transactional. It’s very if then, you know, we’re going to do it. But I think with a genetic I, I think they’re going to be starting to make decisions on on how to service your customers or when your customers interact with them.

It is going to be about that, that you’re going to have AI that’s going to be making those simple decisions and making those decisions need to make sure you have a clear off ramp. But even more so, I think the speed of which the ability to use AI to have data collection and getting deeper understanding and deeper data about your customer base is going to accelerate what behaviors your customer have buying habits, everything about your customer.

So with that speed, I think you’re going to identify data that you didn’t even know today, and that data is going to be at the C-suite. I think you’re going to see an elevation of customer experience more focused at the board table.

Speaker 4:

We almost need that predictive quality, because if you think about it, that’s way the customer trust is built slowly over time. But the way consumers use technology, a bad experience is translated to hundreds if not thousands of people almost instantly. And you immediately lose trust.

Speaker 5:

With exactly with technology today and with the speed of which customers have access to data. Yeah, information, research about what they’re going to buy. We have customers that are walking away quicker than than leaders really realize. Yeah. Whether they’re quietly quitting, they’re quietly leaving. They’re quietly moving on. It’s a challenge because we have more data, the speed of which we have all this data insights, and, and decisions have to be made.

It has to be up there on that table. It has to be listened to, and you have to have the ear of your of your C-suite.

Speaker 4:

So what led you to write ten things I Hate About You and Why did you do it now?

Speaker 5:

So, I, I’ve been in this industry for decades, and what I did notice is that it crossed industries, that there were frustrations that continued today.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Speaker 5:

And it got lost it a lot of noise. And, you know, whether it’s industry or different things. But I noticed over the decades that there was a consistent message, there was consistent pitfalls. And so I wrote the book to basically say, here are the ten things, the ten pitfalls that cross industry that basically you can focus in on and can be fixed today.

And, you know, I wanted something that, gave a roadmap that gave a playbook for leaders to basically say, let’s focus on it. These are things that sometimes there’s always forgotten or get lost in the noise. But I wanted something that basically, you know, it was at this point of time, it was really urgent to really refocus on what are the things that customers are, you know, hate about dealing with customers, companies today.

Speaker 4:

You know, it really is a practical playbook. I have to tell you, my favorite chapter is chapter seven. You all will get a copy as you leave here today. Start with chapter seven, not at the beginning. The chapter is you designed this for you, not your customer. Can you talk a little bit about that one?

Speaker 5:

You know exactly it is. That’s one of my favorite chapters, because we’ve all been in those, meetings where suddenly it comes down, down on high and basically, you know, we’re we’re, we’re we’re figuring out that this, this is better for us, that this process or this terms and conditions or this procedure or, you know, it’s better for the company, but it’s not better for the customer.

And and let me share an example of this. And it was, I won’t mention the company, but, it was clearly evident. And so over the last few weeks, I’ve been seeing a lot of advertisement for this wireless company and that if you have two lines and Wi-Fi to get a package.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Speaker 5:

So I put it a mental note. I said, well, I’ve got two lines, I’ve got Wi-Fi. I’m going to I’m going to go in and I’m going to get the, the and it was for either new customers or for, existing customers. I was like, this is great so far. Checking the boxes. This is making sense. This is great.

And, so I kind of researched and and like, well, let me figure out which store I want to go to. And, I said, well, you know, a plan that I was going to go to this one store and quickly did a research and they noticed that there was one agent or representative that always was called out.

His name was Charlie. And I’m like, well, I’m going to make sure to try to see if I can see Charlie. So I was driving down and, saw the store pulled in and just so happened Charlie was working, and I went up to Charlie and I said, you know what? Look at that sign over there. It says, if you have two lines and you have Wi-Fi, you get the you get the 20% off this deal, this bundle deal.

I said, I have two lines and I want that, the bundle. And when we start talking. So I three things I needed to do in this, this visit, he could only do one of them. The other two. I had to leave the store and pick up the phone and call a loyalty team. And then I had to call a separate Wi-Fi team to be able to get my third team fixed.

So here’s a situation we talk about. You know, you’re putting the process together. And I had a long conversation with Charlie, and I said, so help me understand why this their focus has been about getting new lines, not about taking care of the customer who just walked in the door.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Speaker 5:

And so here’s here’s a representative of the company that was frustrated. And he said he gets frustrated all the time because he can’t serve the customer. So this is a situation where it may be good for the company. And yeah, we want to make sure that we get, we’re shifting and we’re getting more, lines. But at the end of the day, here’s a long term customer that walked in the door that only was being able to have their needs solved one out of three.

Speaker 6:

nan

Speaker 4:

So, as you know, I’m in health care. I’m going to give your books about 20 friends because we are really good at designing for ourselves. And to hell with the patient. You know, out of the ten things you mentioned in the book, which one do you think hurts companies the most?

Speaker 5:

You know, I think the biggest thing that hurts companies is broken processes and, that they’re not dealing with, they’re not able to solve the problem. Many times we all have experiences where we’ve gone on the app, we’ve gone on the web, and we tried to get something resolved.

Speaker 4:

nan

Speaker 5:

And I’ve heard examples of getting into a, the loop of an eye loop and couldn’t find the exit ramp. But I think what what happens is, is if we have a broken because customers today, their patience is getting shorter and shorter because the ease of data, the speed of which data. So their tolerance level is, is is shorter.

But they’re that is about trust especially it’s a broken process impacts their money. And it has to do with financially and it’s there’s a financial burden or there’s issues. You quickly destroy the trust of your customers.

Speaker 4:

It’s a good one. Thank you. Your chapters often have comments that speak directly to executives. If you had to boil it down to 1 or 2 mindsets, you’re sick. Company leaders need to make in order to get customer experience right. What would you of all the good, good suggestions you have in here, what would you bring to the top?

Speaker 5:

So what comes to the top? And I think a lot of you have heard me say this before, but it really is resonating in the book. And I mean, it is, is that I want leaders, C-suite leaders, to stop looking at your customer experience team as a cost center. They don’t just answer the phone. You need to look at it as a growth engine.

You need to look at it as something as a secret weapon, because the people that actually touch your customer, the people that solve the problems, the people that close the gaps that you ask them to do have an amazing amount of data. That can be mined and used and if used correctly, and companies that would recognize the value of that voice of customer.

Speaker 4:

Sure.

Speaker 5:

They, they will beat their, their competition every time.

Speaker 4:

You know, I I teach some at Vanderbilt in the business school a rubric I use I’d love you to react to is this I say there’s three dimensions of value. You can create value when you believe you’ve created something for your customer, you deliver it when they say that. Yeah, that was kind of valuable. But you never capture to they tell other people.

And so it’s such a fine line because if you do really well, they tell other people and amplify your brand, and if you screw it up, they tell other people and destroy your brand, right?

Speaker 5:

They do. It. Is that the customers today are speaking very loudly, and if things are not working, they will be even louder.

Speaker 4:

nan

Speaker 5:

I just told you about an experience that I had that wasn’t while it solves some of it, but I still walked away that I now have to take an extra effort. Yeah. And so I think it really is if it’s not work, if it’s broken, if your customer doesn’t feel like at the end of the day their problem is solved, whether it is by using technology or having an off ramp to be able to talk to, a human being to solve the problem.

Yeah, they’re going to feel like that trust is broken and they’re going to speak about it.

