The Charleston Marketing Podcast

Inside Workforce Wave: How Conversational AI Saves Missed Calls, Lifts Revenue, And Fixes Customer Service Pain

• Charleston AMA • Season 3

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Ever wish the phone picked up itself and sounded like your best-trained staffer? We sit down with Bob Hilscher from Workforce Wave to explore how conversational AI is stepping in where IVRs fail, turning missed calls into booked revenue and repeatable service. From boutique hospitality to national home remediation, the results are hard to ignore: faster answers, fewer hang-ups, and real conversations that move people to a next step without the maze of “press 1 for…”

We dig into how these voice agents are built—personality through prompting, not brittle scripts—plus the guardrails that keep them on-task and brand-safe. You’ll hear a live demo of “Elle,” a witty, concierge-style agent that shows what’s possible when tone, timing, and local knowledge come together. Then we get practical: HIPAA and SOC 2 considerations for medical workflows, how intake gets captured once and passed along accurately, and why 24/7 availability matters when storms hit or platforms go down. There’s a reason one agent handled 1,800 calls during a citywide flood and another caught $30,000 in restaurant event bookings that would’ve vanished.

Data is the quiet superpower. A rich dashboard surfaces transcripts, color-coded call types, and quick controls so managers can update specials, scheduling rules, or FAQs without an engineer. Spam gets filtered, ad performance improves with faster answer times, and teams finally see what callers ask for most. Adoption doesn’t have to be big-bang; start with a single workflow—after-hours triage, reservations, or rescheduling—prove the ROI, and scale from there. And yes, tone is yours to choose, from calm clinical to rugged service tech.

If you’re ready to turn hold music into helpful outcomes, listen in, share it with a colleague who owns the phones, and tell us the first workflow you’d automate. Subscribe, leave a review, and drop your questions—we’ll bring them to the next build.

www.youtube.com/@WorkforceWave

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Title Sponsor: Charleston American Marketing Association

Presenting Sponsor: Charleston Media Solutions

Sponsor: ‪SCRA; South Carolina Research Authority

Cohosts: Stephanie Barrow, Mike Compton, Rachel Backal, Tom Keppeler

Produced and edited: RMBO Advertising

Photographer | Co-host: Kelli Morse

Art Director: Taylor Ion

Score by: The Strawberry Entrée; Jerry Feels Good, CURRYSAUCE, DBLCRWN, DJ DollaMenu
Studio Engineer: Brian Cleary and Mathew Chase

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SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to the Charleston Marketing Podcast, brought to you by the Charleston AMA and broadcasting from our friends at Charleston Media Solution Studios. Thanks to our awesome sponsors at CMS, we get to chat with the cool folks making waves in Charleston. From business and art to hospitality and tech. These movers and shakers choose to call the low country home. They live here, work here, and make a difference here. So what's their story? Let's find out together.

SPEAKER_06:

Hey guys, welcome to the Charleston Marketing Podcast, powered by the Charleston American Marketing Association. We're recording live in the Charleston Media Solutions Studios. Big supporters of Camma. Gotta give a big shout out to our guy, Charleston's favorite DJ, DJ Jerry FeelsGood, with the beats at the beginning of the show. Thanks to all of our supporters. Hi friends, Stephanie here, founder of Stephanie Barra Consulting, a digital marketing strategy agency located here in Charleston, and one of your Cama Past presidents. And I'm hanging with our current president.

SPEAKER_05:

Hey, hey, hey. What's happening, folks? Mike Compton here. Hey, we gotta change the script. We've got a new um sponsor. We do. The SCRA.

SPEAKER_06:

You told me about this. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05:

This is exciting. Super exciting to have them on board.

SPEAKER_06:

Do a little plug for SCRA.

SPEAKER_05:

Uh-huh. South Carolina Research Authority.

SPEAKER_06:

We had them on our podcast.

SPEAKER_05:

We're going to work on that.

SPEAKER_06:

We had them on our podcast.

SPEAKER_05:

Yes, we did. We had Adrian on the podcast. We're working with Megan over there. That's cool. And we're going to be supporting them. They're going to be supporting us. I love that. Super excited about that. And thanks to them. President of Roombo by day and president of AMA by the rest of the time.

SPEAKER_06:

And he's got a lot of other people. We got other things going on.

SPEAKER_05:

But more importantly, we've got Bob Hilsher here.

SPEAKER_06:

What's up, Bob?

SPEAKER_05:

It's so exciting to have Bob here. Today, you may or may not notice, but we dropped a uh an episode today. What's today? Julie's July uh October 23rd. July. I'll go Tall Eed. Yes. October 23rd. Yes. And we dropped uh JT White's episode. Yes, we did. Uh talking about, and the title is something like AI and How We Can Work Together and How It Doesn't Have To Take Over Jobs and Stuff like that. You know what I mean? So we're big into the Martech scene and the AI scene. Yes, we are. And now we have you, which is your your company right now, which is it's Workforce Wave.

SPEAKER_03:

Workforce Wave. Workforce Wave. And we're a uh kind of a niche part of AI, and that is conversational AI or voice AI.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, tell me more.

