Dare to Reimagine: A Podcast for CX Innovators with Genefa Murphy: Recent Episodes
Five9
Dare to Reimagine is a show that brings bold new ideas from the innovators who are transforming customer experience and changing the way businesses connect with customers. Our host says it best: “On the podcast, we want to help companies rethink what's possible in CX, and dare to reimagine to be different.” – Genefa Murphy Join a lineup of industry luminaries who discuss topics like the power of the cloud, the contact center of the future, AI, customer experience, agent empowerment, omnichannel in the call center, and more. If your goal is to deliver extraordinary experiences for your customers and your contact center agents, this is the podcast for you.
Without regular maintenance, your contact center’s back-end software can pile up, causing a drop in performance and even larger issues down the line. Even more concerning, if you are planning a move to the Cloud, you want to ensure you don’t carry legacy problems and dirty data with you.
McGee-Smith Analytics President & Principal Analyst Sheila McGee-Smith and Blackchair CEO & Co-Founder Jason Owen share their tips for keeping your CX software clean and adaptable for future challenges.
Ready to rethink what’s possible in CX? Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, our website, or anywhere you get podcasts.
Over the past decade, social media became a primary way for consumers to connect with large-scale businesses. It offers public transparency to customers which empowers their voices, and it gives companies an opportunity to build trust among their followers.
In this episode, B2B tech influencer and content creator Evan Kirstel shares his insights on how some companies use social media to its full potential and how others use it in ways that could harm their brand identity.
Ready to rethink what’s possible in CX? Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, our website, or anywhere you get podcasts.
In the modern customer service world, it’s more important than ever that brands make it clear that they stand for more than just profits.
So how exactly can a company ensure that customers know that it stands for something?
I recently sat down with Aspirational Futures Founder and CEO Sally Eaves to discuss doing the right thing as a company. In this episode of Dare to Reimagine, Sally shares insight on the importance of building a comprehensive ESG strategy, what motivates employees to become brand ambassadors, and why it’s necessary to replace box-checking with actual change.
Join us as we discuss:
How ESG investment promotes conscious consumerization
Setting expectations with employees about what the company stands for
The importance of digital integration in a hybrid workplace environment
Nearly half of us would rather go to the dentist than call customer support. At heart, it’s a trust issue, and consistency and predictability lies at the core of great CX.
Hear our conversation with Shep Hyken, Chief Amazement Officer at Shepard Presentations, LLC:
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Why customer experience and customer expectations must be equal
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What “skimpflation” is and how brands should respond
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How to use chatbots seamlessly and effectively for great CX
More information about Shep and today’s topics:
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LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shephyken/
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Company website: https://hyken.com/
- I’ll Be Back by Shep Hyken
Ready to rethink what’s possible in CX? Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, our website, or anywhere you get podcasts.
The first thing you should do when a customer complains — Thank them. They’re pinpointing issues that the team can now fix.
But if you want the kind of team that embraces complaints and goes to work with enthusiasm, there must be a focus on the employee experience.
Nick Glimsdahl, Director of Contact Center Solutions at VDS, joins me today to discuss his new book and all the reasons why the employee experience should be your main area of focus for a better customer experience.
Join us as we discuss:
- 138 pages of nothing & the digital transformation
- Lessons learned about customer experience & service
- Moving a contact center to the cloud
- How to do employee retention right
- Tip of the week for listeners
Ready to rethink what’s possible in CX? Subscribe to every episode of Dare to Reimagine on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, our website, or your favorite podcast player.
When dealing with every single customer, you have to understand the individual end-to-end customer journey.
That requires a single source of truth — which most companies don’t have.
Zeus Kerravala, founder and principal analyst at ZK Research, joins me today to discuss using data to integrate sales and service.
Join us as we discuss:
- Why sales and service should become best friends
- The importance of data integrations, especially with the contact center
- A word of wisdom to the vendor community
- Why you need a Chief Experience Officer
- An urgent need to be agile, adaptable, and scalable
Ready to rethink what’s possible in CX? Subscribe to every episode of Dare to Reimagine on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, our website, or your favorite podcast player.
The ground is shifting beneath us.
Because of the pandemic, massive advances have been made in digital engagement and automation. And those twin pillars have led us back to a hot topic from six years ago — the customer journey.
