That's Genius! is a podcast series dedicated to transforming the way contact centers do business.
Hosted by Michael Rose
Scott Kolman, VP Corporate and Product Marketing at Five9, recently came on the That’s Genius! podcast to tell us all about the intelligent cloud contact center…and how unleashing your contact center data can help you achieve a great customer experience.
Consider a retailer, like Nordstrom. They'll let you return an item, no questions asked. That level of customer experience is pretty unique. I talked more about exactly how we accomplish unparalleled customer experience with our guest Matt Tuckness, VP of Commercial Sales for Five9, on this episode of our That’s Genius! podcast.
CX Summit ‘19 is your place to discover how to deliver extraordinary experiences despite the evolution that is inevitable. Tune in to this special episode of That’s Genius to get all the details about CX Summit '19. You don’t want to miss it!
During the pandemic, 75% of people have changed brands. 75%. Just let that number sink in for a minute.
Here’s the deal: Company culture isn’t a philosophy. For better or worse, it’s a culmination of the of the behaviors, the values, and the attitudes of employees that happen on a day-to-day basis. Seem like wise words? They come from Tricia Yankovich. She brought with her almost 20 years of staffing experience before becoming VP of HR here at Five9.
90 days into her job, the new vice president of product marketing at Five9, Terry Fortescue, has already helped plan the virtual CX Summit, gone on a hiring spree, and acquired a new Labrador puppy. Despite coming on board in the middle of a global pandemic, Terry has taken to the unique Five9 culture. Hear more:
On this episode of That’s Genius!, we sat down with Tricia Yankovich, SVP, HR at Five9, to talk about the unique Five9 culture and why our employees stay engaged.
COVID threw the entire business world for a loop. A lot (okay, more than a lot) of companies went into triage mode. Asking themselves, “How do we sustain our services and how to we make sure that there’s minimal disruption to our business?”
This is normally the time of year that the halls at Five9 are packed with our summer interns. And while a lot of other companies have done away with the summer intern program all together, here at Five9, we couldn’t possibly just NOT have our summer interns. So we did what we do best. We adapted. We decided to pivot.
If you want to go faster, go alone. If you want to go farther, go together. That’s the mindset of Five9 VP of Business Development, Walt Rossi. Hear more on this episode of That's Genius!
The pandemic has proven that CXOs and companies with agile mindsets will likely succeed, while those set in their ways get left behind. It’s the nature of the beast. And the pandemic has been an ultra-beast. In this episode of That’s Genius, Michael sits down with Founder & Principal Analyst of ZK Research, Zeus Kerravala. Zeus gives us the lowdown on how the pandemic has impacted the role of the CXO.
Are you still working from home? Before COVID-19 swept across the United States, less than 20% of contact center agents were being supported by a cloud-based solution. Sheila McGee-Smith thinks that for the most part, it’s here to stay.
Chris Silver, Five9 vice president and GM for Canada, shares his thoughts on what's driving Canadian enterprises to adopt cloud technology and how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting Canadians' transition to the cloud.
Rowan Trollope, CEO of Five9, and was the guest on our most recent episode of the podcast. It’s our 50th episode and also happens to be the 2 year anniversary of Rowan as the CEO at Five9.
On today’s episode of That’s Genius podcast, Michael continues his interview with Five9 CEO, Rowan Trollope, as they discuss what the future holds for the contact center in an increasingly automated world. “The shift of brick and mortar to online is going to drive a lot of the current people who are doing retail into contact centers,” says Rowan, who says we still need that human touch.
Have you ever wanted to be a part of the gig economy? Well, now might be your best chance. With more companies implementing the best WFH solutions, employees are moving to a gig mindset.
In this episode, Casey Dunigan, Director of Channel Sales at Five9, shares what his new normal has been working from home and how the Five9 FastTrack Program has helped partners regain some of that normalcy, too.
For a lot of people, working from home sounds like a dream. Roll out of bed, put on slippers, grab the coffee and the laptop and just sit in sweats on the couch all day? Who wouldn’t want that? But as anybody who has worked from home for longer than a few days knows, that starts to get really old, really fast.
No matter what we tell ourselves, we all want a unique, personalized experience when interacting with companies. And, honestly, that’s what the agents at those companies want, too. In this episode of That’s Genius, Michael catches up with Jasco’s Executive Line of Business leader, Andre Schoeman.
Once upon a time, the customer contact center was simple. It was about 3 things: how quickly can we identify the customer, how quickly can we get them off the phone and what is this interaction going to cost us? Now, it’s 2020, and while contact centers are still concerned with cost, these steps are no longer the driving force behind decision making.
