Bill Quiseng
Founder & CXO - billquiseng.com, Keynote Speaker, BloggerAI Beyond Automation: Emotional Value, Trust, and Human Connection in Modern CX
"If bots are more intelligent, should intelligence be coined ‘artificial’ or inferior to humans? Of course not."
Customer experience has always been rooted in emotion. Customers do not just buy products or services. They buy how those interactions make them feel. As AI powered systems increasingly shape the frontline of customer engagement, CX leaders are re-examining what emotional value looks like in a world where human and digital interactions coexist.
In this conversation, award winning CX leader Bill Quiseng shares perspectives on emotional intelligence in service, the role of trust and leadership, and how organizations can operationalize WOW experiences consistently across channels and teams.
Q & A
You’ve said customers buy with emotion and justify with logic. Modern AI tools now shape key moments of interaction. Where do you believe technology, especially AI, can genuinely amplify emotional connection instead of making experiences feel mechanical?
Respectfully, I believe tech companies should refrain from using the term, “AI.”
Businesses no longer are seeking artificial intelligence, as there is nothing artificial about the intelligence that bots have delivered on their own, a NextGen version of intelligence, per se. Today, with tech advances, bots are delivering intelligence to humans that is much more comprehensive and quicker than human thought. If bots are more intelligent, should intelligence be coined “artificial” or inferior to humans? Of course not. So, if it’s not artificial, then bots think technically and emotionally. But emotion is not intelligence. It’s feelings.
So, emotionally feeling bots, a.k.a. humanoids, will be adapting both technically and emotionally to any response originally asked of a human. TEA humanoids that “recognize the emotional state of the person they are interacting with and be able to respond empathetically” (quote by Mike McClure, marketing and communications expert)
Future customers will simply want an experience that is quick, easy, painless, and costs less. All that matters is that customers FEEL they had a WOW experience. Empathetic TEA humanoids will be able to give them that WOW experience.
SearchUnify Lens
Emotionally intelligent CX relies on the ability to recognize context, intent, and tone across the entire customer lifecycle. Capabilities such as sentiment analysis, journey awareness, and behavioral understanding help determine whether a customer is frustrated, reassured, confused, or confident, and then adapt the response in real time.
When this intelligence is combined with cognitive search, AI agents, and agent assistance workflows, experiences become intuitive and human aware rather than mechanical. This applies across onboarding, self service, assisted support, account management, and renewal. The outcome is not only faster resolution, but interactions that feel emotionally aligned to the customer’s state of mind.
You emphasize that consistency builds trust and trust builds loyalty. AI agents now act, decide, and respond autonomously. How can organizations ensure consistency and trustworthiness across both human led and AI led interactions?
A leader’s actions speak louder than their words. So whatever their title or position, they should be a servant leader to be Magnificently Boring to CARE!
- COMMUNICATE openly, interactively, frequently, and continuously any information your people need and want to know. Listen empathetically to their concerns, questions, and complaints. Express compassion and encouragement.
- APPRECIATE your people’s roles and responsibilities.
- RECOGNIZE and offer accolades for team and individual accomplishments and acts of service.
- EMPOWER people to make the right decisions for themselves, their colleagues, and others.
Consistently CARE so repetitively that you feel it is boring, but to every person, you are Magnificent! When you are Magnificently Boring to CARE, your people will be energized, engaged, and empowered, not to develop the business but themselves. They have an emotional connection with you. The more emotional the connections, the more memorable the experiences, and the more loyal your people are. Your loyal people will return to work repeatedly, be more productive, and rave about you to others. Consistency builds trust. Trust builds relationships. Relationships build loyalty. Loyalty builds your people. CARE Magnificently!
SearchUnify Lens
In an AI powered CX environment, trust is strengthened when governance, transparency, and explainability are designed into the system. AI recommendations should be aligned with enterprise policy, supported by governed knowledge, and auditable. This ensures accuracy, consistency, and compliance across teams and channels.