When we talked about the customer journey before, we didn’t really know what to do with our data. But now, we have ways to leverage it in a myriad of paradigm-shifting ways.
In this episode, I’m joined by a titan of the CX and contact center world, Sheila McGee-Smith, president and principal analyst at McGee-Smith Analytics, to talk about some of these emerging trends.
Join us as we discuss:
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Who should be making contact center decisions
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How customer data platforms help extend customer personas
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The role analytics plays in driving service strategy
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What the biggest trends will be in 2022
Resources mentioned during the podcast:
-The Long-Distance Leader by Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel
Ready to rethink what’s possible in CX? Subscribe to every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Listening on a desktop and can’t see the links? Just search for Dare to Reimagine in your favorite podcast player.
Do you have the unifying trifecta of method, message, and martech working for you? Or is your customer journey somehow still siloed — with your contact center the least aligned of all?
In this episode, I interview Neil Valentine, chief revenue officer at Lucency, about creating a unified customer journey that integrates the contact center into the marketing and sales flow.
Working tools into your retail experiences that allow you to connect with your customer through their mobile device on their preferred digital channels is a tall order. Integrating technology into the customer experience must start with a customer-centric strategy that focuses on layers of gratification.
In this episode, I interview Melissa Gonzalez, CEO and founder at the Lionesque Group, about empowering the retail experience with human connection through technology.
Join us as we discuss:
- The surprising survey results about personal mobile devices in stores
- The overlap between retail strategy and hospitality
- Starting with the customer when developing your technology strategy
- What makes a successful tech-enabled retail experience
Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:
- Shout-out to Nike
Ready to rethink what’s possible in CX? Subscribe to every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Listening on a desktop and can’t see the links? Just search for Dare to Reimagine in your favorite podcast player.
What would you rather do — go to the dentist or call customer support? Forty-eight percent of us say they'd rather have the root canal.
Creating customer amazement by delivering consistent, predictable above-average service is what brings people back to your business again and again.
In this first episode of Five9’s newly rebranded Dare to Reimagine podcast, I interview Shep Hyken, chief amazement officer at Shepard Presentations, about the role of amazement in customer experience.
Join us as we discuss:
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The keys to creating amazement in customers
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Being slightly better than average, aka the extra degree
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Empowering employees to deliver excellent service
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Embracing the basics: appreciation, feedback, and improvement
Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:
I’ll Be Back by Shep Hyken
Ready to rethink what’s possible in CX? Subscribe to every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Listening on a desktop and can’t see the links? Just search for Dare to Reimagine in your favorite podcast player.
We’re proud to launch our rebranded podcast, Dare to Reimagine. As part of our Reimagine CX campaign, our vision is to bring bold new ideas from the innovators who are transforming customer experience and changing the way businesses connect with customers.
In this trailer episode, podcast producer Jordan Alford chats with Dare to Reimagine host Genefa Murphy, Five9 CMO, about what to expect in each episode.
We talk about:
-The three reasons behind the Dare to Reimagine podcast rebrand
-Customer experience and customer service leaders and practitioners
-Making AI more than a buzzword
Join us in sparking CX imagination on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Listening on a desktop and can’t see the links? Just search for Dare to Reimagine in your favorite podcast player.
At Five9, we want to make customer service a human experience. And we've identified seven factors that go into human-centered customer service:
- Know me.
- Respect me.
- Meet me.
- Empower me.
- ...
For the rest, you'll have to listen to this episode of That’s Genius! where we talked with Scott Kolman, senior vice president of marketing Five9, about:
- The seven factors of human-centered customer service
- Why customers switch brands
- The 3 key stakeholders in customer experience
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
People everywhere have had to go home during COVID. Although technology is not as widespread in Mexico as in developed countries, more and more customers need the cloud.
Finance remains regulated but retail, healthcare, financial services, technology, and business services are all moving online.
On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, we talked with Gilberto Godinez, CEO & founder of
GRUPO ITS (PCSNets Mexico), about:
- The partnership between GRUPO ITS and Five9
- The pandemic's impact on the marketplace in Mexico
- What cloud adoption been like during this pandemic in Mexico
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
The latest episode of “That’s Genius!” is a very special one.
They’re all special, but for this episode, we got to sit down and talk with our newest hire, Five 9’s new Chief Marketing Officer, Genefa Murphy.
Genefa has one of the more unique marketing career journeys we’ve seen in a while, so she seemed like a natural fit for an interview.