The last time we had Anand Chandrasekaran on the That’s Genius! Podcast, he had been with Five9 for just over 100 days. Now, he’s closing in on his first year.
Cloud migration requires a certain level of skill and expertise that a lot of companies simply don’t have. But when you find a company that does? It will take your customer experience to the next level. How? So glad you asked.
In 3 months, Zoom ended up with 30 times the users and became a household name overnight. Even your grandparents know how to use Zoom. How many cloud-based video communication platforms can you say that your grandparents understand, or even know exists?
How do you transition more than 100,000 contact center agents to a work from home setup? And, do it without sacrificing the customer experience? In this episode of That’s Genius!, Michael Rose chats with Five9 President, Dan Burkland, about how contact centers can stay safe while providing internal and external customer support during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Having the right space for your home office is one thing. Having the most reliable technology to get the job done is another. In this episode of That’s Genius!, Michael catches up with Poly team members Declan Doyle (Global Alliance Sr. Manager) and Peter Jakobsen (Director of Global Alliance GTM).
With the advent of AI, contact center agents will no longer be left to fish around knowledge bases or external data sources. Instead, they’ll have all the information they need delivered to them immediately. In this episode, we interview John Bourne, Senior VP of Global Channels and Strategic Alliances at Verint and Dan Burkland, President of Five9.
Technology, consumers, and employees. These are the three biggest factors shaking up the modern contact center. In this episode of That’s Genius! Michael chats with ClearView president, Paul Liljenquist about the impact of recent changes to the contact cente
Customer service has come a long way. It used to be that if a customer needed help, they had to either make a phone call or come into your physical building. Customers are leery of coming into contact with anybody if they don’t have to. Thankfully, a lot of businesses have already set themselves up for customer service success, as Paul Selby highlighted recently on an episode of That’s Genius!
Agility in the workplace is needed now more than ever. In a time of so many employees working from home, the benefits of the cloud are undeniable. In this episode of That’s Genius! host Michael Rose catches up again with Scott Kolman, SVP of Corporate & Product Marketing for Five9.
Ready to up your customer service game? Want to deliver a maniacal customer focus? Ask yourself these questions: 1.) How can this customer get the most out of our solution? 2.) What is this customer telling me they need? 3.) How can my customer maximize our partnership? Jake Butterbaugh, VP - Global Channel Sales at Five9, joined us on this episode to help answer these questions and more.
We invited Erin Wilson, Director of Solution Consulting at Five9 onto this episode, and she told us all the misconception of the contact center.
In this episode of That’s Genius! Sabine Winterkamp, Five9 Senior Director of International Marketing, updates us on the growth and trends we’re seeing in the cloud contact center space. Listen here:
How many nights a year do you stay in a hotel? For a lot of us, not many. For Nick Delis, who was a guest on the That’s Genius podcast recently, the answer is over 150. That’s half the year.
In 2019, we talked a lot about the customer experience, the human experience, and how contact centers are increasingly the make-or-break factor in whether or not retail survives. In 2020, we want to continue that conversation, as well as continue talking about how technology like AI is uniquely poised to help contact centers bring a new level of service, empowering agents and customers alike.
“What’s the strategy?” That’s where every product has its beginning. In this episode of That’s Genius!, Jonathan Rosenberg brings us lessons from his first 100 days as CTO and Head of AI at Five9, where he’s helping roll out a new AI component to the software.
Rowan Trollope, CEO of Five9, joins host Michael Rose for this last show of 2019 to share his outlook on how contact centers can embrace new technology in a way that makes customer service “a more human experience.”
Zeus Kerravala, Founder and Principal Analyst at ZK Research, is an incredible industry analyst and shared with us how the contact center can be at the forefront of great customer experience, while still remaining efficient, innovative, and relevant through use of AI and the cloud.
Anand Chandrasekaran, EVP at Five9, chats to Michael Rose about: the one thing a chatbot can’t replicate, why empathy is so critical in hiring no matter what department, and the 5 employee traits necessary to deliver a market-leading product.
Rather than call center agents being eliminated by AI, they’re turning into... SUPER AGENTS! On this episode, we hear from Stephen Fioretti, VP of CX Strategic Alliances at Oracle, about evolving channels and automation.
“The machines are coming for our jobs!” How many times have you heard someone say some version of this? “We’re all going to be replaced with automation!” Or, “It’s just a matter of time before they give my job to a robot or a machine.” While it’s true that AI is developing rapidly, maybe, just maybe, our fears about the irrelevance of humanity are just a bit to premature?