Speaker 4:

So you talk about the challenges. But what I really liked about your book is also full of optimism. And you you talk about some of your belief and hope and absolute feeling that companies are going to address this more positively. Can you what makes you so confident about some of those fixes to come?

Speaker 5:

You know, I I’ve been in this industry many, many years and I’m very passionate about this community. And I believe that at the end of the day, when we advocate for the customer and we get to tell the right story, that companies will see that I’ve got to do this. And and the ones that do will be rewarded greatly with, with, with customer loyalty and with long term customers.

And, you know, it really is about at the end of the day, I think there are companies that really believe in and in customer experience taking care of the customers, and they know at the end of the day, that’s what pays the bills.

Speaker 4:

So as folks leave this session from us, what is the 1 or 2 lines it should reflect from the book that you want people to keep top of mind today and think about while they’re here at the conference. What is that I want.

Speaker 5:

I wish and I would like two things. One is each and every one of us needs to make sure that we’re passionate about being an advocate for our customers. Your customers are expecting you to have a voice and to make sure that you’re representing them with your leadership. And on the opposite side, I want the C-suite and C-level to understand what value they have of this team and make sure that that team is sitting at the table and not tucked away under other, other teams.

Speaker 4:

This has been a delight to talk to you folks. You’re going to really enjoy this book. Look forward to each of you taking a look at it, and I’m sure Lance would love to hear from you based on your feedback. Lance, thank you very much.

Speaker 5:

Thanks, Michael. Okay.

Roseann Rogers:

Thank you. Okay. And everyone is getting a copy of your book a great job. So Lance will actually be signing the book in the CMP lounge in the Expo hall later today, so you can get it when you leave today. You’ll actually get your book so everyone will have it. So that’s how you’re like, wait, he’s doing autographs?

But how do I get the book? Good news is, when you leave here today, they’ll be passing them out so you can autograph. So, we see our guest speakers for next panel. They’re really super fun. Guys. I’ve had a chance to meet them and talk to them. And guess what? We’re going to talk more I, Bruce Henry, come on out.

Your stage awaits you.

Speaker 1:

Up next, solving real world challenges with conversational AI. Please welcome to the stage Henry Pozzo and Bruce Gilbert.

Roseann Rogers:

Bruce, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Speaker 7:

I’m Bruce Gilbert, I’m chief information and technology officer for Young Energy. We’re a retail electric provider in the state of Texas.

Roseann Rogers:

Okay. All right. You Longhorn fan? No, he’s got orange on, so I just had to ask the other UT out there.

Speaker 7:

It’s open for interpretation, I.

Roseann Rogers:

Gotcha. Okay. Moving on. Henry, tell us about yourself.

Speaker 8:

Hey, guys. Henry Pezzo, director of sales at Amelia. I’ve been there about, six and a half years. I think that’s about as long as it’s okay to grow a beard, right?

Roseann Rogers:

Yeah. I was just going to say, should we get that? Should we get the elephant out of the room right now? Because I knew what all of you were thinking. Because I was thinking the same thing. How long did it take to grow that beard?

Speaker 7:

Six and a half years. Six and a half years. I at six and a half. Now, have.

Roseann Rogers:

You ever cut it before?

Speaker 7:

I have not.

Roseann Rogers:

Okay.

Speaker 7:

Started.

Roseann Rogers:

And my next thing is, do you ever get compared to Billy Gibbons from the top by any chance?

Speaker 7:

Yeah.

Roseann Rogers:

Oh it happens. I’m seriously. And you know, Billy does live in Nashville now, so you could get spotted and you might be asked for an autograph because Billy does live here, so. And he just he just did something with Gibson guitars last week. So don’t be surprised if you get stuff in the airport. I mean, had that happen to you before but didn’t stop for his easy top?

Speaker 7:

No not stopped. I get I get called Z.z top a lot.

Roseann Rogers:

I was I’m so glad we got all that out because I know everybody was sitting like one to know about that. And then of course, Henry, view the picture you showed you may want to get a new headshot because you had no hair.

Speaker 8:

So, fun part about the risks of, leveraging generative, that was actually a joke picture done by someone in our company was, me and another rep. If we had a baby.

Roseann Rogers:

Okay. Got it. So now we know that you have a fun company with great sense of humor, and they were not supposed to send that picture, so now you only got it. So now you need to do make sure, you know, they always say that saying keep your enemies closer right. For now. You know, get that person when you get back.

Let’s talk about this. We were talking about the big picture and I said, let’s just dive right into the conversation here. As far as, Bruce, let’s start with you, from a role that’s, you know, pressing challenges, of course, facing companies such as yourselves today, what are some of those big challenges that we say, I know you can’t name all of them, but let’s just, you know, we could be here like for two hours, but we’re not going to do that.

Speaker 7:

For for us internally, it was balancing automation with personalization. Customers expect free frictionless service and empathetic responses. That’s very difficult to build in a in a high call call volume, call center with human agents. So we’re leveraging AI to to help build out that optimism on automation and personalization.

Roseann Rogers:

Incredible okay. So we’re talking to Young Energy of course has a competitor. It’s a competitive market right. And where do you see the biggest friction points for customers. It’s a tough one I know it is.

Speaker 7:

I would say gaining the initial confidence and trust. Our demographics can can demonstrate, a very untrusting attitude. And the demographics can and can be older or even you’ll find a lot of distrust.

Roseann Rogers:

Well, we talked about that yesterday, like transparency and trust and let that plays in this whole realm of things.

Speaker 7:

Right. So again, I think building that confidence and trust with the with the customer.

Roseann Rogers:

Because they’re right. It’s like you don’t trust it yet. Henry. Weigh in on this a little bit please.

Speaker 8:

I, I think we’re all creatures of habit and we have to account for human behavior and the behaviors of our constituents, our customers, our patients. When we think about how I kind of furthers the message of, hey, I want to provide service that’s sleek, I want to provide service that leads to resolution, that leads to a resolution that we actually want to have.

Part of that. Absolutely. It’s personalization. Right? The other part is, I’m sure we’ll get into it more is actually understanding your customer base. It’s, you know, it’s beyond just the mystical. I’ve put AI somewhere and now it magically works. It’s how do I objectively understand how the interactions are going?

Roseann Rogers:

Henry, let stay with you. What are some of the most impactful ways you’ve seen AI support agent. Well well-being or reduce the burnout and contact centers. Because I would think that would be something that would be very significant. That happens often. And how do you address that?

Speaker 8:

That’s a great question. So we’ve done quite a bit of work across multiple industries, specifically in the fast foods base. Actually, one of the interesting things is one of the organizations we worked with, they weren’t necessarily looking for cost savings. They were looking for actually upsell potential. And one of the issues was their agents, their cognitive load, the amount of tasks that they had to do, the amount of platforms and different screens that they had to interact with was so high that actually having one of those tasks reduced.

An effort, like being able to not have to take the order right, being able to have to just, you know, make the order, make sure it’s correct, created actually an increase in overall agent retention. And that’s something that we see a lot in. Bruce, I think, you know, I’ve talked about this like the idea of retaining agents is becoming more and more important because it’s so hard sometimes in certain places to just find agents.

Right.

Speaker 1:

nan

Speaker 7:

Yeah. Attrition in the call center is, is something that every one of us, you know, has to deal with. And, and since the introduction of the conversational AI and, you know, I’d like to say that we’ve reduced that stress level with the agent. We still have some attrition, but it’s not because of of stress. It’s just the natural attrition that happens in the call center wanting to.