Our conversation centered around:
- How she’s enjoying the Five9 culture during her first few weeks
- Her biggest surprise in joining Five9
- What drives her passion for the marketing work that she’s doing
- Her favorite books, authors, food, and so much more
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
To a large extent, AI is a buzzword. The trick — and the challenge — is finding the practical implementations of AI for contact centers.
If you can show how AI helps customers during COVID, you get extra credit.
On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, we talked with Martin Cross, Group CTO at Conn3ct, about:
- What the "stabilize, enhance, transform" journey is all about
- How COVID accelerated the migration to new platforms
- 3 practical ways to deploy AI in a contact center
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
COVID provided the inflection point for the transition from legacy to the cloud.
Even before the pandemic, companies were slowly moving toward cloud because it had gotten to a level of resilience, features, functionality, security, and uptime that persuaded the legacy base to trust it.
The movement had already begun. Add in a pandemic and AI, and suddenly you have all the ingredients for a perfect storm.
On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, we talked with Thomas John, Vice President of EMEA Channels at Five9, about:
- Why AI is helping companies transition to the cloud
- How Five9's tools automate, inform, and even provide simple answers for customers
- The ways different levels of channels benefit the end customer
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
In 2020, contact centers underwent their biggest stress test yet.
People had to figure out how to continue their operation with their agents working from home, a remote office, or even a hotel. Did their technology support this kind of diffuse team? Then, they had to handle a surge of anxious callers.
Scary times for some companies, but exciting for many others. What's next for the enterprises that can pass the stress tests of 2020?
On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, we talked with Vikas Bhambri, SVP, Sales & CX @ Kustomer about:
- Why a barrier exists between CRM and contact centers
- How contact centers are being more proactive in engaging customers
- The current and future role for AI and automation in contact centers
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
The pandemic changed everything. The pandemic changed nothing.
I'm not being philosophical. That's a realistic picture of contact centers in 2020. 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?
On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, we talked with Dave Michels, principal analyst and founder of TalkingPointz, about:
- Key trends in the enterprise space in 2020
- Who's accelerating cloud strategies as part of digital transformation
- Most beneficial tools for contact centers as work from home models start to solidify
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
During the pandemic, 75% of people have changed brands.
75%. Just let that number sink in for a minute.
Rowan Trollope, our Five9 CEO, shared that state from McKinsey as part of his address at our CX Summit. Given that trend, it's imperative that companies of all sizes automate their processes to better track customer engagement.
On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, we talked with Mike Bourke, senior vice president, product at Five9, about:
- How workflow automation helps you understand customer pain
- What it means that the contact center is the new front door
- The new Five9 tool that can help you know what your customers are feeling
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
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.
But voice remains the most powerful and important channel. How can you keep it from breaking down?
On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, we sat down with Jeff Woodland, director of vertical marketing at Five9, to talk about:
- Why consumers are losing trust in outbound calling
- How we can solve the phone problem for customer service
- What it will look like when people can manage their incoming call traffic better
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Contact centers drive a lot of the core strategy for a big, diverse telecommunications company such as AT&T. Because these companies need speed and agility, they're taking a cloud-first approach. The pandemic is only accelerating that strategy.
On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, we sat down with Mike Rajich, director of contact center & CX products at AT&T, to talk about his experiences with Five9 and his thoughts about:
- Why AT&T chose Five9 to power its cloud contact center solution
- How the pandemic has changed things for AT&T's contact centers
- Where Mike sees the work-from-home model going
- The next big thing Mike predicts will happen within the contact center.
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
In Q2, we brought on 75 new hires at Five9. These people say they're excited to be here, and they look forward to participating in our unique Five9 culture. We know we're not perfect, but we're always improving.
In May of this year, we did an engagement survey while COVID was bearing down on us, and we were all working from home. It was a tough time. For most tech companies in our space, 50% engagement would be good. At Five9, 92% of our employees said they were engaged.
On this episode of That’s Genius!, we sat down with Tricia Yankovich, SVP, HR at Five9, to talk about Five9's culture and why our employees engage. We covered such topics as:
- How new applicants find out about Five9
- Top line results from our employee engagement survey
- What we can expect next from an employee welfare perspective
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
90 days into her job, Five9's new vice president of product marketing, Terry Fortescue, has already planned 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 Five9's unique culture. Though due to COVID-19, she has never actually met anybody in the office, she can still feel the warmth coming from the team.
