Cheryl Paarwater is the Managing Director at Enerlytics & Call Lab BPO. She is based in Cape Town, South Africa.

Cheryl has championed CX in South Africa for many years and is a board member of BPESA - the trade promotion agency for business process service companies in South Africa.

In this conversation with Peter Ryan, Cheryl explores how BPO and CX has created many opportunities for employment in South Africa - and beyond - and this has created a very positive socio-economic ripple effect. People leaving informal jobs and entering contact centers pay tax, support their family, and help to support other businesses selling services to those working directly in BPOs.

As AI is gradually introduced in many CX processes, there is a fear in the industry that entry-level positions may no longer be staffed by humans. The most immediate effect is a reduction in the number of jobs created, but what are the wider effects of thinking that we can just replace people with bots?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cheryl-paarwater/

https://call-lab.com/

SUMMARY:

Mark Hillary and Peter Ryan discuss the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on customer experience (CX) jobs, particularly in South Africa. Cheryl Paarwater, CEO of Call Lab, highlights concerns about AI replacing human roles, which could exacerbate unemployment and social issues. Despite AI's potential to automate 10-15% of roles, Peter notes that many AI projects fail, citing a 42% failure rate in 2020. Cheryl emphasizes the need for AI to enhance human roles rather than replace them, suggesting AI could improve education and support high-value interactions. They stress the importance of a balanced approach to AI implementation in CX.

This is the final Covid flashback where CX Files has looked back at the early days of the 2020 pandemic throughout August 2025.

This interview was originally broadcast on May 15, 2020 - about a month into the pandemic and lockdowns.

At the time Kathy Juve was the EVP, Customer Experience Technology & Insights Division, at Concentrix. She is now EVP of Global Solutions - also at Concentrix.

Kathy is based in Orlando, Florida.

In this episode, Kathy describes how the previous three weeks created the digital transformation that might usually have taken three years... April 2020 was a time of huge change for CX.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathyjuve/

https://www.concentrix.com/

NEXT WEEK: CX Files returns to our regular programming...

SUMMER SPECIAL - COVID FLASHBACK

Covid-19 was five long years ago. In a series of short summer specials, CX Files is bringing you some memories of what was going on at a very chaotic time for the industry. During the early days of the pandemic, CX Files went from weekly to daily and captured many important observations on how the CX industry was coping across the world.

Dave Rizzo is the APAC President of TP. He is based in Singapore. Five years ago the company was known as Teleperformance and Dave was based in Manila, but essentially he was performing the same leadership role for TP in Asia.

Dave talked to Mark Hillary on March 31, 2020. This was about a week into the Covid lockdowns for most nations so Dave was working 24/7 at this time.

Many of these conversations feel historic. It's worth revisiting some of them just to remember the sense of chaos in the industry at this time and how the industry adapted and coped with the challenges of 2020 and 2021.

www.tp.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-rizzo-7037763/