By embedding structured knowledge intelligence into every interaction layer, organizations can provide customers with predictable outcomes regardless of whether they engage through an agent, AI assistant, chatbot, or self service experience. Trust becomes continuous, measurable, and scalable.
Your Rule of Three and “Magnificently Boring” philosophy highlight the power of consistent small WOWs. Large support teams struggle with inconsistency due to siloed knowledge and channels. How can organizations operationalize consistent WOW moments across thousands of interactions and touchpoints?
I have always advocated for a QUI Service Mantra: If you are not responsible to CARE for the customer, you better CARE for the person who is.
- COMMUNICATE with each person with a smile, eye contact, and polite interaction. Inform each person transparently and interactively about the product’s or service’s function, benefits, liabilities, and advantages to them.
- ACKNOWLEDGE each person’s presence and value to you and your company.
- RESPOND empathetically to each person’s questions, concerns, and complaints.
- ENRICH the experiences of every person.
When you CARE, your people will feel respected, appreciated, and valued. With your support and encouragement, you will inspire and empower them to develop, not the business, but themselves, and engage others. When you create a GREAT experience for your people, they will do the same for customers. And you will earn the loyalty of both. Without a focus on profits, profits will grow. —your people, customers, and you —will be enriched, as will your business.
SearchUnify Lens
Scaling WOW moments depends on delivering the right knowledge and guidance at the exact moment of need. AI powered agent assistance, cognitive search, automated knowledge discovery, and contextual recommendations reduce effort for both customers and frontline teams. Learn more on How Automation Anywhere Speeds Knowledge with SearchUnify Knowbler.
This enables faster, more confident responses, consistent service quality, and better alignment with customer expectations. WOW becomes an operational standard rather than an exception based on individual effort.
You advocate for simple, memorable principles that stand the test of time. CX is now entering an era of AI, autonomous agents, and dynamic knowledge. What should today’s CX leaders prioritize to deliver “World’s Best” experiences in the next decade?
Although this may sound redundant, English writer Samuel Johnson said, “People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.” So, I encourage every CX leader to remind themselves of this:
QUI TAKEAWAY; As a leader, your actions speak louder than your words. So, whatever your leadership title or position, be a servant leader who will be Magnificently Boring to CARE for your people first:
- COMMUNICATE openly, interactively, frequently, and continuously any information your people need and want to know. Listen empathetically to their concerns, questions, and complaints. Express compassion and encouragement.
- APPRECIATE your people’s roles and responsibilities.
- RECOGNIZE and offer accolades for team and individual accomplishments and acts
of service. - EMPOWER people to make the right decisions for themselves, their colleagues,
and others.
When you are Magnificently Boring to CARE, your people will feel respected, appreciated, and valued. With your support and encouragement, you will inspire and empower them to develop, not the business, but themselves, and engage others. When you create a GREAT experience for your people, they will do the same for customers. And you will earn the loyalty of both. Without a focus on profits, profits will grow. —your people, customers, and you —will be enriched, as will your business.
SearchUnify Lens
The next decade of CX will be defined by how effectively organizations blend human empathy with intelligent automation. AI copilots, sentiment aware support, proactive service, and knowledge powered decisioning will increasingly assist teams across support, success, and service operations.
When these capabilities are grounded in strong leadership values and a clear CX vision, technology becomes an enabler of deeper relationships, not a replacement for human connection.
Looking Ahead
Customer experience is evolving into a discipline where intelligence, empathy, and operational excellence work together. As AI driven systems mature, the focus shifts from simple efficiency to creating interactions that feel intuitive, personalized, and emotionally aware across every stage of the customer journey.This future depends on two foundations: strong people centric leadership and technology that enhances rather than replaces human capability. When AI, knowledge, sentiment awareness, and journey intelligence come together, organizations can deliver CX that is both smarter and more human.
The result is deeper trust, stronger relationships, and loyalty built not only on outcomes, but on how customers feel throughout their experience.