On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, we sat down with Terry to talk about her experiences with Five9 and her thoughts about:
- The highlights of her first 90 days on the job
- The virtual CX Summit coming up on September 16
- What we're planning for 2021.
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
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?”
It exposed a lot of weaknesses inside of organizations that they didn't know where there, and is forcing companies to take a hard look at a cloud-based solution, rather than a premises-based one.
But remote work isn’t easy. Which is why we reached out to someone who has written some incredibly insightful stuff on the work-from-home solutions, including the things nobody will tell you.
On this episode of That’s Genius!, we talk with Greg Hanover, CEO at Liveops all about:
- Standing up 6,000 virtual contact center agents within 72 hours for a crucial government agency at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic
- The weaknesses that COVID has exposed in a lot of contact center organizations
- Why a business continuity plan is a MUST for any organization
- The 5 things nobody will tell you about succeeding at remote work
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
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.
And on the most recent episode of theThat’s Genius! Podcast, we sat down with three of our summer interns, for a discussion all about:
- What life has been like as a work-from-home intern
- What stood out about Five9 when it came to choosing an internship
- What they hoped to get out of the whole process
- Their next steps after completing the internship program
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
If you were scheduled to go to a conference in 2020, odds are you’re out of luck. Everybody in the business world is canceling conferences and pivoting to virtual events. And Five9 is no different.
This year’s CX summit is on track to draw over 3,000 attendees, over a 300% increase of last year’s summit in Las Vegas.
On this episode of That’s Genius!, we talk to Ryan Kam, the CMO here at Five9, about this year’s CX summit, and the four virtual tracks that await attendees:
- “Is my customer experience a more human experience?”
- “What’s possible in the cloud with Five9?”
- “Super powering your agents”
- “Under the hood: Five9 technology and innovations.”
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
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.
Plus, Zeus and Michael discuss:
- How to maintain the highest level of customer service with a remote workforce
- Why CXOs need to continue modernizing the customer experience even post-pandemic
- How consistency in employee experience cultivates a better customer experience
Hear ep. 29 w/ Zeus Kerravala here.
To hear this episode and more like it, subscribe to That’s Genius! on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or tune in on our website.
If you want to go faster, go alone. If you want to go farther, go together.
That’s the mindset of Five9’s VP of Business Development, Walt Rossi. Strategic partnerships with other tech companies have made it possible to bring holistic solutions to Five9 customers.
In this episode of That’s Genius, Walt and Michael discuss:
- How partnering with CRM companies has given Five9 agents a more holistic view of their customers
- Why Five9 built a marketplace even some of their competitors can sell on
- How partnering w/ Google has impacted Five9’s approach to AI
Explore Five9’s app marketplace here.
To hear this episode and more like it, subscribe to That’s Genius! on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or tune in on our website.
Canadians are camping on the couch like everyone else during the pandemic.
Working from home is the new reality, like it is around the world. That's one reason we're seeing a dramatic acceleration in Canadian enterprises turning to the cloud.
This acceleration comes on top of 30% year-over-year growth that we've been witnessing for the past five years. Canadians have seen the difference that the cloud contact center solutions can deliver to their businesses. And they realize that if you can't communicate with customers the way that they prefer to be communicated with, you're really going to struggle in the market.
On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, I sat down with Chris Silver, Five 9's vice president for Canada, who shared his thoughts about:
- What's driving Canadian enterprises to adopt cloud technology
- How the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting Canadians' transition to the cloud
- What the post-pandemic trends will look like in the Canadian marketplace
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
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.
Those 20% had an easy time making the switch to a WFH model. The other 80%?
They had a bit rougher of a go.
It’s hard to equip agents with physical phones, physical servers, firewalls, and VDI instances, rather than just issuing laptops.
Which begs the question: What will this WFH scenario look like a year from now?
Sheila McGee-Smith thinks that for the most part, it’s here to stay. She was a guest on the podcast recently and talked all about:
- Why a cloud-based solution was so important in moving to a WFH model
- Why she thinks that more and more companies are going to keep people home
- How hiring practices are going to change as a result of this pandemic
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
“Organizations are spending $275B a year to deliver an experience that a lot of times, most people don’t like. That feels like an opportunity to me.”
