Author transcript
Sean Nolan: Hello, and welcome to CX Today. My name is Sean Nolan. In this discussion, we'll be exploring how CX teams can utilize AI to create connected customer journeys. And who better to join me for this discussion than Paula Sanders, Chief Customer Experience Officer at ABBYY. Hi, Paula. Thank you so much for your time today and for joining me on CX Today. To start things off, can you introduce us to ABBYY and tell us a little bit about your role as Chief Customer Experience Officer?
Paula Sanders: Yeah, so a little bit about ABBYY. We've been in this industry handling IDP and AI. The company has been around for about over 30 years now. We have over 10,000 enterprise customers globally. We were just recently named in the top quadrant from Gartner as one of the leaders in IDP. And I've been in this industry for over 20 years and with ABBYY for over 15 years.
So just recently, I was promoted to the CX leader, which is bringing our teams together. But I started out with ABBYY 15 years ago as a professional services lead consultant. So I know our software really well, which I think is very helpful going into this new role handling the teams.
Sean Nolan: Thank you so much. I understand that one key priority for you in your role is ensuring that the customer experience is consistently high quality before a contract is signed and after a contract is signed as well. What's your advice for CX leaders on how to make that happen?
Paula Sanders: That's really important nowadays, because especially with the technology changing the way it is today, it's changing so quickly. Customers, you know, they go out with AI, they want to see their documents returned and they want those results. So it used to be that when your deal was closing, it was the signing of the deal, everybody celebrates and you move forward. It's not the case anymore because the customers are grading us as we go, right? They're looking at when the deal was closed, how quick onboarding is going to be, what the professional services team is going to be able to deliver to them. And then again, for the longevity of the support issues they might have, or feature requests.
So it's really important to make sure that there's a seamless transition for those departments. Because again, we're being graded on the whole process, not just the signing of the deal. So it's super important for any people in this role to make sure that these teams are very connected, and that means that you have a smooth transition across. So what we typically do is, you've got your pre-sales engineers, and when we're ready to start the pre-sales engagements if needed, we bring in the appropriate people. And that happens through all the functions going forward. That's how everybody's going to be connected. You have a seamless transition at that point, giving our customers the value of what they need throughout the whole life cycle of the customer. Because again, that's the most important thing that we can focus on right now.
Sean Nolan: I think that's definitely an accurate observation about the modern buyer and what they're expecting. And I think that connection between the different teams is really important for that consistent, high quality experience, as you say. Thank you. I wanted to stay on that topic of the connected experience for customers. Could you share what creating a connected experience means for you, and maybe where technology plays a role in that process as well?
Paula Sanders: Technology plays a big role, especially in our age today with AI. I'm going to start at this, Sean: even with our sales departments, when they're having customer calls or emails back and forth, we're using AI to interpret how well that meeting went, what the next action items are, and how we move forward with that. And that feeds into our CRM system, right? So all that data is accessible to anybody within our organization. And it tells you and makes you understand what was said at the beginning, what the expectations are. So I've got a clear action path to move forward with.
And that also turns into our professional services. They can see all of it, and as far as our support portal, all that information is at one spot, right? So AI is super important to utilize within this environment. And if they're not interconnected, then we're working in silos, and we cannot work in silos today. And we've learned that. And I think that's why ABBYY just recently started with the CX role, right? Because we were finding things were getting dropped, things were not going through seamlessly. And that's when we took corrective action to move forward with this.
Sean Nolan: Great. Thank you so much. That's really interesting to hear more about what you're prioritizing and the role of AI in that. I wanted to ask a little bit about ABBYY's solutions in particular. You mentioned how it's this expertise in AI and automation to help employees and the employee experience. Can you tell us how you see that being reflected in CX teams? What kind of tools do you feel can help CX teams to focus on higher value work?
Paula Sanders: That was interesting. I was just talking to my support team about this just recently, right? Because what we were doing is, to be honest, there was a lot of one-off stuff that was coming in. So if a customer needed a feature or a function, or, unfortunately, there are bug fixes out there too, they were sending it over to my PM team or the engineering team, and it was just one customer looking at that.
With using AI in there, I can quickly go out to my ticketing system and say, "Hey, how many customers are experiencing this problem?" So what that allows us to do is cluster those customers together so I can turn around and go to the PM team and say, "We've got 90 different customers that are requesting this feature. Let's prioritize it higher within the roadmap." And so we're getting that information back to them faster. And for even fixing issues, we can basically have it search, get that information back to us and get their issue resolved faster. So it's a big role that we're seeing.
