Keep it real. Talk about what’s not working as much as what is. We’re all here to solve problems together. These intentions, delivered by TaskUs President & Co-founder, Jaspar Weir, set the tone for Forward ‘24, our premier customer event focused on the new world of digital experience, that took place, Sept. 19 at the Hotel Nia, Menlo Park, CA.
The result was a day filled with open exchanges and actionable discussions among the attendees, guest speakers and TaskUs leaders.
The sessions highlighted the convergence of tech enablement with people-centric strategies, emphasizing the importance of humans in driving AI's effectiveness, particularly when delivering the best customer experiences (CX).
Trust + Safety leaders shared insights around navigating frontline teammate well-being and supporting moderation teams. Risk mitigation and fraud detection were also central themes, with experts stressing the importance of anticipating evolving fraud tactics. Looking ahead, participants explored emerging trends in sustainable transportation and the future of AI across functions and industries.
Underpinning most of the talks, conversations also examined the valuable role of outsourcing partners in representing, protecting and growing brands today.
Here are five important takeaways from the event.
Lead by example and by making the tough choices
“I'd rather be in the room helping to make those really hard decisions and see the maturity process at a company like this [Meta] than just criticize from the outside.”
During the opening keynote, TaskUs CEO and Co-Founder, Bryce Maddock, sat down with John DeVine, Head of Global Operations at Meta, and they talked about steering a massive operation. For Meta, that includes serving users in hundreds of languages, thousands of dialects with an understanding of local context and culture in order to maintain trust and fortify safety.
John’s words reflect the kind of leadership that’s critical to successfully combining people and technology to scale.
He recognizes the need to constantly adapt and be flexible. He pointed out that the expansion of AI doesn't remove the need for human intervention, but rather changes the way it is applied.
Data drives a higher level of success in customer support
“Everything [customer interactions] is a data-building opportunity.”
Next, Bryce chatted with Janelle Sallenave, Chief Experience Officer at Chime, about customer obsession. This type of service starts and ends with the right insights. Drawing from her time both at Uber and Chime, Janelle emphasized how leveraging data in customer support operations enhances the experience.
By obsessing over data, both companies are able to identify patterns, reduce escalation occurrences and refine processes, turning every interaction into an opportunity to learn and improve.
Emerging threats are targeting everyone from companies to customers to agents
“They're not the fraud actors you saw five or 10 years ago. These are highly sophisticated actors.”
The right kind of leadership and insightful data will also play a role in mitigating and getting ahead of today’s threats. In a panel discussion, moderated by Phil Tomlinson, TaskUs SVP of Global Offerings, that included Casper Sorensen, VP of Customer Experience at Coinbase and Todd McReynolds, VP of Customer Care and Partner Management at LegalZoom, they talked about how, as security systems at company levels have become robust, fraud actors are moving their focus to easier targets.
Customers often do not have the same level of security protection as companies, making them more vulnerable to attacks such as SIM swaps and phishing. There's also a worrying trend of frontline agents being targeted.
AI and machine learning are helping not only to create smarter models using alternative data but also to detect and prevent fraud effectively. Using a combination of rules-based approaches and machine learning models provides a well-balanced defense mechanism, according to the panelists.
Upskill the workforce to new roles working alongside AI
“We can’t take humans out of that loop. It just won’t work.”
AI needs human intervention. This topic inspired an engaging panel session hosted by Linda Comp-Noto, TaskUs SVP of Client Services. Speakers included Kim Nelson, Head of Global Support Operations at Uber and Nick Chong, Former Chief Customer Officer at Zoom.
The group concluded that optimizing the balance between tech and people requires intentional deployment and strategic oversight. GenAI, for example, has shown early success, especially in personalization. However, the potential must be assessed realistically. Technology is not a panacea. Rather, the more complexities in customer service the more human agents will be necessary.
The goal is to upskill and adapt the workforce to new roles where they work alongside AI tools, and develop better ways to harness data to build successful teams that can thrive in a technology-centric landscape.
We’re all in this together
“No one has all the answers.”
Overall, collaboration was a running theme throughout the day, with the consensus that ‘no one has all the answers.’ Across disciplines and industries, we continue to learn from each other.
Bryce said, “As we enter the AI revolution, TaskUs is leaning into automation and also looking to the jobs of the future — a future that’s very bright not only for TaskUs but also for everybody in this room. We appreciate the partnership.”