These are words that you want to hear from your CEO.
Rowan Trollope is the 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.
Join us as he talks all about:
- Why the contact center is going to change more in the next 5 years than it has in the past 25.
- Key takeaways from his first 2 years at Five9
- What makes the culture at Five9 so unique and special
- So much more
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
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.
This is just one of the themes Anand Chadrasekaran, Executive VP of Product Management & Design at Five9, has seen emerge from the pandemic.
In this episode, Michael and Anand discuss:
- 3 major business themes Anand has seen come out of the pandemic
- How advanced telecommunications have supported industries from healthcare to manufacturing
- Why being born in the cloud makes it easier for companies to map out their business continuity plans
Catch our previous interviews with Anand on That’s Genius!
Acquisitions and Applications: One Year of Success
Acquisitions and APIs: The First 90 Days at Five9 (pt 1)
Reinforcement, not Replacement: The First 90 Days at Five9 (pt 2)
To hear this episode and more like it, subscribe to That’s Genius! on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or tune in on our website.
During these turbulent times, there has been one constant our team has encountered:
Channel partners trying to figure out what their new normal is.
Really, that’s what we’re all striving for… normalcy.
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.
Plus, Casey discusses:
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Success stories of partners who’ve taken advantage of FastTrack
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The benefits of migrating to the cloud in-full
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3 pillars every business needs in order to enable a successful remote workforce
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What he believes the next 3-6 months will look like for partners
To hear this episode and more like it, subscribe to That’s Genius! on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or tune in on our website.
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.
The two discuss:
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How strategic partnerships help businesses gain a holistic view of their customers and improve CX
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Enabling agents as they work from home
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What workforce management is looking like in a remote work world
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What operating conditions are going to look like post-pandemic
To hear this episode and more like it, subscribe to That’s Genius! on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or tune in on our website.
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.
You can only go so long without showering and putting on real clothes before you start to question reality.
Not to mention that it’s probably not great for you (or your employer).
On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, we sat down with David Cashman, who had some thoughts about:
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The way the customer expectation has changed in the light of COVID-19
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A fully remote workforce, and what that means for your organization
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The future of remote work after COVID-19
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
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.
Time flies when you’re in quarantine (or something like that).
So what have been the biggest victories Anand has seen since joining the team at Five9?
Acquisitions.
Anand joined host Michael Rose for the first of a 2-part interview, where they covered:
- Anand’s biggest takeaways from his first year at Five9
- The 4 key applications from their acquisition of Whendu
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Once upon a time, the customer contact center was simple.
It was about 3 things:
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How quickly can we identify the customer?
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How quickly can we get them off the phone?
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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.
So what has changed?
Frank Wassenbergh & Kevin Sheehan, Managing Partners at CloudLinx, think it’s a combination of 2 key factors, and they came on the podcast to talk all about:
- The role technology is playing in the CCaaS space
- Why a negative review is far more meaningful than a positive one
- Why you can’t be ignoring any of the social media channels
- And so much more
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
In December, Zoom had 10 million daily meeting participants.
In March, when they launched their Master Agent program?
300 million.
In 3 months, they ended up with 30 times the participants 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?
On the most recent episode of That’s Genius!, we hear from Kevin Thomsen, Head of Master Agents at Zoom, and Jake Butterbaugh, VP Global Channel Sales, Five9, about:
- Zoom’s Master Agent program
- What the future holds for video conferencing
- Why the pandemic is going to catapult the true remote workforce to the top of the pile.
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
“Okay, but our contact center is getting the job done as we are. Why should we consider migrating it to the cloud?”
It’s a fair question.
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.
Michael Ramsey, VP of Product Management for Customer Workflow Products at ServiceNow, was a guest on this episode of the That’s Genius! podcast.
He talked through:
- How customer service/experience has changed in the last 10 years
- The benefits of moving your customer contact center to the cloud
- The need to balance empathy with advancement when it comes to AI
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
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.
He talks about:
- Transitioning to a Work From Home environment
- Moving fast to meet changing needs across the globe
- How cloud-based solutions affect business continuity management
- Balancing work-at-home and on-prem in our new normal
Additional Resources
COVID-19 Resources
10 Tips for Engaging New Agents from Home
Five9 FastTrack Program
To hear this episode and more like it, subscribe to That’s Genius! on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or tune in on our website.