Roseann Rogers:

And can you, if you don’t have any examples you can share with all of us, that would be great. Do you have any, Henry, that you’ve had for customers or your clients or companies that say, hey, this worked? Maybe it didn’t work. We had to work on this a little bit better.

Speaker 8:

Sure. So, let me wrap my head around what my NDA is. So, I mean, aside.

Roseann Rogers:

Put you on the spot that you are in the hot seat, though, and the spotlight is on. You know.

Speaker 8:

I think so we’ve quite a few credit unions. Just the ability to remove the mundane is incredibly important. All of a sudden, agents are actually dealing with inquiries that require empathy, that require, you know, focus. But they’re not for the, you know, 20th time telling Mary what balances on the first of every month. The other thing that’s worked really well in terms of supporting agents is having a little bit of a predictive model as well.

And what I mean is, we all have that one customer who calls every single time on the dot to do one action. And you know that your agents know them. You know that they’re potentially asking for your agents by name because, you know, Joe always services them. So how can we start taking that specific interaction and making it easier?

The counterbalance, and I think we talked about it before though, is if they really love Joe, keep Joe in the loop right. Provide the balance and say, would you like to speak to each other? They know. Just tell them hi, whisper it over to the agent like we’re all human beings. We want acknowledgment that we’re doing a great job in the eyes there to support Henry.

Roseann Rogers:

Thank you. I don’t mean to put you on the spot. That was a really good example. That was a great example. I think sometimes for all of us to kind of wrap our heads around all this is giving examples of what you’re kind of, you know, implementing and talking about when we talk about adoption, trust and of course, creation is or is transparency.

Bruce, do you worry about customers resisting AI and how did you adopt to play that out?

Speaker 7:

It was a concern for us. Again, our demographics can be somewhat, picky, if you will. You know, we have demographics that will, you know, they’re part of an older generation that refuse to use any sort of automation. And, and then, you know, on the on the swing side of that, we have a very large Hispanic or Spanish, demographics that you’re in typically.

Right, untrusting of anything automated, anything, you know, bank related, anything like that. And so we were very transparent in, in, in deploying our, our initial AI initiative. And we went very small, very small steps, very small self-service options. And as we gain that customer confidence and trust, we started rolling out more and more complex self-service functionality. So patience patience is key okay.

Roseann Rogers:

Patient is really key for you. What made Amelia stand out and why did you select Amelia over other vendors in this time?

Speaker 7:

So, Amelia, this is always going to be my my first response. You know, coming from the from the IT side.

Roseann Rogers:

Okay.

Speaker 7:

Amelia owns the technology stack end to end. They don’t rely on third party services for any of their solution. So for us, that’s fewer failure points. And if there is an issue, it’s one vendor to deal with. But aside from that it’s also their experience and natural language. And and their their previous experience in the utilities vertical.

Roseann Rogers:

Grocery with us and both Henry.

Speaker 8:

What did he select again. Yeah, it definitely wasn’t because of me. Let me put it that way.

Roseann Rogers:

No I know I know, we were talking about it because we were like, remember Bruce with the Be Bruce Beard will be over here isn’t I’m Henry. I’m like, yes. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 8:

I think we dispelled a lot of the magic that’s around AI, and we actually broke it down in the way. So one thing that I’ll always say is, having done this as long as Bruce’s beard. Right?

Roseann Rogers:

Seven years. Okay.

Speaker 8:

There’s always a little bit of a, there’s always when you see something really flash and really cool. Sometimes organizations here will have a business lead that says, this is exactly what I want. It gets brought in, and their job is to dispel part of that right to say, okay, how does it work? How does it work within my environment?

Because it’s great to see something magical. It’s great to say I can answer any question. I can just import my knowledge base and we’re good to go. Right? But the reality is we very much took it step by step. And I think Bruce said it best. Right. Like we identified what’s the low hanging fruit? How do we scale this out.

Because we want to make sure that there’s adoption rates. And finally, just honestly, how does this integrate within your existing product roadmap? Right. Like you have internal products, you have internal solutions that you’re building towards. So how do we partner in this?

Roseann Rogers:

That’s good thing with you, Henry, in your experience, what are some of the biggest mistakes businesses make when deploying the AI tools meant to support the agents?

Speaker 8:

So I think one of the most and again, it’s going back to what I just said. I think part of it is to dispel the magic. It’s to identify the correct business cases. And I think it’s to put regimen around understanding not just how the deployment goes, but what happens after. One of the things that I commonly see and actually heard the previous speaker talk about is this idea of, you know, from a even from an executive level, you’re buying AI, you’re going for AI transformation, right?

You want your organization to start gathering all this data and provide all this objective, no data, subjective but objective feedback. Then you need to make everyone aware of what that changes. And you have to make sure that everyone’s on board and understands how that progresses. We were talking about it backstage as we heard it, like Bruce was on most of the calls, not just prior to cell cycle, but even after we were going through.

How do we integrate? How do we pull this information? Because it becomes fundamental to have that view. If you don’t have that full view, you can end up in situations where it’s segmented to one specific task and you’re not realizing the value of it.

Roseann Rogers:

That makes sense versus what are you eating on? And as far as Henry was noting about that on the IT sign.

Speaker 7:

Now, as he mentioned, we’re we’re what you would consider an SMB in terms of, in terms of size, but we operate like a fortune 500 company, you know, in terms of technology. We’re bleeding edge, we’re very cloud forward. But at the same time, we’re we’re agile and as as Henry was touching on the previous, the previous topic, where he’s talking about the C-suite and the, you know, being being somewhat blind or impervious to what’s going on.

Our C-suite is very involved. We we walk the property, if you will. We’re very aware. We’re very involved.

Roseann Rogers:

Okay. Let’s talk about impact and future vision. Right. Bruce, I’ll start with you a what’s been the most important benefit beyond the hard numbers? And as we all know in any industry are we’re all looking at the numbers. It’s all about the numbers. But let’s, you know, let’s dial it down even deeper than that.

Speaker 7:

So so for us and I’m not in marketing and I’m not you know, I’m in it I’m a natural introvert. I don’t, you know, for us, I think.

Roseann Rogers:

I, we and say you’re all an introvert. I think you did it. You’re doing a pretty good job.

Speaker 7:

Yeah, I was I was coerced into doing this. Haha. Now, for us, it’s the intangibles, right? Right. The the metrics matter. The reduction in call times, the the the increase in first call resolutions, those matter. But I think what we what we’ve realized, you know, over, over the 2 or 3 year journey I it’s been so, you know, so long is the confidence that we’ve gained from the customer that confidence and and turns into trust in that trust turns into brand loyalty.

Right. And so, you know, there are intangibles that you that you don’t typically, you know, you don’t necessarily see when you’re looking at the call center numbers, but you see those numbers in customer attrition, right? And customer loyalty.

Roseann Rogers:

Okay. And Henry, what about as far as looking forward. Do you see like what are the next big opportunities as far as AI is concerned?

