Andrew Rios has spent his entire career in customer support. Now leading the contact centre at Cityside Fiber – he’s seen the industry shift from every angle. His take on where it’s heading is grounded, practical, and refreshingly direct.
Customers Expect More – and They Expect It Now
The most visible change Rios has seen in recent years is speed. Customers aren’t just expecting faster responses – they’re expecting instant ones. And beyond speed, they expect context.
He told CX Today that
“If they’ve contacted us before, they really do expect us to know that and build a relationship from there,”
It’s a simple expectation with significant implications – agents need to arrive at every conversation already informed, already invested, and ready to move forward rather than start from scratch.
CX Leaders Are Finally Getting Their Seat at the Table
AI is reshaping the contact centre – but Rios sees it doing something else too: elevating the CX leader’s voice inside the business.
“When enterprises implement a new AI tool, they go to the CX leader and ask – what do we want to solve?”
That shift in dynamic is significant. For years, customer support was viewed as a reactive, cost-centre function. AI is accelerating a change that was already underway – transforming support teams from problem-solvers into proactive drivers of retention, upselling, and relationship building.
“AI can take all the reactive work away, giving your support team the opportunity to be proactive, It’s a bedrock.”
Coachability Is the Skill Nobody Is Talking About
Empathy and emotional intelligence are rightly getting attention as AI takes over transactional work. But Rios adds a third skill to the list – coachability.
“You can hire for mindset, not just skill, because with AI’s help, we as leaders can train the skill.”
What enterprises can’t train is the willingness to keep learning, adapt to new technologies, and lean into the challenges that come with constant change. That mindset, Rios argues, is what separates the agents who will thrive in an AI-augmented contact centre from those who won’t.
Two Pro Tips for Starting Your AI Journey
For CX leaders beginning their AI journey, Rios keeps it simple.
First – think about outcomes. Define what you want to solve for your team, your customer, and the business. That framing helps CX leaders speak the language of senior stakeholders and build a credible case for investment.
Second – build a dialled-in customer journey map before selecting any tool. Mapping the ideal experience first reveals the friction points, which in turn determines what level of AI is actually needed and where.
Watch the full interview above. For more CX leadership insights from CCW Vegas, follow CX Today on LinkedIn.