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).
The three discuss:
- How Poly’s business pivot in 2008 is benefitting them today
- The benefits and challenges of working from home
- Why the most reliable tech is essential for agents and other remote workers
- How to secure your work space from an AV point of view
To hear this episode and more like it, subscribe to That’s Genius! on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or tune in on our website.
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 center.
They discuss:
- How to navigate all the new channels customers are using to get in touch
- Best ways to help agents make sense of the data they’re encountering
- How gamification is impacting performance within contact centers
- How dashboarding empowers agents
To hear this episode and more like it, subscribe to That’s Genius! on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or tune in on our website.
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.
The two discuss:
- Why the cloud is such a powerful tool for small and large businesses alike
- How the cloud offers more agility in times of emergency
- The strengths of a cloud-based contact center
- The benefits of the cloud for remote workers
See the Dimension Data report here.
To hear this episode and more like it, subscribe to That’s Genius! on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or tune in on our website.
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!
He talked all about:
- The key technologies that are helping customer service drive
- The way that AI and analytics can drastically improve the customer service experience, particularly at this uncertain time.
- The 3 biggest improvements to the customer service landscape over the last 10 years.
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
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 also talked about:
- What a maniacal customer focus looks like
- The partner ecosystem
- The #1 thing customers really want
- Channel business as a global business
- The last decade in omnichannel
Never miss an episode and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Lies or truths?
1) “Work and fun don’t mix”
2) “Call center agents should be miserable”
3) “On-prem is more reliable than the cloud”
We invited Erin Wilson, Director of Solution Consulting at Five9 onto this episode, and she told us why all of the above … are lies.
What we talked about:
- Cloud-based solutions vs. on-premises
- Beating the four-nines uptime
- Why call center agents can — and should — have fun at work
- Being yourself at work
- Workplace culture
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
- Erin’s book, The Sapient Salesman
Never miss an episode and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
The recent resurgence of focusing on customer experience has been supported by more than just millennials.
Turns out, everybody wants a better customer journey. And technology is sitting behind the wheel.
In this episode of That’s Genius! I speak with co-author of Outside In and the CEO of Bodine & Co., Kerry Bodine. She shares her perspective on the rise of the customer journey manager.
Plus, we cover:
- What’s led to the resurgence of the customer journey
- Why focusing on the customer journey isn’t just for B2C
- How technology has added exponential value to the customer journey
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Upcoming webinar on customer journey.
- The Ultimate Question.
To hear this episode and more like it, subscribe to That’s Genius! on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or tune in on our website.
It’s impossible to ignore the flexibility and scalability the cloud offers to contact centers today.
Even with all the amazing changes the cloud offers, Five9’s approach to partnerships has held steady, resulting in strong alliances across the globe.
In this episode of That’s Genius! Sabine Winterkamp — Sr. Director of International Marketing at Five9 — updates us on the growth and trends we’re seeing in the cloud contact center space.
Plus, she covers:
- Five9’s secret sauce for strong global partnerships
- Cloud contact center trends in Europe
- Big events for Five9 in 2020
Learn more about CCW Berlin here.
To hear this episode and more like it, subscribe to That’s Genius! on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or tune in on our website.
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.
So it makes sense that he would have a thing or two to say about customer service, and which brands are doing it well, and which ones are falling short.
Nick was on the show recently and we talked all about:
- What he looks for in customer service.
- Which brands are doing an outstanding job.
- Why it’s often the smallest things that make the biggest difference in customer service.
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
The contact center is the front door to every eCommerce business.
And you typically only get one chance to answer that door with a fantastic experience or risk losing that customer for good.
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.
Featured highlights from some of our 2019 guests:
- Rowan Trollope
- Jonathan Rosenberg
- Dan Burkland
- Tricia Yankovich
- Kendra Riley
- Stephen Fioretti
- Anand Chandrasekaran
- Zeus Kerravala
We want to hear from you! Send us your questions, comments, and suggestions for the show on Twitter: @mwroseglobal or @five9
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or check our website.
“Why don’t you want to talk to me?!”
It’s a common frustration for any customer who just can’t seem to make their way through an outdated maze of AI to reach a real human for help.
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.”
We also talk about:
- The rise of the citizen developer
- Why AI is magic
- Rapidfire recap with Rowan
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
One bad experience.