Speaker 8:

I think it’s the ability to stop thinking about siloed AI and start thinking about AI across multiple bits and how you can create kind of these master AI models that allow you to have an overall concept of how the AI works alongside the company. It’s a bit esoteric, I’m going to be honest with you, but very simply put, as as you continue to gather data from different points and you continue to evolve models and you continue to personalize, you’re getting to a point where the AI conversation, whether it’s for the internal employee querying a knowledge base, whether it’s with the customer at the first point of contact, whether it’s literally reviewing documentation, trying to

gather knowledge from like transcription becomes part of what the company identity is, right? We we try to look at this as kind of a monolithic concept where exposed to these ideas of large language models and grounding. But the truth is, the more you specialize, the more you make it. You know, your own, that you have your own level of generative within your organization.

Right? Something that understands who you are, how the knowledge works, the more it becomes relevant to you, right?

Roseann Rogers:

Embrace from it standpoint. Where are big opportunities for you? Do you see you’ve been doing this for a long time? Where do you hope that you’re the next level will take you and where it takes a company as well?

Speaker 7:

For us, I see AI is is kind of unifying the responses that a customer gets, right. They may get one answer from the website, they may get one answer if they call in to the IVR or the eBay, and they may get a third answer if they speak to a live agent using AI to to consolidate that knowledge and and and ensure that a customer is receiving a consistent answer.

I think that’s where I see, you know, in driving for us.

Roseann Rogers:

Well, for those in the audience too is saying we need to start this. We need to implement this in our own companies. What kind of advice for their own AI journey would it be? If you’re like, hey, okay, I need to start doing this. And we’re not. We’re kind of by hind the eight ball on this and you know, or we’re just kind of starting out and we don’t really know where we are with this.

So I mean, from your perspective, you’ve been doing this a long time. I think it’s important to hear what to do. Like because we’re hearing this big picture and then you’re like, okay, I’m still lost.

Speaker 7:

So you know, like, yeah, like they say in barbecue, low and slow, you low and slow.

Roseann Rogers:

They do say that, like this guy here.

Speaker 7:

That’s right. Yeah. I had to throw that away.

Roseann Rogers:

They do it too because the barbecue is different. But it’s just like it is different. Okay?

Speaker 7:

It is different. A.

Roseann Rogers:

Whole nother subject. We’ll get on to that.

Speaker 7:

I want to touch on that one. Okay. You know, my suggestion would be to start with empathy, not the technology.

Roseann Rogers:

You empathy if you start if.

Speaker 7:

You start with with what the can what the technology can do, you will get lost. Start with empathy. Start with the customer customer’s pain points, what your pain points are and then build it from there.

Roseann Rogers:

Okay, so what’s the phrase? Everybody remember it.

Speaker 7:

Low and slow.

Roseann Rogers:

There you go.

Speaker 7:

Oh start with empathy.

Roseann Rogers:

Oh not with them. I mean I guess if I reference that, you know, as far as I was a really good way to think about it because you’re right. Because, you know, if you don’t go with, with barbecue, if you don’t do it that way, it tastes like, you know what? I’m right. So that’s that’s really true. And Henry Henry, tell me about like, your perspective, you know, from the other side of it, not from the IT sector, but, you know, if you had to start, you know, with businesses, their journey, what do you suggest?

Speaker 8:

So Bruce kind of started and what I do, what I was going to frame it very simply is don’t buy technology, solve a business case. The reality of it is the way that I gets applied to different organizations is extremely different. It is not a one size fits all. It actually yesterday I had a great conversation at the booth.

Someone asked me a question that I love, which is, you know what? From a generative versus directed dialog, what’s the difference? Do you do both? Yada yada yada. And the answer is yes, because the reality is, as you continue to evolve as an organization and you’re trying to solve a business use case, the tools, which are the technology that you’re leveraging, there’s different tools for different things.

What do I mean? There are certain environments where you want creativity, right? You want generative. You want that more natural sounding conversation. But what you don’t want to be is the, you know, car companies selling your competitors car for $1. There are places where you want to have that control, where you want to have that specific input, where for all of you who work with agents right in the call center, when it says read as is right the reader’s, this doesn’t go away.

That’s compliance. That’s risk mitigation. So it’s very much the concept of like as you look at the use case, don’t think, well, Agent Assist fixes this or you know, transcription fixes this, but how do we solution for now and how do we solution for where we’re going as well.

Roseann Rogers:

True. Very very true. So if we do new things we talked about that. How to set up rates for success here. What I capabilities are most effective right now in real time support. And what should contact center is prioritize. Next we can start with you Henry. And I’d like to hear Bruce’s perspective on it, but I think that’s, you know, going back to kind of just setting the stage for better support to ensure, you know, mistakes are going to happen.

Right.

Speaker 8:

Well, I think you said it right before this. So, yeah. Where are your customers hurting? Where are your agents hurting? You’re right. So with young Energy, we saw a huge opportunity beyond the hard numbers in the IVR. Right? There were repetitive tasks that could be automated, that would generate containment, that would allow customers to get exposed to interacting with an AI.

But that’s a that’s one starting point for some organizations. For certain banks have no AI policy in the idea. What does that mean? It’s really important for them, though, to have their agents be better trained. Why? Because they’re training them to be CPAs. They’re putting a lot of money in that investment of agents. Right. Like losing a trained agent for them can be 20, 30, $40,000 of investment, right.

So in terms of where you start, start with where you can generate a business case, but start with what start solution, whether it’s an internal pain point on the agent side or a customer pain point transport.

Roseann Rogers:

What do you do for support? I mean, things go wrong, right? So how do we address that a little bit support.

Speaker 7:

Where at what.

Roseann Rogers:

Right. What level in the customer or you know care centers and what they do? Is there anything that you can say is like, hey, if you need support, this is what we we would advise you to do. And what do you double do as far as that’s concerned? Can you and I’m not.

Speaker 7:

I’m not prepared to answer that.

Speaker 1:

You know.

Speaker 7:

I’m not I’m not sure what the response is. I mean, obviously. Right. I mean, obviously if there’s something broken in the, you know, in a, in the conversational AI. Yeah.

Roseann Rogers:

That might it maybe ask that question. Right.

Speaker 7:

Obviously I think, you know, the customer the call center is going to reach out to it and, you know, will either investigate and fix. And if we need to we’ll get you know, we’ll get Amelia involved. If it’s something on the customer side, typically they’ll talk to a live agent and then it will make its way over to us, and then we’ll investigate.

And then obviously you have logs and analytics where you can, you know, you can dig in and monitor that to, to identify issues before they come bigger issues.

Roseann Rogers:

So I think you answered that just perfectly. I think you got this and you said, you know, it was like a hello. Yeah. So and kind of.

Speaker 7:

I wasn’t ready for that one.

Roseann Rogers:

Sorry. I didn’t mean to send your curveball, but, you know, it was like and just kind of like, keep the conversation going. So. Okay, so we’re wrapping this up, Henry. Takeaways. Let’s talk away. Takeaways. What you know, to kind of bring it all together. What do you think. And lasting note what would you suggest for this group and kind of everything we’ve talked about.

It’s a lot y’all. It’s a lot.

Speaker 8:

So I think part of it and we’ve seen this in the last couple of years also in the way that like when you look at it from an analyst perspective, like there’s been major changes is again, demystify what you like, demystify what someone tells you. AI is right. AI is a process. AI is a way to get to a results.

AI isn’t this magical pixie dust that gets sprinkled somewhere and you know, magically all your customers are happy and you have the best data in the world. I think the big takeaway is that, like as you look at it, understand where the actual value for AI is for you and try to find honestly partners in AI who will work with you because the other side is as your organization changes.