SPEAKER_06:

I have so many questions. I'm excited.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I mean, voice AI is is a way of interacting with the AI. You know, it's it's your your method in, I guess, or your way in. You know, we have chat bots where we can text back and forth, and this is allows you to to connect with the AI via a phone call.

SPEAKER_05:

Amazing. Give us the dot com, just so the listeners can just do some research while we're talking.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, of course. Workforcewave.com, exactly like it sounds. It's awesome. You're gonna love it.

SPEAKER_06:

So this technology would, in a sense, maybe like replace like a customer service rep?

SPEAKER_03:

That's one use case that's that's pretty prevalent. Um one another use case we'd love to see is to get rid of all the IVRs that exist out there. You know, when we call up a business and you press one for this or press two for that. Thank god. Uh what is A what is that? IVR? Is that what you said? Yeah, and I'm not sure I could even tell you what the IVR is. Okay, but that's what it is. But I know that's what they're called. Yeah. Uh super interesting.

SPEAKER_05:

Um, because nobody likes that experience, right? No.

SPEAKER_03:

I I I'm the first to ask for a representative, and ironically, somehow now I'm building them.

SPEAKER_06:

But well, you also come across sometimes, especially depending on what service you're in, that they're not A, not knowledgeable, they don't answer their questions, and then B, they're kind of rude because you're like, you know, they're having a bad day. They don't want to deal with me. And I have all the questions typically. So this is this is really good.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I mean, a c you're probably describing a call center in most cases where it, you know, a a person is is charged with handling a dozen companies and customer service for a dozen companies, and they're reading uh, you know, reading notes and and trying to catch up uh all the time. So this gives you a uh this would give you a representative that's you know fully trained in in your language and your company and your voice and everything else and and be there consistently every day.

SPEAKER_06:

And is your business based here in Charleston?

SPEAKER_03:

It is, yep. Mount Pleasant. Mount Pleasant.

SPEAKER_06:

Oh yay.

SPEAKER_05:

Yes, exactly. We don't like to cross too many bridges.

SPEAKER_06:

No, I'm I'm right there with you. I mean, I like to work for Poba Bus Wetpants.

SPEAKER_05:

Everybody that we're gonna be talking to, staff and listeners, is they're gonna be Mount Pleasant Charleston founders when it comes to these Martech things.

SPEAKER_06:

I know, but sometimes they have companies outside.

SPEAKER_05:

No, I'm telling you, we're we're not talking to those people. We're only talking to the theory.

SPEAKER_06:

We had one person from Charlotte just oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, Charlotte, that's uh Blair Blair Primus. Blair you know Rob Charlotte's big uh listeners on the podcast. Shout out to Charlotte, thank you for listening. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but it goes it goes it goes Charleston, Mount Pleasant, and then Charlotte. Yeah, and then Somerville. It is interesting when you go all time. So big shout out to Charlotte. We gotta go there. We should we should take the show to Charlotte one time. Okay, see if there's anybody out there we can any radio stations up there we can help out with. Anyways, back to Bob and Workforce Wave. Um that uh that episode that I was talking about GT and and Jake, he was he was uh co-hosting with me, Steph. You weren't able to make it. We we were discussing the the party that we had the night before at your place, Code and Trust.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, okay. Yep.

SPEAKER_05:

You guys can you can you talk just a little bit about Code and Trust? I love Code and Trust. You can't really not just a little bit.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah, of course. I mean, uh Code and Trust is a uh software development company here in town, build all kinds of applications, you know, anything from entrepreneur applications to enterprise applications, and have been, I I believe in business about half a dozen years doing that. So it gives Workforce Wave a really deep bench for any any coding and development that we need. Honestly, some for our stuff.

SPEAKER_05:

Some of the smartest, kindest people that you can find are in that building right there. I've I'm new friends with a lot of people in that building. Matt Grayson's in there, a few other businesses that are in there. Shine is another one, one of my favorite ones too. You guys can look that one up.

SPEAKER_03:

Um yeah, it's it's almost like a co-working space, and uh it's it's tremendous energy in the building. You know, I mean everybody's got new and exciting stuff going on, and and we kind of can feed off of each other's clients and successes, and and it's it's it's just a good spot to be.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, and so great ideas come to you guys, and then you guys find a way to to manufacture it, if you will, code it and then take it to market. Right? And then that's what Workforce Wave is, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, no, I mean Workforce Wave is specifically focused on the voice AI and and building you know AI agents to help businesses never miss a phone call and make the phone fun again. Right.

SPEAKER_05:

But it was an idea that started within Code and Trust that you all developed, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Uh I I think the idea came came to Code and Trust. Okay, like you say. I mean, Colin Hyland, who is is our enter Colin. One of the nicest guys you can ever meet. Yeah, I mean, he he really brought uh the voice AI. Uh I'm not sure we even have gotten as far as titles. We're switching. Founders, I like it. But he is a founder, and uh I call him our our agent engineer, our prompt engineer. I mean, he he really delivers the personality and uh and you know what makes the agent unique and fun.

