To Do What? Why Great CX Starts with Great Agents

Introduction: Stop Fixing CX Backwards

If your CX strategy starts with technology instead of people, you’re doing it backwards.

Too many organizations invest in customer-facing platforms—chatbots, analytics dashboards, “AI-driven experience suites”—without first asking the fundamental question:

“To do what?”

That single question should be the first slide in every CX roadmap. Because the real measure of customer experience isn’t the number of tools you deploy—it’s the quality of every interaction those tools enable.

According to Forrester’s 2024 Total Experience Benchmark, companies that unify customer and employee experience strategies enjoy 1.6× higher CX scores and 1.9× greater employee engagement than their peers (Forrester TX 2024). The takeaway is simple: when you empower agents, you empower customers. 

1. Start with Discovery: The Power of “To Do What?”

Before buying another AI widget or cloud license, stop and ask: what problem are we solving, for whom, and why?

At C1, we guide clients through what we call the CX Discovery Process. It’s a structured way to align technology with business intent. We begin every project with four discovery checkpoints: 

1. Purpose – What outcome are we chasing? (Reduce handle time? Improve NPS? Empower hybrid agents?)
2. Process – How does this outcome integrate with existing workflows?
3. People – Who will use it—and how will it change their day?
4. Proof – How will we measure success?

When you begin with discovery, the right solutions become obvious. When you skip it, you end up chasing hype. 

2. Agent First, Customer Always

Counterintuitively, the fastest way to improve CX is to improve agent experience (AX).

Your agents are the front-line interface between brand and customer. Every inefficiency—clunky desktop layouts, manual wrap-ups, endless toggling between systems—translates directly into customer frustration.

Here’s the good news: AI can fix that, if you use it right. 

• Automate Admin Tasks: Let automation handle repetitive wrap-ups, disposition codes, and post-call summaries. The typical agent spends 2–4 minutes per call on these tasks—time better spent serving customers.
• Assist, Don’t Replace: Use AI to surface contextual recommendations, not to replace the human connection.
• Augment with Analytics: Real-time call analysis can flag sentiment shifts and coach agents mid-conversation—without disrupting their flow.

These improvements don’t just boost CX metrics—they raise morale, reduce turnover, and cut cost-per-interaction. 

3. Agentic AI: What It Is (and Isn’t)

Let’s clear the fog around Agentic AI. The term gets tossed around like confetti, but here’s the truth: Agentic AI in CX is about empowering the agent, not automating them out of existence.

When deployed correctly, Agentic AI acts as a digital co-pilot: 

• It listens, summarizes, and recommends.
• It performs micro-actions—like fetching policies or customer data—on behalf of the agent.
• It learns from interaction patterns to continuously improve.

The result? Faster resolution times, fewer transfers, and better compliance documentation.

In our field implementations, we’ve seen average handle times drop by up to 40 % when Agentic AI supports—not supplants—the human. (MIT Sloan Management Review AI and CX 2025). 

4. Rethinking Self-Service: Automation with Intention

Self-service isn’t new—it’s been a CX mantra for 25 years. What’s changed is the economics.

Traditional automation reduced cost per interaction to around $1 per transaction. Agentic AI can authenticate customers at roughly the same cost, but its real power shows up downstream: automating wrap-ups, post-call summaries, and quality scoring.

The lesson:

The value of automation isn’t just in answering the call—it’s in closing it.

If every self-service or AI-assisted interaction saves 2 minutes per agent, and you run 1 million calls a year, that’s 33,000 hours of reclaimed productivity—equivalent to 16 full-time agents re-deployed to higher-value work. 

5. The Total Experience (TX) Equation 

The CX-EX link is no longer theoretical. Poor employee experience (EX) directly erodes customer satisfaction.

When your workforce management tools, analytics, and collaboration platforms operate in silos, agents suffer—and so does the customer.

That’s why I encourage every IT and CX leader to measure TX = CX + EX as one continuous metric.

Ask yourself: 

• Do our CX and EX data models talk to each other?
• Can supervisors see both performance and experience analytics in one pane of glass?
• Are we capturing the voice of the agent as faithfully as the voice of the customer?

When both experiences improve together, you unlock a compounding ROI—one that no single technology can deliver alone.

6. Managing Risk and Expectations 

Automation anxiety is real. Leaders often fear “AI hallucinations” or compliance slip-ups. The solution isn’t avoidance—it’s design.

Here’s how to manage the risk: 

• Start Small: Begin with low-risk use cases like wrap-ups or QA scoring.
• Human in the Loop: Maintain review layers until confidence thresholds are met.
• Governance: Establish clear policies for what AI can—and cannot—decide.
• Transparency: Make AI support visible to agents, not hidden behind the curtain.

When AI works with humans instead of around them, trust grows across the board. 

7. High-Value Use Cases for 2026 

Each of these use cases delivers fast ROI and builds institutional trust in AI adoption. 

8. People at the Center

Ultimately, CX is about people.

Your technology stack exists to help humans connect better—whether that’s a customer resolving a billing issue or an agent navigating a complex workflow.

Great CX happens when agents feel empowered, trusted, and supported. When they have the tools that make their work meaningful—not mechanical.

That’s what Agentic AI, TX, and thoughtful automation should achieve: not replacement, but elevation.

9. The 2026 CX Leader’s Playbook

1. Ask “To Do What?” before every investment.
2. Empower Agents First. Their experience drives your customers’.
3. Automate Intelligently. Focus on outcomes, not outputs.
4. Design for TX. Merge CX and EX data for holistic insights.
5. Measure Everything. If it’s not measurable, it’s not manageable.

Because at the end of the day, great CX isn’t about the technology in your contact center—it’s about the confidence in your people.