Yes, the talent that you have will get more familiarized with AI, but that’s also a big change that happens, right? Like how does your organization evolve around the solution.

Roseann Rogers:

Or is anyone add to that?

Speaker 7:

Not much I can add to it. You know, for us, I would say the next evolution or revolution is adding capabilities that allow us to use predictive analytics to determine, you know, why the customer is calling in right?

Roseann Rogers:

I think that’s really good. I think that, you know, this discussion will continue as far as the audience goes. And I think that a lot of us have learned a lot, too. And I think that, you know, for Henry, why do you think that’s important for, you know, you came here today to talk about this. It’s a hot topic.

And, you know, you’re here to share your knowledge with everybody. So I think it’s really beneficial that you’ve done that. Any more lasting words? Anybody want to share?

Speaker 8:

Henry I thought the barbecue was okay here.

Roseann Rogers:

I was good. I was going to say it back to barbecue because, you know, I did live in Texas for 25 years. And then we have South Carolina barbecue, which is like, you know, mustard base. Right? And we have this year in Nashville different than when in Texas. I know you could probably talk about that for us about the barbecue.

Speaker 7:

I could I don’t want to I don’t want to leave a bad impression.

Roseann Rogers:

I don’t want to leave because we are in the Music City.

Speaker 7:

And Nashville’s a great place. The barbecue is not the same. So it’s not about the hot chicken. Then the hot chicken. They rule the hot chick.

Roseann Rogers:

The hot chicken is great. So if you all haven’t gotten that yet, you need to get Hattie B’s. And yeah, so I mean continue this conversation. Obviously I’ll be in the extra expo hall, booth for 27 and you’ll answer questions. Maybe.

Speaker 7:

Maybe I’m going to have to shrink that one to Henry.

Roseann Rogers:

Henry.

Speaker 7:

I’m not at the booth, so.

Roseann Rogers:

Maybe you will be. After this conversation, we’re going to coerce you to be in the booth, too, just like you had to come up on stage. Did you do a great job or what?

Unknown:

I think that you guys, I mean, in the industry that we’re all.

Roseann Rogers:

Into because we’re in customers, sometimes we have to go outside the box a little bit, you know, and you did such a great job. And I think you have a great sense of humor. And you also, played a beard too, with everything. So I appreciate your time and, your expertise because you’re super duper smart. Thank you.

And I’m glad I could follow along, because I’ll be honest with you, I was a little lost earlier. I was like, what are you talking about, Bruce? Thank you all very, very much for your time. I know you’re going to stick around, though. You know what’s coming up, don’t you remember Dick Vitale?

Speaker 7:

There we.

Roseann Rogers:

Go. Dick Vitale coming up. So we’re going to let Bruce and Henry go. And so what we’re going to do is they need to get on miked and they’re going to get in their seats because they don’t want to miss him. And then I’m going to tell a little story perfect like that okay. With y’all okay. Good. And we’ll continue our conversation about barbecue.

And Mike you you guys were great sports.

Unknown:

Thank you so much. Oh good. Oh good. Thank you guys.

Roseann Rogers:

So so much. Terrific I mean the whole beard thing was hysterical. I was like, you know I know all of you going to think the same thing I am. I can do it. I want to tell a quick story just because most of you like, who’s Roseanne Rogers and what she do on stage? I’ve had a vast career in broadcasting.

I actually started in Nashville, then went to Louisville, and then I went to Texas. And that’s what, you know, Bruce and I were talking about my Texas ties and was there for many, many years on camera. I work for all three stations. But fast forward, when I was a young reporter, I had the opportunity, they said, Roseanne, you have to go interview Dick Bechtel.

I was like, who’s that? I was like, wait a second, okay, I was a college cheerleader. Did do a lot of basketball games, but I didn’t really know who he was. I did my homework fast, so really nervous because my early 20s just starting out and I didn’t cover sports, y’all. I was in entertainment. I’m like, I’m like, I’m the entertainment reporter.

You know? I don’t cover sports. I’m like your daughter today. Because again, like out of all of our roles, sometimes we have to we have to deal with bosses, right. You’re just going to do it. So I did, and I got there super nervous heart racing. And he made my job really easy because he made me feel comfortable.

His energy was inspiring. And get this, I only had to ask one question and he gave me ten minutes of great soundbites because I asked one thing and he just started talking. So I go back to the station. I’m like, yeah, I did such a good job. And they’re like, you had ten minutes of interviews. I’m like, yeah.

And then I’m like, no, do I say how many questions I asked? Because they only asked one. So Danny, great job. I was so excited because that all the great sound bites that all the sports guys wanted, I look like the hero. Okay, so let’s fast forward a little bit. So, you know, experiences. He knew I was nervous, did my homework a little bit better.

Yeah. Did he embarrass me because I didn’t really know what to ask. No he did not embarrass me. But I did learn. So fast forward now I’m going. I mean, I’m going to Top ten Market in Houston, Texas, and I’m getting there and they’re like, hey, the rockets are doing really good. And we were in the playoffs and championship number two.

So they send me out there okay. Former cheerleader get out there. And we’re going to do the rockets parade. And I’m like okay this is good I got this. So there’s like this lull in the parade. Yeah I’m parades are there like these people coming or what. Like is this you know party started. So I had to like really like get the crowd going and everything.

And so I was just doing my little cheerleading thing and all the anchors were tossing back and forth, and one of the anchors said, Roseanne, your energy is so amazing. You remind us all of Dick vital. And I thought to myself, you’ve got to be kidding. After all these years, Helpful Circle came around because it was the energy and they also said his famous line, you’re awesome, baby.

And I don’t think I’ve ever got an awesome baby, ever. But but thanks to him. But just so I a full circle, you know, stories come about how someone did something kind nice, motivates you, inspires you, and then years later, it all comes back to you. Live on TV and the rockets championship. So you all are in for an amazing treat.

He’s a coach. He’s a mentor, ESPN, ESPN broadcaster. He’s also a philanthropist who’s done so much for amazing causes. And he’s motivational and he’s motivated me throughout my career, and I know he’s going to motivate you today. And for those of you in the audience who maybe was like me many, many years ago, I would go, I’ve heard his name before, but he was just take a look at the video right now because you’re in for a real treat.

Speaker 7:

From the thrill of the basketball court to the battle against cancer, Dick vital has lived a life defined by passion, perseverance, and an unshakable victory mindset. Now he brings that same energy and heart to the main stage, to share how optimism, resilience and a never quit attitude can transform everything. Drawing from lessons learned in sports, leadership and survivorship.

Speaker 1:

Dick reveals how to tackle challenges, inspire.

Speaker 7:

Teams, and create a winning game plan for both personal and professional.

Speaker 1:

Success. Please welcome to the stage Dick vital.

Speaker 6:

To.

I get the lights down so I can see these beautiful people. Well, first of all, I want to say Roseanne did a great job as your host here, and I think you ought to give her a big hand.

Unknown:

Well, I’m excited being here.

Speaker 6:

I mean, really, I want to thank all the people that invited me. And I know nothing about just customer care management.

Roseann Rogers:

Thank you. Oh.

Speaker 6:

Thank you. Welcome. I’m sure I but I do know a little bit about life. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to talk to you about winning in the game of life, a game you play a game. I play a game we all play. The bottom line is my life. I’ve been blessed. I’m 86 years old.