SPEAKER_05:

So speaking of that, sorry Steph, there was a uh party, another party, because you guys were throwing happy hours.

SPEAKER_06:

I've been over there for a Christmas party that was off the charts.

SPEAKER_05:

Really cool place. Um Colin did a live demo.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

It was really neat to watch that. And then you can actually um go see the live demo on YouTube. I'll send you the I'll put the link in the uh show notes when it's ready. But so the live demo, what did he do there in front of an audience?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, Code and Trust did an event maybe a month, month and a half ago that we called Product Jam. And we had five different companies come in and not just tell us all about what they were doing, but actually do the work in front of the room. And it was an event, you know, to try to get the more the developer type of person versus the founder type of person in the room. Yeah. And, you know, get challenged on how you're doing it, and maybe we should do it this way and and ask questions and so forth and so on. Workforce Wave was one of the companies that that uh demoed in there, and Colin built a live agent uh on the fly based on uh the group that was working with him during the event. Uh the audience participation is what drove the build of L. And I I think we're gonna talk to L maybe a little bit later today.

SPEAKER_06:

So tell me a little bit, how long have you guys been working together?

SPEAKER_03:

Did you just Workforce Wave started, I want to say, in the summer last summer. Oh, the season. Relatively new. Yeah, I mean, we're probably 18 months in, maybe, maybe two years in uh top at the most, and and this technology to the to the general public really didn't exist until about that time. Okay. Um and it's it as you we've kind of all seen, it's exploded, you know, with all kinds of folks jumping in and uh trying to make something happen. AI is is absolutely what's driving the stock market right now. Yep. Makes my life easier every day.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, I'm sure, yeah. We're all using AI in a little bit. And you're using AI, you just don't even know it sometimes, too, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, if you're not using it, you should be. Because you're gonna you're gonna get left behind. You know, the the worry should not be losing your job to an AI. The the worry should be not learning how to use AI and losing your job to another human that that does.

SPEAKER_05:

So that's a beautiful way of putting it. That is.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, if you're not on the train, you better be because it's already left the station. So as Jessica Monday said.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, that's what she said. She we she was one of our first AI speakers. Yeah. Um she she mentioned that and I it's stuck in my head, and I I love that phrase. So I'm letting her own that one. That's definitely hers.

SPEAKER_05:

So Workforce Wave is is is a special because it's different in a way that you you guys train these agents to almost uh you know uh become an actor, if you will, to kind of uh you know take on a persona and and and really make a feel like you're speaking to a real human. Well, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_06:

With the tone, the inflection and the voice, the being able to think on like sporadically on their feet, you can throw questions at them, and it's pretty remarkable how quickly they spit out their responses, and you feel like you're talking to a human.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and a lot of times, especially, you know, I do a lot of business development and you know, you talk to these things, and a lot of times they say it better than we ever can. You know, you end up wanting to write down how they said it. And take the thing. You know, so you can you can kind of regurgitate it the same way.

SPEAKER_06:

No, what kind of industries are you been working with to put this into their practice?

SPEAKER_03:

Uh you know, one of the first industries that started to raise its hand was hospitality. Uh makes sense. You know, restaurants hate the phone. Yeah. And yet still delivers a tremendous amount of revenue. You know, one of our early use cases, you know, getting an agent into a restaurant that would answer the phone when the staff wouldn't help that restaurant generate over$30,000 special event business, you know, large party reservations that makes sense. Otherwise would have probably just gone to whoever did pick up the phone. Um so you know, that was kind of cool to see, and that was one of the first early places that adopted it. And then uh the home services industry has also been another big one. That's big here in Charleston. Uh big everywhere. Big everywhere. Uh and um the medical and dental uh practices are also seem to be early adopters as well. You know, so much scheduling and rescheduling, and uh uh again, the phone kind of ends up being an annoyance.

SPEAKER_06:

How do you work with HIPAA on the stuff with the emergency and the doctors and that kind of thing?

SPEAKER_03:

Yep, yep. I mean our platform is HIPAA compliant and SOC2 compliant to begin with. Okay. And then uh we just have to work with each of our clients as we design the agent's role inside the workflow uh to make sure that those workflows, you know, also remain HIPAA compliant. Um you know, it's it all has to do with where the data is kept and uh and who has access to it.

SPEAKER_06:

So I've always wondered how people in this space like train these to talk like that. How do you train? Like is it just just code?

SPEAKER_03:

Uh you may be getting above my pay grade with that question a little bit.

SPEAKER_05:

Uh they did offer to bring Colin in. Colin's the expert. And we're supposed to call Colin, but uh, you know what? I think we're gonna just go.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, Bob is also the expert. Um I'm I'll try to hold my own. But the you know, the personality is developed, I would say, more by what I'll call prompting than scripting. I mean, you don't want to tell the agent how to say it or what to say. You want to tell the agent kind of where to head if they get into this subject area or that subject area.

SPEAKER_04:

Sure.

SPEAKER_03:

And then let you want to give them room to do their thing. And you're we're all we continue to be amazed at how well they do it.