That’s all it takes to lose the loyalty of the modern consumer.
And, unfortunately, most of those bad experiences can be directly linked to a lousy customer service encounter.
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.
We also talk about:
- What’s driving the rapid change in contact centers.
- How companies are innovating through use of the cloud.
- Use cases and risks for AI.
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
You go to check-in for your flight home, only to find that it has been canceled.
So you call the airline, but no matter what you do, you can’t seem to get past the automated menu.
On the other hand, let’s say you want to know what hours a restaurant is open.
You call, get an automated menu with their hours listed, hang up, and go about your day.
This is why AI will never replace the customer service role.
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.
- The 5 employee traits necessary to deliver a market-leading product.
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.
Anand is the EVP of Product Development at Five9, and is approaching his fourth month with the company.
What have those first few months been like? We had Anand on the podcast recently to talk about:
- The acquisition of Whendu.
- The release of a new API.
- What his first 90 days at Five9 have been like.
- What drew him to Five9 in the first place.
“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?
On this episode, we heard from Stephen Fioretti, VP, CX ISV Strategic Alliances at Oracle, about AI.
What we talked about:
- The future of AI and customer service.
- How to efficiently use AI in your customer service organizations.
- Why no matter how advanced AI gets, you still need a human side.
Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Rather than call center agents being eliminated by AI, they’re turning into... SUPER AGENTS!
On this episode, we hear from Stephen Fioretti, VP, CX ISV Strategic Alliances at Oracle, about evolving channels and automation.
What we talked about:
- How Millennials expect you to communicate with them.
- Why AI needs to be predictive.
- The future of AI, the call center, and agent enthusiasts.
Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:
Klaus Schwab’s Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Everyone’s got that buzz-term that they’re sick of.
The one they’d be fine if they never heard again.
“Synergy.”
“Alignment.”
“Disruptive.”
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.
-His least favorite buzz term, AI.
“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?
Isn’t it more efficient and more reliable to keep your infrastructure on-premises?
Scott Kolman, Senior VP of Corporate and Product Marketing here at Five9, shared with us some insider info on what the cloud means for contact centers today and looking forward.
We heard from him about:
- How to address customer trepidation around the cloud.
- The key value adds of the cloud to a contact center.
- What the future holds for this technology.
Hotel rooms, rentable condos, #VanLife, RVs, backpacking, pull-along tiny homes.
Travel personalization is nearly limitless.
How do we make sure technology is keeping up with the modern traveler’s agenda?
Richard Crowther, Lead Solutions Architect at Babble, and Mark Jordan, Managing Director at Babble, sit down with us at CX Summit to discuss travel tech.
We go over:
- Tailored holidays
- Modern challenges for travel tech
- Offering positive UX over all channels
To hear this episode and more like it, subscribe to That’s Genius! on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or tune in on our website.
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.
In this episode, we cover:
- The desire for agencies to manage UX
- The shift from traditional contact centers to the cloud
- Latin American industries leading the way in technology
To hear this episode and more like it, subscribe to That’s Genius! on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or tune in on our website.
A customer advocacy program can benefit you and your happy customers alike.
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.
In this episode, we cover:
- The role of customer advocacy
- Ways to share customer success
- Benefits of being a customer advocate for a vendor
To hear this episode and more like it, subscribe to That’s Genius! on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or tune in on our website.
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.
In this episode, we cover:
- Establishing a customer care culture
- The best omnichannel strategies
- Providing agent support
To hear this episode and more like it, subscribe to That’s Genius! on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or tune in on our website.
Robots are good at a lot of things.
Assembling cars.
Turning the heat down in our homes.
Hey, even the Jetsons had a robot butler.
So 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, we talked about:
- The future of AI in customer experience.
- The role of IOT and how it’s evolution will impact the contact center.
- How we can use AI to answer the WHAT and the HOW.
- Why people working in Customer Experience don’t need to fear the automation of their jobs.
“What was true six months ago, is no longer true today.”
Isn’t that the truth.
Modern marketers can no longer depend on their specialization in one discipline. You have to understand every touchpoint in the customer’s journey to be really successful.
With more consumers expecting personalization, being a marketing expert on all fronts sounds, well, insane.
We had the opportunity to sit down with Five9’s 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.
What’s your “customer experience” experience?
Maybe you think of a fantastic interaction you had with a company. One where they went above and beyond.