I’ve just come off. And many of you, I’m sure are aware I’m coming off battling four different cancers. I am melanoma up to 82 years of age and nothing healthy as can be. Healthy like you can play tennis three times a week and then all of a sudden I come down with melanoma, I end up beaten melanoma. And then seven months later I came down with lymphoma.

And that was tough because it was stage four lymphoma. And the doctor said, we got a real challenge. That’s a real challenge. But you’re a fighter. You’re not a quitter. I always tell cancer patients, you must think positive and you must have faith. You got to believe and you got to believe you can beat it. You can’t let that take charge and control your life.

So the bottom line is, I tried to be active. I tried to do it all. And finally, after six months of chemo, I was told that we beat lymphoma. Not on my clock.

I was I was totally on cloud nine after that. Really on cloud nine. And then out of the blue seven months later, the worst thing that could happen to me, it was the best for my wife because she got a chance to talk their life. I had vocal cord cancer and I couldn’t speak for months. I had to write everything down on a piece of paper.

But my wife got a chance to speak. Mentioned to my wife she’s here today. The greatest caregiver. I’m in 15 Hall of Fame. I tell people all the time, that’s amazing. I can’t run, I can’t jump, I can’t shoot, I got a buddy buddy linguine. And I’ve been 15. Hall of Fame. And the reason? Because all my life I’ve had a passion.

I believe in the three P’s passion, preparation and perseverance. If you persevere when things get tough, you can make it. And I made it because of this lady. She’s been my bride for 54 years and I’d be lost.

Unknown:

I would be totally.

Speaker 6:

Lost without her. And I know she’s in the crowd. I can’t see people. Lorraine. Stand up. So we’re all sitting.

Unknown:

She’s. She’s here with me.

Speaker 6:

She said that’s beautiful. I like the lights out. She people, she say, well, my beautiful daughter, who’s a double donor, she went to Notre Dame and she has three kids that are at Duke. And I’ll tell you one thing, I’m lucky they’re bright. Because if Duke said to me, Duke, we’re a great institution. And if you wanted to be a student here, you don’t have to worry about the s.a.t.s and all the tests.

If you could just spell Duke and we’ll give you the day, I would screw it up and I would mess it up. But my grandkids tell it really well. She has three children at Duke University. She went to Notre Dame for a masters, played tennis there. My daughter Sherry said. Sherry.

Unknown:

I found that in my.

Speaker 6:

Life, you know, I grew up in a great home. I grew up with so much love. Two days ago, I received a great honor. I was the humanitarian man of the year, and I was really touched by it because from my home community where I grew up as a kid and all the different coaches, guys I really coached with in high schools, we chase dreams.

I think in life you have to have dreams. We used to say we were a boy of dreams. We called ourself the Jersey boys. You’ll be brown. You’ve heard that name. You’ll be a great coach in the NBA for years. Richie out of Bartow, NBA coach and Mike Fratello and NBA coach. All of us, all of us grew up together.

We’re high school coaches and we’re chasing dreams. And we made those dreams happen because we absolutely believed and had the confidence. That’s half the battle of people, your mental attitude and your approach. I grew up in a great home. I mean, my mom and dad were uneducated. They had a fifth grade education at best, but they had a doctorate of love, and their love just gave such an impetus to me, my brother, my sister and helped us in life.

I have one story I always share with people is I came home frustrated one day. We had one back to back state champs in high school. We won back to back state championships 35 and no. We’re undefeated, played all our games away from home. We didn’t have a home court yet. We believed well, I played with great, great desire.

I call it the four days of life, desire, dedication, determination and discipline of body and mind. When you have those four days of life, a lot of beautiful things can happen. And my team made them happen. But I came home one day. I’ll never forget this. In fact, I utilized this in my speech when I was inducted into the National Basketball Hall of Fame with a great class with Patrick Ewing and Pat Riley.

They came a large one, and I was part of that class 2008, and I shared on a microphone that day what really motivated me. One day I came home. I was so down. All my buddies back where I was from, they will call me Richie was never Dick. Richie, you’re not going to be a college coach. You don’t know anybody.

You weren’t a great player and I was getting rejections. I got more rejections after winning two state championships. The colleges that I would apply to to be a grad assistant, to just be an assist, a volunteer, whatever, just to get in the door to give them money, get in the door. I was probably like 29 to 30 at the time.

I got more rejections than the dean of Harvard gives out. It’s unbelievable. I mean, one rejection after another and then all of a sudden I came home. My mom says, Richie, the whole Italian way. I don’t see that spirit, that excitement that you always have. So, you know, my my buddies are right. I got to face reality. I’m going to be a seventh grade teacher all my life.

Sixth grade teacher and coach in high school. I said nothing wrong with that. I loved it, but I wanted to challenge a competing against the best the ones I watched on TV. She sat me down. Probably the best talk I ever got. She sat me down and remember just a lady with no education but love like you can’t believe she said.

Richie, Richie, listen to me. Don’t listen to your friends. Don’t ever, ever believe in karma. Don’t let can’t be part of your life. And man that hit me like I couldn’t believe. And then she told me, she said, Richie, treat people like you want to be treated. If you do that, you’re going to have a lot of good times in life, and I’ve tried to do that.

There’s one thing in our nation right now, I think you probably feel it as well as I do. So much hate, so much bitterness, no love, man for one another. If we all treated each other like we want to be treated, think about the love we would have. But my mom, that’s. I use that in my speech. My Hall of Fame speech got a lot of notoriety.

Talk from my heart. I talk my feelings. And if you ever want to hear it, all you got to do is put my name. Google Hall of Fame speech, you know, come up. But it was special to me with my mom. Did my mom and dad were beautiful people, factory workers. But it was all everything it did family, family, family.

And then my career after that little speech took off because a man all of a sudden I got a job at Rutgers University. I got a job as the assistant coach, and all I kept hearing was, I want to recruit this great player. And they said to me, you can recruit him, they can Carolina Duke. I said, you know what?

If you don’t believe in yourself, if you think you’re mediocre, you’ll be mediocre. I said, why can’t we at Rutgers University, a state university? Why can’t we attract the best players in Jersey in New York, Philadelphia? Come on that. I don’t buy that. But we were out. True story. And we recruited the best recruiting class in the country.

We got the number one player in the country, Phil Sellers. And then we let him get by. Dabney. And if you look it up, 1976 the Final Four, UCLA, Michigan, Indiana and Rutgers, 32. And oh, the Rutgers team.

Unknown:

The star the.

Speaker 6:

Star of that team was Phil Sellers and Mike Dabney, a dynamic duo, two great guys and they went on and did really a great job leading the university. I then because of the success we had recruiting, I got a job at a university Detroit, and when I came in here, then we got no crowds at all. The other coach was a pretty good coach, the coach before me, but for some reason it was during a time when there was a lot of race riots and problems in the Motor City.

I didn’t care about any of that. I took the job when they offered it to me and to me. Whether one is black or white, didn’t matter. One well, whatever, we’re going to get people in that crowd, we’re going to get people to come and see us play. And to me was one of the biggest thrills. Look at it and see the sign on the door.

9000 all sold out and we went on and we had success. My last year we won 21 games in a row and we beat the team that won the national championship. There were Marquette University, coached by al McGuire and one of my favorite, favorite people. The bottom line is we went on because we believed we had the confidence and we had the three piece preparation prepare.

And if you have passion in anything you do in life, the key is passion. You got to feel it. You got to believe it and still come from your heart. I read a quote the other day that Muhammad Ali always said, I love the champ. I’ll never forget. One day I’m speaking at an event. Sitting in the front row was the champ.

