Insights on the Future of Customer Experience and Cloud Transformation with Genesys and SightCall

In this episode of SightCall Sessions, Carmela Fortin, Vice President of Demand Generation at SightCall, hosts a discussion with Juergen Tolksdorf, Senior Director of Marketplace Innovation at Genesys, and Fred Stemmelin, Executive Vice President of Business and Corporate Development at SightCall. The conversation delves into the importance of strong partner ecosystems, the move from on-prem to cloud solutions, and how AI is shaping the future of customer experience (CX).

Carmela: Hello and welcome to another episode of SightCall Sessions where we discuss the future of the customer experience. Today we're joined by Juergen Tolksdorf, Senior Director of Marketplace Innovation at Genesys, along with Fred Stemmelin, Executive Vice President of Business and Corporate Development at SightCall. And I'm your host today, Carmela Fortin, Vice President of Demand Generation at SightCall. So today our discussion is centered around building better ecosystems and how best-in-class service organizations are moving to the cloud from on-prem solutions with global leaders like Genesys to reshape the future of how customers connect. Built on AWS, Genesys uses a distributed cloud environment for secure access to create exceptional customer and agent experiences. And we're here today because SightCall is a Genesys Elite App Foundry partner bringing visual assistance to customer interactions.

So if video isn't part of your customer experience roadmap, today could be that day. To kick off our conversation, Juergen and Fred, welcome.

Juergen: Thanks.

Fred: Thank you, Carmela. Guten Tag, Juergen.

Juergen: Hello, hello.

Carmela: So to get started, Juergen, can you tell us more about your role at Genesys?

Juergen: Yeah, for sure. So I'm taking care of the App Foundry Marketplace. That means the enterprise experience for our partners in the marketplace experience. So I'm taking care of the boundaries to make sure it's a continuously well-oiled machine with a cookie-cutter experience for our resellers, for our ISV partners, for our account managers, but also for our customers to make sure everything runs well-oiled. No one has any hiccups whenever somebody is purchasing something. And I'm taking care of the entire backend of that since the initial launch date of AppFoundry.

Carmela: All right, thank you. And Fred, can you tell us more about SightCall in the App Foundry as well as in the ecosystem?

Fred: Sure. Quickly, as you said, I'm EVP of partnerships, right? For SightCall, I manage all partnerships and Genesys is one of our strategic partners. And as you mentioned, right, we are an elite App Foundry partner. We are bringing visual assistance to Genesys customer interactions. And we are one of the top partners, as Juergen says, so happy to be there. We are trying to drive more business together and we have still a lot to accomplish together.

Carmela: Thank you, we're glad to have you. And not a lot of podcasts today are talking about the value of a strong partner ecosystem. So Juergen, we're glad to have you and can you tell us more about that?

Juergen: For sure. So a strong partner ecosystem is not just the partnership, you know, a logo exchange and signing some letters. That's the easy part. That's what everybody can do. I think for us it's really important that with the marketplace experience and with these partnerships, we are able to gain customer trust and loyalty. We want to provide choice and options to our customers. And with the marketplace experience, we want to provide a solution for every issue, which makes it on the one hand partially a little bit messy because you have lots of solutions in the marketplace. On the other hand, it makes it simple for customers to consume applications straight out of the marketplace. With that overview of multiple applications, we provide more collaboration, not just between customers and vendors, but also between vendors, between ISV partners, between ISV partners and resellers, and between resellers, ISV partners, customers, and our sellers. Ultimately also to increase the total addressable market for Genesys. But we see App Foundry and the marketplace basically as a matchmaker platform. Think about Uber who brings taxi drivers and customers together. We do the exact same with ISV partners and customers. But we add one more portion to the whole thing, actually two. One is our resellers and one is our own sellers, so our own account executives who can actually help our customers to consume applications out of the marketplace.

Fred: Yeah, so if I may add to what Juergen said, the marketplace is a great place for customers to find solutions to enhance the Genesys solution. But it's also a great place for them to buy and consume solutions. It's an easy way for them to buy solutions from partners. Right, Juergen?

Juergen: Exactly.

Carmela: And Juergen, can you help us understand more about that turning point that you see for service organizations that make the big change from on-prem to cloud?

Juergen: The turning point. When you look at it from a whatever, 20,000-foot level if that's a view at all, I think ultimately it's the reduction of costs, clearly. But I think it's also the implementation of higher standards, providing higher stability, providing better service levels.

It's also a reduction of carbon footprint because when you put more things to the cloud, your own footprint is going to be smaller. At the same time, the more industries are going into the cloud, the more they collaborate within the cloud and the less carbon footprint we actually issue as human beings, which is amazing just in itself.

And ultimately, of course, it's also the reduction of headcounts. It's the reduction of redundancies. As I said, it's better stability because you get better standards out of the cloud. You get all the advantages of a marketplace because you can simply plug things together within the cloud.

And you can, as a contact center in particular, you can faster switch to new endeavors, to new events. You can react faster on special occasions. You can faster implement shifts and strategies.

And all of that. I mean these are multiple turning points for customers and for different industries to switch from on-premise to the cloud. It's way more safe. It's way more reliable. And ultimately, it's way faster to adopt new technologies.