You know when you start a new job and you get a learning period? That time where you soak in knowledge and just sort of figure out what is going on? Anand Chandrasekaran didn’t get that.
“There is no cloud. There is just someone else’s computer.” While it may elicit a chuckle, for companies that are looking to grow at scale, stay flexible, and adapt to a changing marketplace, it may send the wrong idea. Is cloud the right move?
On this episode of the That’s Genius podcast, Five9 VP and General Manager of EMEA Brian Atkinson, talked with us about: his role in the EMEA marketplace, partner ecosystems, and his least favorite buzz term, AI.
Latin American countries tend to be 4 or 5 years behind developed regions in adopting new technology. Nonetheless, there is a growing interest in improving customer experience through cloud services. Raphael Spinelli, CEO of Optimi Solutions, fills us in on the current landscape of cloud tech in Latin American countries.
On this episode of That’s Genius!, Kendra Riley dives into what really creates an amazing customer experience. We unpack the desires every customer has, how to recruit the right CX team (and how to equip them), and how to tackle the toughest issues in the simplest way.
Delighting your already delighted customers even further generates a perpetual cycle of advocacy for your brand. Cindy Seto, Customer Advocacy Manager at Five9, outlines the reasons why you should develop a customer advocacy program.
There are a lot of places your CX strategy can fall short. Many times, the success of your organization can teeter on whether you address potential CX pitfalls or not. Lucky for us, Darryl Addington, the Director of Product Marketing at Five9, lays out 5 CX pitfalls to avoid.
How should we feel about the future of customer experience when it feels like AI is taking over more and more parts of our world? In part 2 of our interview with Nitin Badjatia from ServiceNow, he talks about the future of AI, and why those working in customer experience don’t need to fear a Jetsons robot taking their job.
We had the opportunity to sit down with Five9 CMO, Ryan Kam, and ask him the tough questions on continuous release marketing. In this episode, we cover measuring marketing impact, customer experience, and more.
In this Part 1 of a 2-part series, Michael interviews Nitin Badjatia from ServiceNow, about the role of customer experience in today’s companies and why it’s a non-negotiable.
Deep in the trenches of getting their degrees, and ready to prove themselves, today’s interns run the gamut when it comes to backgrounds and roles. While I can’t speak to what intern life is like at Dunder Mifflin, or any other company, our most recent episode of the That’s Genius! podcast features 3 of our summer interns.
Self-driving cars are a big no. “If you assume out of the gate that AI is going to be wrong a significant fraction of the time, whether that's 10 or 20 or even 30%, you're already in the ballpark of a major use case,” Jonathan Rosenberg, CTO and Head of AI at Five9 said. Why would you put a system that would mess up in charge of driving? How about putting it in charge of something with a low inaccuracy cost instead?
On this episode of That's Genius, Michael spoke with UC Today journalist, Patrick Watson, about the biggest (perceived) obstacles that are holding companies back from migrating to the cloud. We address the most prominent concerns enterprises have about moving their data, plus, we cover AI features, quality data, and more.
“All the things that an agent does when they put you on hold? Typing things in, searching, following steps in a process. Let's automate that stuff so that it happens instantly,” Jonathan said. Learn more in Pt. 2 of our AI showdown:
On this week’s episode, we listen to part one of a special series that follows Rowan Trollope, our CEO at Five9, and Jonathan Rosenberg, CTO and head of AI, through an insightful conversation on AI and the future of the contact center.
In the third and final part of our interview with Five9 CEO, Rowan Trollope, we talk about company culture, a failed experiment in conversational intelligence, and why there is still a bright future for the pairing of humans and AI—despite our built-in reluctance to go all-in on robots.
Do your agents have superpowers? Is your AI intuitive enough that customers actually look forward to engaging with your call center? If not, don’t worry. They will be--it’s only a matter of time. On this first episode of the That’s Genius! podcast, host Michael Rose sits down with Rowan Trollope, CEO of Five9, to chat about what incredible changes are in store for the future of contact centers.
Remember racing into the kitchen as a kid to grab the phone off the wall as soon as it rang? Answering the phone was fun because almost always it was someone inside your world, someone who had a legitimate reason for calling you. That's no longer true.
The pandemic sent agents home, ate up more of their time, and moved their data to the cloud. But in fact, all those trends were already in place. COVID just accelerated them. What's up next for revolution in contact centers?