Oh my God. I was in awe. I looked at him. I said, champ, champ, I love you man. I especially loved you when you set the Sonny Liston when you fought him. You said Sonny, if the crowd there’s the bull I’m going to finish in two. And if you ever call me a bum, I’m gonna knock your sorry ass out of one.

And the bottom line is, I really loved meeting him and just a great guy. But he always said, I read a quote the other day. He said, you gotta have it and feel it in your heart. What are you trying to chase? Your dreams and goals you got to feel in your heart. And if you could do the following, I tell my five grandkids, all athletes, two were at Notre Dame, three at Duke.

I used to tell them all the time. Every night when you go to bed, you look at that mirror before you head down and just simply say, once, I better today than I was yesterday. And if you could do that every day of your life, if you could get a little bit better each day, making good decisions, decisions, your personal life decisions, the people you associate with and try to get yourself people that are climbing the ladder, that are chasing dreams in a positive.

What if you do that? A lot of great things are going to happen in your life. The game that we all play, I think of my career. Then after coaching in college, one day I’m sitting in my office, small little office, university Detroit. We didn’t have all the fancy stuff because heck, we got beat in the NCAA tournament.

My last game as a coach, we played Michigan. There were number one in the country. Super great program, great school, academically terrific place. So we they were number one. We have won 21 in a row that year. And we beat Michigan State. We beat Arizona. We were Marquette. The team that two months later won the National championship. So we were good at four NBA players.

Bottom line is my kids wanted to play Michigan so bad. Michigan was number one in the country and they were coming off a soul coach. Why can’t we play Michigan? Don’t 60 miles away? I said, guys, they don’t want to play us. We beat them. My first year, four years ago, we beat them and Coach Lawrence when we it’s over.

We’re not playing anymore. We don’t gain anything playing you. And you know, I can understand that. I think that he you know what he did I probably would do the same thing. Well, I would all play a little university Detroit. But one day, again, I’m in my office and my assistant coaches come running in. One was David Smokey Gaines.

He’s in the Hall of Fame with the Globetrotters. Smokey was a great guy. He passed away to cancer a couple of years ago and he comes and he says, coach, coach, you’re not going to believe it. The parents just came out for the NCAA tournament, and the parents have us play in Michigan in the NCAA sweet 16 if we get there.

I said, really quality meeting right now. Quality meeting. So he quality meeting, we hang on a big banner. All the teams are where they’re playing and I said bring it down so the players could see it. And I said, hey guys, how many times you’ve been in my office? Why play Michigan? We don’t want to play this kid.

You get to the sweet 16 and we go to Kentucky and we play my Rupp Arena and we’ll see what we can made of, oh my God, they erupted. They erupted. It was a pandemonium, excitement. We’re going to play. Michigan will be there. Coach will be there. And sure enough, the game became the hottest thing in Michigan for that time period.

And papers are all the stories. And I played it up that, you know, David and Goliath, we’re little, you know, David, their Goliath, their phone bunch. And I said, it’s more than our entire budget, but you better tell Coach Horn Michigan they better come to play mad because we’re going to come after him. And we went to that game.

Play the great game. When a minute to go. What made it special? We don’t play on TV very often. But our game that night was televised that NBC and what really made it special the day before, how you never know could change your life. Something you do here this weekend could probably change your life, but changed mine. Because when I went to practice the day before, I looked in the stands and I couldn’t believe it, I’m still sitting there was the coach at UCLA for years.

John Wooden won ten national championships. Coaches looked up to him like a God. I said, what’s he doing there? To watch a practice? And then with him was the worlds. At that time, number one sports announcer did the Super Bowl. He did the World Series B championship basketball’s Curt Gowdy. That’s oh my God. The other thing I did with him came over and he said, my name is Scotty Connell and I’m the head of like the sports production for NBC.

And Mr. Gowdy and Mr. Wooden are going to be the announcers tomorrow for your game. I saw you serious. So they came over and they asked if I could meet with them. I said, are you kidding? Of course I meet with them. I said, but I want to call my team over. So I call my team over. And I didn’t know a three minute speech was going to change my life.

I said, let me tell you something. I said to my team, you hear often on TV that we’re great. He’s great. He’s super great, great. It’s you. So often it’s ridiculous. But the word great applies to the two standing here. Coach Wooden’s won ten national championships seven consecutive years. National champ UCLA Kirk. And he’s won every Emmy Award you can win in television.

That is greatness. I said we are honored, honored that you be calling our game. And we hope to give you a great game playing the number one team in the country. Well, we go out and play that. We played a great game. We’re leading late in the game and we got beat in the last minute, and we took so much out of Michigan that one of the biggest upsets ever in the NCAA tournament, West Michigan, was considered to be the best in the country.

They got beat by North Carolina. Charlotte, led by a great player, Cordarrelle Maxwell. Well, that was it. We all hugged and then a life changes. And all my buddies who said you can’t be a college coach, all those thoughts were going through my mind as my secretary came in. And she says, coach coaches, the gentleman wants to speak to you right now.

And you office. Mr. Davidson, I said, Mr. Davidson, the Pistons owner, said yes. Little did I know, I’m in my 30s. He works at my office. Very low key kind of guy, but unbelievably a beautiful person with a heart of gold. Takes care of some of the charities in the building at Michigan law schools named after him.

And just a super guy, and he’s very low key. You barely hear him speak, and he’s sitting across from me and he says, oh, coach, I’m here for a reason. I don’t want to waste time. I want to hire a coach. The Pistons, he said, I love what you’re doing. Us oh my God, my body got all shook up.

I’m making like I’m making like 20,000 a year. 25,000. He says. I’ll pay you six figures a year, multiple year contract. I own dealerships, cars, give a new car for your wife and you, and every 6000 miles, beautiful cars and oh my God. And he said you could run a Campbell bobblehead near our superstore. Keep all the money this summer.

My head is really upset, so I said, I can’t do this until I talk to my wife. He said, I want an answer soon. I said, well up sir. I just can’t jump into that. I love what I’m doing here at college. And I called her up and I said, Lorraine, you’re looking. I believe there’s a gentleman sitting in your office right now.

I just took a break from him. Said he wants to offer me the job six figures a year. I said, for basketball. This is crazy. And she said, what are you going to do? So what am I going to do? I’m going to take it. And I took it and I made the wrong decision. I let money influence my decision.

Rather than saying, you know what? I’m happy what I’m doing. I love what I’m doing, and money will come. If you’re a success, the money happens. The money, you know, follows success. The bottom line is didn’t turn out right for me, I got fired, I got fired because I was my biggest enemy. And he used to tell me that the owner said, Dick, we love you.

We love your spirit. We love your energy. You think I got it? And she now just see me. I’m 30 years old. Just your energy, man is spirit is contagious. We love it. We know we’re not going to win now. So I would say them, all of them. I could coach the blue in the face. We can be you know Kareem Abdul-Jabbar James worthy of the Lakers.

We can’t beat doctor J and beat Moses Malone. Okay, coach, I’m blue in the face, I need players. I’m not used to this. No, not able to win it. Say, patience. And I didn’t have patience and I kept complaining. My wife says you keep talking to the owner like that. You can leave the fire. And sure enough, after ten games my second year, once again, your wife is always right.