But more than likely, you think of a time when you were drug over the coals. Given the runaround. A company swung for the fences, and missed horribly.
And that is why the customer experience is no longer a “nice to have.”
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.
As funny as it is, we’re all glad our offices aren’t like Dunder Mifflin, aren’t we?
But every summer, all across America, companies large and small, particularly in the tech space, bring in their class of summer interns.
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.
What’s the #1 reason why you haven’t moved to the cloud?
It’s different? It’s intimidating? It’s a lot of work?
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.
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?
We need to seek out zero cost of inaccuracy, explained Rowan Trollope, Five9 CEO. That means applications of AI where you can tolerate mistakes and still get benefit when it's not.
Not self-driving cars. Think product recommendations, call center assistants, and diagnostic aids.
Let’s give contact center reps AI superpowers.
“What are the superpowers? Know the answer to every question and don't make them type,” said Rowan Trollope, Five9 CEO, in the next part of our ongoing discussion about how to make customers love AI.
Hint: Don’t give the AI to the customers. Give them to the agents.
Jonathan Rosenberg, CTO and Head of AI at Five9, describes the superpowers like this:
“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.
Then everyone wins. Agents work better and customers are overjoyed.
Computers get things wrong all the time.
Especially with AI, which is actually learning, there’s no question that computers are going to mess up.
Hopefully not in a way that freaks out customers, though.
Being strategic about where you can allow inaccuracy is key.
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.
“This gets back to assistance versus voice bots, which is really a fascinating conversation,” Rowan said.
“The voice bot misunderstands what the user is saying, and then the user gets scared.”
Chatbots are the new IVR.
When you’re not talking to a human, they’re incredibly dumb (and not very helpful). A select few companies have gotten them right, but overall people are desperate to speak to a human as soon as possible.
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.
Consider a retailer, like Nordstrom.
They'll let you return an item, no questions asked. That level of customer experience is pretty unique.
Commercial customers often have no prior expectations of what customer experience is. They feel it and they know it from their experiences.
So, when they decide it’s time to level up their customer support organization, it’s all about pushing the boundaries to create the best possible customer experience.
And since cloud technology is a bit further ahead as far as what we can do with our technology, we're able to help them push those boundaries. We can help them create an unparalleled customer experience.
I talked more about exactly how we do that with our guest Matt Tuckness, VP of Commercial Sales for Five9, on this episode of our That’s Genius! podcast.
Contact centers are a wealth of data.
But unfortunately, they're not always utilized that way.
And more importantly, those insights are rarely used to deliver a great customer experience.
That's why we've started using the term "intelligent cloud contact center."
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.
The contact center is set to change more in the next 5 years than in the past 25.
Are you ready?
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!
Company culture.
It doesn’t take long when you’re scrolling through your LinkedIn feed to see something discussing the topic of company culture.
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. (Tricia is also a graduate of Cornell’s Strategic HR Leadership Program.)
On this episode, we discuss:
- Growing company culture
- Encouraging the behaviors you wish to replicate
- Modeling a process of behaviors that emulate company values
- How culture filters from the leadership team
“It’s hard to predict what’s going to be created.
It’s easy to see what’s going to be destroyed.”
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.
“One of the most important dynamics of the new business model is that the more you engage with your customer, the more you increase the lifetime value of that relationship with the customer in a services led business.”
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.
Listen in to hear John and Dan talk about how artificial intelligence will inevitably reduce churn amongst contact center agents while also providing the ultimate customer experience.
“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.
He discusses the first questions every company must ask before launching any new AI product (or any product really).
Jonathan has been a Technology Leader on the Internet Engineering Task Force for the past 24 years. He also worked at Cisco as VP & CTO of Cloud Collaboration, and has vast experience with several other technology firms, such as Microsoft, Skype, and Nokia.
A great customer experience isn’t based on extravagance.
It’s actually much simpler. Customers desire consistent execution and delivery on promises.
Kendra Riley is the VP of Enterprise Account Management here at Five9, and she’s been consistently delivering customer experiences that are getting rave reviews, and more importantly, increasing our customer base.
On this episode of That’s Genius!, Kendra 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.
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.
Your customers have a voice and your customers have a choice.
With the contact center poised to change more in the next 5 years than it has in the last 25, now is the time to invest in providing extraordinary experiences for your customers.