Chicago: Human Intervention in the Age of AI: CPR for Escalated Customer Calls

Description

Contact centers are changing fast. AI, automation, chatbots, and self-service tools are now handling easy, transactional work - which means what reaches live agents is no longer routine.

Today’s agents are handling what automation cannot:

• Emotionally charged conversations
• Customers who have already tried multiple channels
• Situations where trust has eroded before the call even begins

By the time a customer reaches a human, they have often navigated a frustrating gauntlet of menus, bots, and handoffs. The result is higher emotional intensity, higher expectations, and higher risk. Calls are no longer low-stakes problem-solving moments - they are critical intervention points.

This session introduces CPR for de-escalation, a practical framework from the CARE-CX methodology designed to help agents respond effectively when conversations are tense, emotional, or on the verge of escalation.

Just like CPR in a medical emergency, de-escalation requires:

• Presence under pressure
• A clear sequence of actions
• Practice before the moment matters

Participants will learn how to stabilize emotionally charged interactions, reduce conflict, and guide conversations toward resolution without scripts, defensiveness, or burnout.

What Participants Will Learn

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Understand why escalation risk has increased in AI-enabled contact centers
• Recognize the early warning signs of emotional escalation
• Apply the CPR de-escalation model to regain control of difficult conversations
• Use language that lowers emotional temperature without minimizing the customer’s experience
• Maintain empathy and authority at the same time
• Reduce agent stress while improving customer outcomes

This is not a lecture. Participants will actively practice realistic scenarios drawn from modern contact center environments where automation has raised the emotional stakes.

Who Should Attend

This session is ideal for:

• Customer service and contact center agents
• Team leads and supervisors
• Quality assurance and training professionals
• Customer experience and operations leaders
• Anyone who supports agents handling escalated or emotionally complex customer interactions

Whether you are on the front lines or coaching those who are, this workshop provides tools that are immediately usable in today’s high-pressure service environment.