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Every contact centre leader is under pressure to deploy AI — often before anyone has asked what problem it's actually solving. In the latest episode of Zoom in on CX, Injection Consulting founder Nerys Corfield joins host James to challenge the assumption that faster AI adoption automatically means better customer experience.
8 min read
Published on October 16, 2026
Drawing on years spent inside contact centres of every size, Nerys argues that most AI hype cycles follow a familiar, costly pattern: rapid deployment, unmet expectations, and a "trough of disillusionment" that leaves teams frustrated and no closer to their goals. Her message for CX leaders is clear — the technology isn't the problem. The lack of foundational thinking is.
You can listen to the episode right here, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Nerys sees the same story repeating across the contact centre industry: leadership feels pressure — often from finance — to adopt AI simply because competitors are doing it. "The CFO and, yeah, they are driving this agenda, and it really has sort of had this impact where it's like, 'Oh, we have to be doing it because everybody else is doing it,'" she explains. The trouble is that value from AI in customer service is never generic — it depends entirely on the specific use case, the business's data maturity, and whether the deployment is grounded in a clear understanding of the customer.
Without that foundation, automation doesn't just underperform — it can actively widen the gap between operations and technology teams. As Nerys puts it, businesses risk "putting plasters on open wounds that aren't going to heal just because you've put a plaster over it." Real transformation requires fixing broken data and weak knowledge bases before layering AI on top, not after.
Despite the push toward full automation, Nerys is emphatic that voice interactions aren't going anywhere. She frames this around what she calls the "four Cs": comfort, connection, clarity, and confidence — the things customers need most when something has gone wrong, whether it's a billing error or a late delivery. "Don't worry, we've got you" is a message that, in her experience, still lands best when delivered by a human being who understands the emotional weight of the moment.
This is where she believes many organisations misjudge their CX strategy: treating AI as a replacement for empathy rather than a tool to protect it. The best contact centres, she argues, use AI to remove the operational noise so advisors have more capacity for the emotional labour that actually builds loyalty.
Listen to all episodes of Zoom in on CX
One of the most compelling points in the conversation is Nerys's reframing of what AI in customer service should really be for: not replacing advisors, but reducing their cognitive burden. Knowledge retrieval, policy lookups, and after-call summarisation are exactly the kinds of tasks AI can absorb, freeing advisors to focus on emotional intelligence — something Nerys argues is chronically undervalued in contact centres, despite research showing EQ often outweighs IQ in driving business outcomes. Done well, this shift doesn't just improve morale; it directly strengthens customer experience outcomes.
Perhaps the most actionable insight is Nerys's call to overhaul outdated contact centre metrics. Many organisations are still measuring performance using benchmarks that are decades old and disconnected from what actually matters: first contact resolution, quality verified in near real time, and — crucially — whether customers have to repeat themselves. For Nerys, that last metric is the clearest 12-month indicator of whether an AI strategy is genuinely working.
Ready to rethink your own approach to AI and customer experience? Listen to the full conversation with Nerys Corfield on Zoom in on CX, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you listen to podcasts.