She was right. You get a call from my secretary, she says, before you come to practice today, Mr. Davidson is coming over the house and wants to talk to you. And my wife says to me when he comes over with his limousine, her chauffeur, I’m going to leave the house and I’m going to ride around the block till he leaves.

But I’m telling you now, prepare yourself. You’re getting fired. I see you’re out of your mind. Ten games. I think we’re four and six at the time. Bottom line is, that’s why he’s fired me. We’ve done great with attendance. Should you keep telling him that you can’t win? You can’t do that. Well, again, my wife was right.

He walked in very low key, and he said, Dick, I hate to do this. I hate it. I hate the fact that I have to make a decision to let you go as a coach. But I don’t want to lose you. I’ll make you vice president charge of this. And, basketball. I said, Mr. Davidson, I be honest with you.

I shed a few tears, because I was just so surprised that I said, basically I said, you know what? Just pay me what you owe me, and I’m going to go find something else. Well, when I told you about the three minute speech I gave to the well, Curt Gowdy and John when he came at the game and all of a sudden, about a week, ten days after I got fired, my phone rang.

He said, Dick, you’re not going to remember me, but my name is Scottie Connell. I bet you I was the head of sports for NBC. I met you when we did our game and when we did that game that night after the game, and we left the arena, John Wooden and Curt Gowdy both said to me, said, Scottie, if you ever get a chance, hire that guy.

He shall. We love his passion, his pride, his work ethic. We love it. Well, he said, I’m calling you because I’m just now named the head of a new network, ESPN. And he said, I want you to do our very first game the Summer five, 1979. I got fired November 8th, 1979. You don’t forget those dates. So the bottom line, the bottom line is, I said, I’m not interested.

I want to go back to doing what I comfortable doing coaching college coach, what can players see? The one thing in the NBA that I didn’t make I mean such an irrational decision. I didn’t research, you know in the NBA you’re locked into contractual, locked in. You can’t just get rid of players. So all of that I didn’t research.

And bottom line is I want to go back to coaching college. We’re scholarship kids and you recruit. They play with such passion. But the NBA players play hard as well. But the bottom line is you gotta have the talent at that level to be able to survive. You can’t survive without the talent. So the thing is, I said no, my wife got so angry at me.

She says, man, you’re sitting around violating everything you preach about pride and work ethic. Pride, always the same person with pride is a winner. They persevere or respect they make. I’ve intelligent decisions in the game of life. They have the four D’s I mentioned earlier, the desire that conditioned determination and discipline a body of mind and they culminate pride with effort, enthusiasm about whatever they do.

And you said, I hear you give those speeches and you violating all of that, you’re sitting here. Would you believe this? It’s probably been way before your time, too. But I was sitting home watching. Look, Laura, in General Hospital, I said, how depressed I was. I was so down, man, I don’t want to go out. I didn’t want to go out.

I felt horrible. And the bottom line she said, why don’t you do that game? I said, I’m not going to. I’m not a top guy. Never been on TV. Lucky for me, ten days later, he called again. One last shot I’m doing Dick. One last shot would love you to do that game. So I went, I said yes, my wife, she fluids me, I said yes, I know, I did TV, I walked in to do that first game, the poll number one in the country against Wisconsin had no clue.

I’m talking this is true story. I’m talking to the producers in my ear and producers said, hey, Dick, we’re going to break for commercials, okay? Don’t talk. You’re on the air. You know, if the ads for me, I had no idea. So the next day, Scotty called me up and she got three things we can’t teach your gut good opinions.

You know the game. And you really, really aren’t afraid to share an opinion. And bottom line is, you’re very enthusiastic. So what I’m going to do is you have no clue how to get in and out. I’m going to sign you to number one is a Hall of Fame broadcaster, Jim Simpson. And he’s going to teach you the ropes.

And he did. And here it is now, 46 years later, I’ll be doing my first game on December 4th this year, Duke and Texas and then naming it now.

What what has me really excited. The name that the Duke game, the Dick Vitale Invitational. And it’s going to have that the rest of their life always have a game in my name. So I really I’m so honored that ESPN, who I love dearly, ESPN, has been family to me. There’s CEO Jim Pitaro nice little by John. He’s been so good to me.

He’s taking care of me like you can’t believe. But along the way, my biggest goal is raising money for kids battling cancer. No child should go through what I did with all the chemo and radiation and the scans and the blood work. It doesn’t end. It does. It had this being on my legs big time. I have a very difficult time walking right now and you know those things, but, you know, wiped out the cancer.

So it’s your turn it off. And I feel pretty good to be back able to speak again and do what I love. Talk about the game I love. But more than that, I’m obsessed with raising money for kids battling cancer. My goal every year, 20 years. I’m so proud to say this and announce to you, we have raised $105 million for kids battling cancer.

We mean, we bring in all the biggest stars you can think about. You name them from Derek Jeter, Mike Straightahead, Nick Saban. We bring all these people in, we honor them and we have a great night this year. Be May 1st and we got a great cast again. And we hope to raise 12 to $15 million and go to 120 million for kids battling cancer.

I’m obsessed with it. If you want to learn more what I do, just go to dick photo.com dick fight al.com. Right now we have a chloroform raising money car raffle. You guys all look great. Driving a beautiful BMW convertible. It’s $100 a chance you get for the chance $100 to win the car. And you make a deal with the owner of the dealership, and they give you the cash instead of the car.

It’s up to you. But 100 bucks and you helping kids battle cancer. The great thing is we only sell 1800 chances, and right now we only got about 500 chances left. We’ll be sold out probably a week. Bottom line is, just go to Dick Vidal, dot com and you can right there. You can get a chance. And again you’ll be helping kids battling that dreaded disease.

I’ve loved having the opportunity and my time is up. I see you’re up when you’re having a good time and you took all of that. I love the opportunity to be in here. Have a great, great session. I know it’s all wrapping up for you. Nashville’s a terrific city. I know they’ve done a great job. I don’t know what I think about Nathan and the Cole meeting them here today.

Just terrific people who are, you know, ahead of the customer management practice organization of what you’re here for. So God bless. Have a terrific time. And remember the summer fourth. Watch that game. Duke and Texas.

Unknown:

Oh yay. We need to get a selfie. Yeah. Turn around and come up here and we’ll get a selfie. Everybody Jack is amazing. Told you the energy wouldn’t have a career without him. Wouldn’t have a career without him. He’s also very.

Roseann Rogers:

Much into social media and so he wants to post on Instagram. So let’s everybody let’s do it. Let’s do a big selfie. Let’s go 321. Let’s do it again and type it up. Hang on one more time. Let me show. Lighting looks good. That’s.

One more time. Everybody relax I got him. Here we go. One time.

Unknown:

Okay, I think we got it. We got it now we finally got to do something.

Roseann Rogers:

I would be great. I so will y’all. Thank you so much. Don’t forget Lance Skinner’s new book, ten things I Hate About You is out there. Get it? Make sure you pick it up. He’s going to be in the CMP lounge in the Expo hall signing. He’ll personally sign.

Unknown:

It for you. Give one for your colleague. Get one for your boss. Maybe. Maybe they need it. So do that. Have a great rest of the afternoon. Safe travels to everybody. And thank you again for coming.

Roseann Rogers:

Take care. Bye bye. Oh, and don’t forget about your badge. Remember your badge. If you’re leaving, make sure you turn it in at the reception desk. Thanks, everybody. Bye bye.

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