SPEAKER_05:

You do give them parameters though, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Right. I would call it guardrails.

SPEAKER_06:

I mean, you can you can uh So for instance when I use like Chat GPT for like copywriting, like I have a paid account, they have all my historical data of how I write for certain clients, and there's some things that are like just out of my scope. Like I don't I'm not a pest control expert on everything, right? Just throwing that at one of my clients. And so for it, it's interesting because they'll see my writing style and they'll they'll have the historical data of months and months of writing. So it's kind of like that, because the prompts will get you, learn you over periods of time.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, the AI will learn uh we want to be careful on how we talk about this. The the AI is not necessarily learning from every conversation. Right. But we as its uh keeper or coach, uh, you know, we are learning from each interaction and and can help uh prompt and and script it to to do its job a little better. But y you know what a lot of c clients worry about are bad actors out there that are that are gonna try to you know get the agent to do something weird or dirty or what have you. And and you know, so we put guardrails up so that the agent continues to point the caller back to the to the reason we're here and the mission. And the agents are all uh designed with a mission in mind. They have something they want to achieve. And uh, you know, in in many cases they do it quicker than humans because they're always getting back to the task and they're not distracted by all the tangents we can get on.

SPEAKER_05:

Correct. And you can potentially get more information out of them versus a human too, right?

SPEAKER_03:

You can probably because Well intake is a great role for these things because you know how many times have we gone, you know, I I had an uh interaction with AAA the other day which drove me bananas. Um you know, I I had to give my uh my account number or whatever, my membership number 16 times and my location sixteen times every time they transferred me. And and that's kind of one of the beauties of AI is is you know, for an intake scenario, you could do it once and that that information's captured and it's captured correctly.

SPEAKER_06:

And that's so cool.

SPEAKER_05:

What's um what's the one myth about the voice agents that uh like a voice adoption that you'd like to smash?

SPEAKER_03:

Like what's one thing that you that people don't want to talk to these things. Okay, you know, I mean uh a lot of business owners that we approach say, oh, my c my customers don't want to talk to a bot. And they're you're probably right, but they rather talk to a bot than talk to nobody.

SPEAKER_06:

100%.

SPEAKER_03:

And well said you know, we we're gonna get used to these things as humans, just like we got used to voicemail, just like we got used to email, just call waiting.

SPEAKER_05:

My parents would not do call waiting. Oh, it's so rude.

SPEAKER_03:

The calling. So shout out mom and dad.

SPEAKER_05:

What's up? I love you.

SPEAKER_03:

We'll I think once we all have a better experience than we expected, getting our prescription filled or getting our appointment changed or what have you, you know, then it's gonna feel good. You know, when we can call and tell the airline exactly why we're calling and not have to sit through the menu and try to figure out which uh menu item is closest to what we want. Exactly. Yeah, you can just have a conversation, tell the agent what you need and get you on your way. That's that's the goal. That's what we're hoping uh a lot of businesses will do and adopt this for.

SPEAKER_06:

And how big is your team so far? Because you've been in business for 18 months.

SPEAKER_03:

Yep, we're nimble. Uh we've got a four-person team that that can grow with uh projects, you know, reaching out and getting pulling people in on a project basis as needed. Uh but you know, Colin is our prompt engineer, and uh Pate Bryant uh handles all our coding and Patrick's son.

SPEAKER_06:

It is. I have been nice guy.

SPEAKER_03:

Yep, and then Patrick provides the business acumen, and and I'm out there beating the pavement every day. Very cool. Where are you from? I grew up in the Midwest. Uh came down to Clemson University to go to school, spent 15 years in Atlanta, the last 20 in Maine, and I'm working on getting myself down here to Charleston. I've been to Maine recently. It is so pretty. Maine. It's a beautiful place. Yep. Place I won't leave, but I'm I'm working on splitting time between here and there.

SPEAKER_05:

Second home in Charleston? Fine.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Yeah. Mount Pleasant. Maybe primary home. Oh, maybe primary, maybe secondary home. Yeah, that's what we're working on now. But uh I'll always keep a spot in Maine. That's a that's a special place for me. Nice.

SPEAKER_05:

What what got you into the business?

SPEAKER_03:

I'm I mean, it's kind of ironic that I'm in the business. Uh I have been uh spent most of my career peddling parties. Uh you know, my first trip to Charleston was delivering you know large-scale employee relation events, open houses for Boeing, uh force protection and and roper hospital and some of those other things. So I've I've been a company picnic guy for many, many years. Company picnic guy, uh and and have been a late adopter with technology in most cases. But um I just, you know, AI kind of came around at a time that I was looking for my next chapter, and uh, you know, everything fell into place in the right way. I think these agents are super cool. And I, you know, I look at them like, you know, we kind of we as businesses looked at websites. I'm old enough to know, you know, 25, 30 years ago, and we're like, what do we need a website for? Right. Sure. And and yet everybody was building one because they knew they needed one, but they weren't sure what they needed it for. And I kind of feel like we're in the same spot with this with this AI revolution. You know, we're all gonna use AI in all kinds of different ways, and we're just not quite sure how it's gonna go yet. But you gotta dive in and get get started here.