And I have to say, customers don't want, you know, an 18-month roadmap anymore. They want to know in the next three months what features we're adding, how we're moving forward with it. And having these tools in place from our CX team, we can get that to the appropriate departments faster. And knowledge is great. And so that's what we need to do to make sure that, you know, you keep your customers and they're happy and get the products they need.
Sean Nolan: Great. Thank you so much. In terms of taking a step back and looking at the CX sector as a whole, what would you say is one key piece of advice you have for business leaders before they adopt a new platform or tool? How important is it to consider factors such as the skills of your team, the culture of the team, and the training that's available?
Paula Sanders: I think it's really important. But let's go back to your first thing about adopting new platforms. There are so many different enterprise solutions out there today, right? So we have to make sure that they fit all of our security. Especially now with AI too, you hear about all the issues that AI is having on SaaS solutions, right? So it's really important that we do it.
One thing I've noticed within our organization is, typically we would do one-off for each department, and then they would run it over in revenue or maybe in engineering, right? But you have to take a step back and say, what enterprise solution can I have out there? What is going to give us a tool across the entire enterprise, right, that can be integrated together and we can share that information? So I think it's really important to look at it through that retrospect to say, hey, how is this going to fit our organization? And that goes to even the products that we supply at ABBYY today.
It's really important for our customers to understand it, right? It has to be able to fit the IT demands, what they have, their CISO. It has to fit their demands and also your end users, because we are dealing with all sorts of people, right? Some people can get it, but ease of use is really important. And then getting those people the enablement to understand how to use these products properly is very important, because if I put in a great enterprise tool, but I'm not enabling that customer, or even within our own organization, on how to use it, it's not going to do me any good. So I'm not going to have that fulfillment of getting the tools that's needed to help us as our organization.
Sean Nolan: Thank you so much. I think it's really interesting to hear you mention that you've got to have the IT team and the C-level executives happy with this new purchase, obviously. But it's not just about them, it's about the end user as well, right? If the end users aren't able to optimize that platform and make the most of it, then it's never going to fully meet its potential. So it's interesting to hear about the different parties that are involved in that process, and making sure everyone's happy and can hit the ground running.
Paula Sanders: Yeah, and it used to be, Sean, if you don't mind me adding, it used to be the IT that we've been dealing with, right? IT had to sign off on it. They had to get it done. But that's not the use case anymore. So you've got to make sure you've got all the right parties involved, as you've said, from C-level to the business departments. That's really important. If it's hard for them to understand, then they're going to frown upon it to the IT. If the IT thinks it's too much of a security risk, they're going to put blockers to it. It has to be the bigger group getting all that together to understand what is to be delivered.
Sean Nolan: Thank you so much. Really valuable insight. Finally, I want to ask a forward-looking question. Can you give me a prediction for how you expect customer experience to change over the next five years? Is there anything that CX leaders should be keeping in mind?
Paula Sanders: Well, I think one thing I would keep in mind, right, and I think this scares a lot of people out there. They think AI is going to take over the jobs of the humans. I know AI is going to play a big part in it, but what it's going to allow us to do is to get more reactive and get things done faster. Humans, I believe, will still be in the loop at all times. They're going to be needed. And I think as we progress with the AI industry, they're going to start to step back. They're going to see that, yes, it's not eliminating our job. It's helping us, giving us the tools to do our job better.
But I always feel that with the AI companies, they're evolving every single day. I think the models are going to get smaller. They're going to get quicker. I'm not sure about the cost of it. It might go up, might go down. That depends. But I think the big thing is that we're still going to see the human involved in this. And I think that's really important for people to know, because I know that's a real big worrisome for a lot of people. You know, don't go into computers, don't go into this, because it's going to get me out of a job. No, it's just helping us do our job better, you know, and be more efficient.
Sean Nolan: I think, as you say, there's a lot of anxiety at the minute about that question, but you present a really strong perspective on the role of the human there. And I agree with you definitely about that. Paula, thank you so much for your time today. It's been great speaking with you.
Paula Sanders: Thank you so much. And if anybody wants to get in contact with me, you can come out to abbyy.com. I can be found on LinkedIn. And I always love to open it up for questions and answers.
Sean Nolan: Thank you for watching. If you want to see more conversations with CX leaders like this one, create your account on cxtoday.com now.
