AWS re:Invent 2025 - Redefining service excellence: Canada Life’s AI-powered contact center (BIZ216)

Transforming Customer Experience with AI-Powered Contact Centers: Canada Life's Journey on Amazon Connect

Overview

• Canada Life, a leading financial services company in Canada, embarked on a transformative journey to modernize its contact center operations using Amazon Connect.
• The presentation covers Canada Life's vision, challenges, and the remarkable results achieved through their contact center migration and AI integration.

Canada Life's Vision

• Invest in modern, scalable technical solutions to achieve operational excellence and deliver best-in-class customer experience.
• Empower agents with the right tools and insights to provide seamless, reliable, and personalized service.
• Leverage data-driven insights for smarter decision-making and continuous improvement.
• Build a future-ready organization that combines technology, business, data, and human expertise.

Challenges Before Modernization

• Average speed to answer up to 5 minutes, with wait times up to 30-40 minutes during peak seasons.
• Complex routing, high transfer rates, and lack of personalization.
• Limited self-service options, leading to high customer dependence on phone calls.
• Siloed, manual, and fragmented contact center ecosystem with hundreds of 1-800 numbers.
• Inconsistent customer experiences and high operational costs.

Contact Center Modernization Journey

• 2024: Laid the groundwork by migrating from a legacy system to Amazon Connect, Salesforce, and Calabrio for routing, omnichannel, and workforce optimization.
• 2025: Enhanced capabilities through AI and automation to improve customer and employee experiences while driving efficiencies and reducing costs.
• 2026: Focus on channel optimization to deliver a seamless experience across all touchpoints.

Key Achievements

• 94% reduction in wait time
• 10% reduction in average handle time
• $7.5 million in savings in the first half of 2025
• 92% reduction in average speed to answer (18 seconds on average)
• 2-4% reduction in abandonment rate
• 60% reduction in complexity and cost through unification of applications
• 88% reduction in cycle time for contact flow changes
• 83% reduction in routing profiles
• Over 90% operational cost savings by leveraging Amazon Connect's out-of-the-box features

Operational Efficiency and Employee Experience

• 47-second reduction in average handle time through AI-powered call summarization
• 100+ headcount reduction in agent onboarding through enhanced productivity and coaching
• 8% attrition rate, 4% improvement in shrinkage
• 12% increase in voice of the customer survey scores

Pillars of Canada Life's 2025 Strategy

1. Seamless customer experience: Continuous improvement in average speed to answer, average handle time, and data-driven optimization.
2. Agent empowerment: Providing agents with tools to deliver exceptional experiences.
3. Operational excellence: Reducing costs, optimizing workforce, and leveraging data and reporting.
4. Omnichannel enablement: Expanding self-service, chat, and email utilization, with a focus on secure authentication and advanced analytics.

Future-Ready Architecture

• Modular, reusable architecture with Amazon Connect as the backbone, integrated with Salesforce, Calabrio, and various AI/ML components.
• Leverages AWS services like Amazon Lex, AWS Lambda, and data integration for intelligent, personalized experiences.
• Focuses on operational excellence, core capabilities, and data-driven insights to enable scalable, AI-powered customer engagement.

Recent AI Implementations and Impact

• Chatbot "Cali" achieved 83% containment rate, 1,900 call deflections per week, and 80% positive customer feedback.
• Additional AI implementations led to 25-second reduction in after-call work, 37% automated authentication, and $0.5 million in cost savings.
• Projected impact: 1.1-minute reduction in average handle time, $200,000 call volume reduction, and $43 million in cost savings.

Conclusion

• Canada Life's contact center transformation journey demonstrates the power of combining technology, business, data, and human expertise to redefine customer service.
• By leveraging Amazon Connect and AI-powered capabilities, Canada Life has achieved remarkable operational efficiency, employee engagement, and customer experience improvements.
• The future-ready architecture and continuous innovation roadmap position Canada Life to lead the next era of intelligent, personalized customer engagement.