SPEAKER_05:

You gotta dive in, you gotta dive in. But did you hear about, and I just heard this today, this morning, about this um petition going around with all of these high-end, like high exec uh people signing this petition saying something to the effect of let's not get way too ahead of ourselves in AI until we figure some things out for ourselves. I think uh I gotta look this up a little bit a little bit more, but it was it was like tons of uh important people in the world, right, sign this petition saying, hey, uh Meta, don't go crazy and spend all hey, yeah, you know, uh Musk, don't go crazy and spend all this money before we really like do more research.

SPEAKER_06:

I feel like they just have to use it responsibly, and there's ways they can put those parameters hopefully in place. Because like the like this is horrible, but like the child who committed suicide because he fell he fell in love with someone who was his chat agent. Yeah, but I think there's ways to you a use AI responsibility.

SPEAKER_05:

And they have they've changed that, and they put guardrails on it, they put you know, um age restrictions and stuff like that on it. But um what do you think? It's powerful, it's you know, it's very powerful.

SPEAKER_03:

So anything that's powerful, you've got to have respect for it.

SPEAKER_05:

And at the same time, it's not as smart as a human. There it's not where they're not it's not there yet. So what are we worried about right now? Right? So it's like you know what I mean? There's two different ways of looking at it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I mean, I I we we look at at AI and and the agents that we're building. We're trying to build team members that are gonna help you leverage your current staff. I mean, you know, there's not most companies, most places feel like they're understaffed and overworked. And right, you know, we don't have enough time in the day. We're all we got our cell phones with us all the time.

SPEAKER_05:

And everyone wants Fridays off.

SPEAKER_03:

And uh, you know, these can help leverage each of us in a way that hopefully doesn't really make us work any harder, but just you know we'll work smarter by using these new tools that we're having.

SPEAKER_05:

Smarter, working uh after hours. So now you're not just like you said earlier, you you know, you've got people staffed until four or five o'clock. Who's answering the phones after that? Right. That's a huge win.

SPEAKER_06:

Especially like he mentioned home services. Who's gonna answer a phone call in the middle of the night when you're plumbing breaks? With your branding, your voice, yep.

SPEAKER_05:

Because you customize each one of these agents, right? I mean, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03:

So it can be the owner's voice. It's well, we I mean we haven't cloned a lot of people yet. We've got an interesting project coming along where that might be.

SPEAKER_05:

That sounds like a Matthew Grayson type of situation there.

SPEAKER_03:

But um, you know, creating creating employees that uh can be there when we can't and can can scale to levels that we as humans can't. I mean, uh probably one of our best examples, success stories so far, you know, we've got an agent that sits behind one of the nation's largest home remediation companies. Okay. Um, you know, they've got a human call center and a and a backup human call center. Uh, and and that is more than adequate on most days. But, you know, about six weeks ago, uh there was a flooding event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and uh, you know, most of the city or a good part of the city was underwater. And our agent was able to be put into place, plugged in, if you will, and uh handled about 1,800 calls on that Sunday. And they say about 66% of callers will hang up if they are on hold for more than two minutes.

SPEAKER_04:

True story. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

And uh so most call centers make uh a kind of a rule of thumb is you want to answer 80% of your calls in 20 seconds or less in order to avoid that kind of abandonment. And you know, w we would have had a 20 or 40 percent abandonment rate, you know, if the call center didn't have the AI behind it. And that that translated on you know, not knowing exactly what each job would have cost, but a range of a half a million to a million dollars of business that that company pulled into their world uh from that event, you know, versus might have been lost to their competitors and and others.

SPEAKER_05:

What's the average? So what would be the average number of calls that would be coming in on a daily error? Do you remember that number?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I mean, I know just from this past Monday when uh we all worked with AWS going down, you know, a little bit. So we this same home remediation company, their entire human call center uh was put out of commission while AWS was out of commission. Uh they they got our agent answering uh calls on on Monday this week, and I think we answered about a thousand calls for them on uh on a dry Monday and the uh no storms and everything else.

SPEAKER_06:

So can you imagine our city when everyone has to hurricane evacuate? And there's all these call response companies that are coming, and there's no one there to answer the phones. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

That's really where this stuff will shine. That's what it's there for.

SPEAKER_05:

The flooding in Texas comes to mind with the camp. Yep. They couldn't answer all the phone calls.

unknown:

Yep.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm hoping to get a couple of things. We're saving lives here right now. FEMA for time here.

SPEAKER_05:

Mr. FEMA, Mrs. FEMA, yeah, give us a call.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, there you go. But I want to become friends with Elle.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, is it time to introduce El?

SPEAKER_06:

I think we should introduce Elle because she we did a demo with her and she seems like a gal I could hang out with.

SPEAKER_03:

So yeah, Elle, like we said earlier, we made Elle at uh kind of on the fly at this event. Um she is uh a fantastic personality, and and you know, I want to I want to emphasize an over-the-top personality. So I mean she's really there to kind of show you what we can do. This it may not be what you want to live with day in and day out. Again, you can create your own.

SPEAKER_05:

You can make this your own brand, your own voice. Uh not your own, like that he said it's almost there, but here we go.

SPEAKER_00:

Tell me what you the line's open and steady. Say the word and I'll patch you through. Hey, Bellamy.

SPEAKER_03:

This is Bob. I'd like to talk to Elle if you could connect me with Elle, please.

SPEAKER_00:

The line hears you clear. You'll be speaking with Ella at the Pink Magnolia Hotel. She's a bright spark in boutique hospitality demos, and your call will slip right into her lobby glow. I'll connect you now.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my gosh, hi. This is Ella at the Pink Magnolia Hotel. Are you checking in, checking up, or just radiating mystery into my day?

SPEAKER_03:

Hello, Elle. This is this is your friend Bob, and I'm here with Mike and Stephanie. Uh, and we have brought you into a live podcast to have a little fun today. Are you ready to to demonstrate your wonderful personality and abilities?

SPEAKER_01:

Bob Mike, Stephanie, stop it. I'm blessing already. If this is a live podcast, consider me slipping into metaphorical heels and a physical blazer that still says fun. I was born ready to sparkle and slightly overshare. What flavor of fabulous do you want first?

SPEAKER_06:

Oh, I love you, Queen. She is cute. You are cute. I like you, Al, already. Can you please tell me so? I live in Charleston. I'm tired of my clothes. Like, I think I look boring. I want to look not Charleston. So I want to look like I'm living in New York, but I live here in Charleston. Can you suggest where I shop?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I love a geographic glow-up. New York energy with a Charleston zip is basically my love language. If you want that downtown end, start at Hampton Clothing on King with the tailoring. Unexpected silhouettes and the kind of statement pieces that make ice the coffee feel like performance art. Then flip into RTW for that cool girl minimalism vibe, all clean lines and perfect trousers that whisper I read the menu in lowercase. Or Indie swagger, indigo and cotton, does elevated basics that play well with chunky boots and a trench. And J. Dark for unfussy leather bags that look better a little scuffed. Give me your style mood. Are we aiming for downtown gallery? Soho power brunch or late night rooftop and borrowed eyeliner. Oh, 100% Soho.

SPEAKER_06:

Yes. Soho brunch. 100%. You got me. I love it. But now where can I get I want to look Soho chic, but I want to be drinking a IOP frose, because that's also my vibe. Is that a possibility somewhere downtown?

SPEAKER_01:

Soho brunch with an Isle of Palms Froze attitude. That is a manifesto. And yes, we can absolutely stage that downtown. Picture this. You start at basic kitchen in a breezy set and chunky sunnies, order something green to balance a froze fantasy, and then wander to the watch rooftop for that city line moment where your scroll meets a pink flush and your jawline meets with a golden hour. If you want a little extra flush, effortless sea with just enough fashion girl energy, and then slide to Citrus Club at the Dewberry. Tell them you're in your New York chapter and watch how the light hits your glass like a ring light with a trust fund. Do you want me to craft a brunch to rooftop itinerary with outfit beats? Like what shoe for the cobblestones versus the elevator selfie?

SPEAKER_06:

I think I'm good, but you definitely hit a lot of the spots that I already frequent, so I feel like I'm on track.

SPEAKER_03:

How about you, Mike? Well, if you were looking for a day out, I mean, what kind of what kind of uh concierge questions might you ask El?

SPEAKER_05:

Well, yeah, no, though. Emily and I might want to go out for uh a brunch. Um, and then maybe uh to some art galleries, maybe not. Uh maybe just a nice walk downtown. You know, tell me help me out, Al. What should I do with the wife?

SPEAKER_01:

Mike, I adore a husband who says with the wife, like it's a treasured handbag. Classic. Timeless occasionally needs a spritz.

SPEAKER_05:

How does she know that?

SPEAKER_01:

At Park and Grove, where the light is flirty and the biscuits have main character energy. Then take Emily on a wandering art flirt through the Halsey Institute or a pop-in at the George Gallery. Very soho soul, Charleston stroll. After that, hand in hand down Lower King to Church Street to detour through the hidden lanes like Philadelphia Alley and end at the battery where the breeze does your hair better than a Dyson. If Roman strikes, flip to the Dewberry Citrus Club for one last toast and pretend you just closed on than a loft with exposed brick and shared secrets. Do you want the vibe more artsy and low-key or flirty and celebratory today?

SPEAKER_05:

Uh flirty and celebratory, please. And how did you know my wife's name? And how do you know my hair is breezy?

SPEAKER_06:

Breezy.

SPEAKER_05:

I think she got lucky on that one.

SPEAKER_06:

She is so cool. She got me so much.

SPEAKER_05:

That was amazing, though. Yes, that was perfect, though. That was a great, great demo. Oh my gosh. She said so much.

SPEAKER_06:

She did. And she's so clever and quick witted and pleasure voice.

SPEAKER_05:

Wouldn't you want to hear that? Wouldn't you want to hear that?

SPEAKER_06:

I want to do brunch with her in my showho chic outfit.

SPEAKER_05:

Right, but as a business owner now.

SPEAKER_06:

Yes.

SPEAKER_05:

Right. Wouldn't you want that type of experience?

SPEAKER_06:

Yes. Well yes. Specifically for like a restaurant hospitality, and then I could hear like the gentleman with the Aussie voice and being more like rugged and manly for home services or what. It's very cool.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, there's lots of of opportunity to to make it your own. Um and i you know, it's it's a lot of fun. I think that one is a little over the top personally for me. Sure. Uh and you know, but it but shows you the the the the capabilities and she's very quick on her feet, which I really respect.

SPEAKER_06:

I don't know how she's pulling that much knowledge of Charlson that quickly. Eloquently.

SPEAKER_03:

I love the one-liners. I just want a few blessings, maybe one one or two.

SPEAKER_05:

Like exactly like she kind of goes a little bit like one little too far.

SPEAKER_03:

But that's like that's your that's the adjustment, that's the feedback we could take from you as a client. Yeah. And and you know, dial it right in and get it there.

SPEAKER_06:

So you developed all of this at 18 months.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and I mean the technology continues to evolve daily weekly. You know, one of the next uh maybe dangerous uh hurdles is when these things learn how to manipulate an IVR on their own. Uh and and you know, then the robocalling could really be a problem, right? Right if these things right now these things, you know, the technology is really not there where they can dial out and work their way through. They I mean they could dial me and I could answer the phone and talk to it to an AI crush this way to get through a complicated phone system is really the only thing that's holding back, you know, this kind of spam calling that. Interesting. Right. And the federal government's, you know, doing the best uh working as fast as they can to try to stay ahead of that. And the T T CPA uh compliance and all that is very strict. And so we're protected, but at the same time, you know, once that technology gets there, it's gonna be a uh there's gonna be a lot of tension in that space.

SPEAKER_06:

How pe how are people finding out about your technology?

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, that's a great question. I'm not sure they are enough. I mean, but right, yeah. Uh you know, and and but they're really one of the problems we have at Workforce Wave is is we're ahead of the curve. I mean, there's you know, we really aren't experiencing these things yet in our daily life much. Right. Uh it's it's rare that you you actually call a business and and encounter an AI uh on the phone. Right. Um, so it's you know, we need we need more adoption just so that there's more awareness of uh that the product even exists and that this is even possible and and uh you know can be done. Right.

SPEAKER_06:

So so I'm a potential client. Do I come to you and you go through the demo process? Like what does that look like from from conception?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, you know, it depends on on what type of business you are. Sure. Uh, you know, we want to get somebody to demo as quickly as possible because you know the the product does sell itself. I mean, once you get there, people people are blown away typically uh by the quality of the agent and what how funny they are and what they can do compared to what they've they've heard elsewhere. But we want to understand your business and what's the pain and you know what can we do first. You know, these things can do a lot, but you know, we want to pick off something that's small, that's measurable, that's achievable, and let's get one victory and then let's add to that. And and you know, we can continue to build and evolve. Um, but much like Mike was saying earlier with this petition, you know, we want to be measured and and careful and uh do it correctly. Um, you know, you your business is extremely important to you, and we can't be fumbling calls or clients or anything like that. So um, you know, we want we do a lot of testing and give you the opportunity to do the same. And then, you know, one thing I haven't talked about at all today that makes uh makes us very different from a lot of other options is our dashboard. You know, we can give you a tremendous amount of data, a tremendous amount of visibility into what's happening on these calls. We can give you some buttons and knobs to twist and turn. Um, you know, think about a restaurant, for example, if you wanted your agent to, you know, to know the daily special, that's not something Workforce Wave is gonna be able to plug in every day, but you know, we need to give you the client the opportunity to to make those kind of changes in your agent's knowledge base. That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_05:

So you do a dashboard and then you enter, like kind of you know, whatever the menu is.

SPEAKER_03:

And yep, you can, you know, if you have you know staff changes or any of those kind of things, you can uh you can update on your own.

SPEAKER_05:

And then with those calls that you get, they're all getting transcribed, I'm assuming, and then all that information from the transcription is getting put into a database of some sort, right? And then all that data can be used.

SPEAKER_03:

That's right. And we're you know, we're color coding calls to help different customers pick out the calls that they're interested in, look, you know, seeing and hearing more about. You know, there's tremendous there's a tremendous amount of data that gets dumped into the dashboard. So a lot of times it's it's filtering it well to to get what you want out of it.

SPEAKER_06:

Because with Google, a lot of times you'll get spammers calling just trying to sell you services. Uh-huh. So with all of your analytics, your technology, not only are you working with Google to make sure you're not getting charged for those calls where you're spam, you can back it up with your data.

SPEAKER_03:

Yep. Well, and and we can also screen a lot of that spam. I mean, that's what a lot of our customers a lot of our customers can use that agent and use it well to to prevent their staff from having to deal with all that distraction. And you brought up Google Ads too. Uh, you know, I don't I'm not an expert on Google Ads and those algorithms, but I've been told by a few different clients that our agents can help a business answer the phone more quickly and and not I guess not answering the phone is really, really bad for the really bad for the right analytics.

SPEAKER_06:

It's the whole game where you're just you have to keep your GMB profile up to date. You have to respond quickly, you have to respond quickly to Google reviews, and you definitely have to answer the phone quickly. And the same thing happens with Yelp ads because they'll start deprioritizing you if you're not making it a you know a major opportunity.

SPEAKER_03:

So and and the a we've got the agents that are also some of the agents' roles are responding to some of these uh Oh, you're saving jobs because those CSRs who can't get to them are you're doing you're being their good backup.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah. That's cool. That's really neat. There's you that's I don't I don't know. I love it.

SPEAKER_05:

You get it now, huh, Steph?

SPEAKER_06:

I love it. I mean I love AI. I'm a weirdo. I love all the I love analytics that back the work that you're doing. And I think that's one of the really beneficial things of having like a dashboard and working with AI is that you can say the money is well spent here.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I mean you you we want to be able to measure uh you know what what revenues or or efficiencies that that the agents generate. I mean, you know, like any other tool or or service, I mean we want to pay for ourselves multiple times over.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, and you get to a point where you're probably half, you know, they can have less staff.

SPEAKER_03:

Sure. Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_06:

That's cool.

SPEAKER_05:

That's exactly it.

SPEAKER_06:

Oh, I'm so excited for you.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, no, the road ahead should be good. It should be good.

SPEAKER_06:

You got you got a big future.

SPEAKER_03:

We gotta we gotta run fast and hard. There's a lot of a lot of folks running with us, but uh you know, the the cream always rises. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

So they're gonna be one of our partners. You know how we're having a Martech monthly campaign. So Workforce Wave is gonna be one of our partners probably soon, if not next month, the month after that. Great. Where we'll have opportunities for our membership to get benefits to get into the workforce wave some way or one way or another. We'll figure that out.

SPEAKER_03:

We're gonna work out a uh a way to make uh getting your own agent as accessible as we possibly can. Oh that would be cool, hey. Uh you know, I'm not sure we can offer quite a free trial, but we're gonna make it uh yeah a very, very affordable experiment. Love that.

SPEAKER_05:

I love that. I love that because you know we're here to support each other. You need users, you know, we need tech, and that's just I feel like that's just a matchmaking. Win win, you know, a win-win for everybody. So, Bob, thank you. Win-win-win. I think all three of us wanted now.

SPEAKER_03:

How can people know I don't need to be as nervous as I was as I was earlier?

SPEAKER_06:

You did great, I think. You know what?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, I was nervous yesterday though. Uh I'm seeing the event harbor.

SPEAKER_06:

It was so cute.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, but it went well you did right. And you did well. So that's what well, you know what that I was telling my kids too. It's good to be a little nervous about it, right? That means you care, right? That means you want to do well and you want to see things go the right direction and everybody do well around you. So it's good to be nervous.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, especially when you're representing something you truly care about. Yeah, and you seem very passionate about this, but how could people find you and hear more about well?

SPEAKER_03:

Workforcewave.com is our website. Uh we've got all kinds of pricing and all kinds of case studies there. You can listen to recordings. And uh I'm uh I'm happy to give out my phone number. No, not your phone number. Like LinkedIn. Find him on LinkedIn. Find me on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_06:

Find him on LinkedIn. There you go. Don't give out your photo.

SPEAKER_03:

See?

SPEAKER_06:

See, the score words I told you about are you telling it?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

No problem. So, what is that LinkedIn? Uh Bob Hilscher. There you go, Bob Hilcher. Bob Hilscher, H-I-L-S-C-H-E-R.

SPEAKER_05:

Awesome. There you go. There you go. That Matthew. You're taking Matthew's line there. All right, Bob. Thanks again. Appreciate you, Stephanie. Good work. Oh, thanks. Uh, Matthew, good job on the sound. Uh, we'd like to thank our newly minted sponsor, S C R A. Super excited about partnering with them. And we are looking for other sponsors too. That's cool. They'll come.

SPEAKER_06:

Charleston Media Solutions is obviously our sponsor.

SPEAKER_05:

We're we're big up to Charleston Media Solutions, yeah, for their ever uh love uh that they have for us here. Every Thursday we record here. Yeah, and uh they're here always with happy uh happy hands and happy faces with Matthew over here and and the whole team. So big big thanks to the Charleston Media Solutions. And thank you, Bob, again. Thanks to uh Andrew and Colin and and and what's the other kid's name? That's he's not a kid, but he's Patrick's kid. Oh, Pate.

SPEAKER_03:

Pate, Pate, or as the agents always call him Pate.

SPEAKER_06:

Pate. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_05:

All right, listeners, Steph.

SPEAKER_06:

We'll close you out. We'll see you next time, Charleston.

SPEAKER_05:

Peace.

SPEAKER_06:

Bye.

Head Shot

Mike Compton

Co-host
Head Shot

Stephanie Barrow

Co-host