I'm not saying the buzzword yet.

Fred: Juergen, when it comes to CX and digital transformation, do you see the move from on-premise to the cloud being equal in the US and in Europe? Or do you see—or in APAC—do you see a difference here? And I'm not saying yes because you're German; I'm originally French, but I want your perspective.

Juergen: I think, you know, the EU with GDPR, I think especially the Germans, as I do have this, you know, German glasses on here. Actually, they are Italian. That's a different story. Yes, the European folks are, I would say, a little bit, you know, slower with their cloud adoption compared to North America. I think the Middle East has a completely different story again. They are way faster. When you look into channels, for instance, the Middle East is way more into social media activities than any other region, right? When it comes to cloud adoption in itself, especially the EU regulated countries are a little bit slower because of GDPR compliance. There is a ton of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. I love to make the example of a friend of mine. He's creating reports for the pharmacy industry and needs to make sure that the medicine is actually validated and FDA approved. When he sees that the entire SightCall is being managed through a cloud-based infrastructure, he can already tick all the boxes in his checkpoint list when it comes to reliability, redundancy, all these things in the cloud because all of that is already being taken care of. And the same applies to Genesys, right? As we are based on AWS, our customers don't need to worry about all these things such as redundancy, stability, making sure that the air conditioning is turned on and not accidentally switched off. In on-premise solutions, all of these things are just available in the cloud and that makes things way easier. However, as you said, Fred, that's exactly right. In the EU or in Europe, we do see a little bit more resistance, but that resistance is, I would say, going down because there is no other opportunity than going to the cloud ultimately. Of course, you still have lots of people who are saying, "No, I would stay on-premise forever." But I think because of the buzzword—and I'm still not saying it—it becomes more or less impossible looking into the future to adjust to all these upcoming challenges which we will see for sure.

Carmela: Right. And as we're seeing a lot of countries overcome some of those trust issues when it comes to security and when it comes to reliability, what are some things where you see those barriers start to lower? Maybe in a conversation, maybe in a capability. What are some of those turning points?

Juergen: Facts are turning points for very sure, I truly believe. Facts such as cost savings, such as reliability, such as stability, you can just prove all of that utilizing reports which are publicly available. And when you compare those with the actual reports prospects have in their hands, it's a no-brainer to switch to the cloud. Still, there are people who are sitting there who need to make sure that they keep sitting there. And it's also a job security question. So that's why it's always important to start at the top of a company to have that conversation. Because at the top of the company, they are also looking into what does it mean for me in terms of my business stability and also my business profitability. Keeping an IT infrastructure running for no reason doesn't make any sense to anyone. And that's why, you know, starting at the top, having the conversation about all the facts which are existing, I think they will remove the barriers more and more.

Carmela: So we've reached that point in the conversation where our listeners are eager to hear some of those buzzwords we've been hiding behind the scenes. And you can't have a CX discussion these days without mentioning AI. So Juergen, Fred, how are some customers leveraging Genesys AI to design better solutions and consistently improve their customer experience?

Juergen: So let me kick off with Genesys and what we do with AI. I mean, we have tons of options. We have chatbots, we have voice bots, we have agent co-pilots. We have predictive routing. We have a perfect blend of digital and voice with knowledge management, all AI-enabled. And AI doesn't stop there. It's also built on conversational intelligence, forecasting and planning, quality assurance, performance management, work automation, and task routing. I don't want to tick all the boxes we provide, but in fact, we do it. And all of that is AI. It's incredible even for myself, you know, I've been with Genesys for a pretty long time now, almost 20 years. But you know, when you see this buzzword AI coming up, you think like, "Yeah, that's the future." It's not. It's there, it's built-in, and we provide it in a turnkey solution. And that's the point. We just don't provide AI as a turnkey solution out of our products. But we expand it through the App Foundry, letting partners in who embrace AI and who actually add more capabilities to our solutions, such as SightCall.

Fred: Carmela, I can talk about AI and AR for SightCall, but what is more important because we're here to talk about Genesys is when we are collecting information during a visual assistance call or video call, we can bring all this information to Genesys so we can apply AI on top of the information we collected. So that's, I think, the most important thing when we are talking about the integration. It's not only the power of our AI or AR engine on SightCall but it's the fact that we are bringing information to the Genesys cloud and they can run AI also on top of this. So that's why I wanted to mention that as well.

Carmela: It does make sense. So Juergen, Fred, can you tell me more about when a company is making a move to the cloud? What is that first conversation that you have with them?

Juergen: For sure. I think I'm rather asking the question, why wait? Because the advantages are just there. The disadvantages don't exist anymore. I honestly believe there is no other option than going to the cloud. Of course, you can have questions around, "Hey, what about PII, personal identifiable information, which is being moved into the cloud?" That is a true concern, especially when it comes to healthcare, finance, insurance, when it really comes to personal things. I truly believe these challenges have been taken and solved, right? So they are no longer real challenges with AI and with large language models and with the computer power we have out of the cloud. There is no option to move to the cloud anymore because you can't do all these things we just discussed. You can just implement things faster. You can apply to new technologies. You can apply to new challenges. You can just implement stuff right away. You don't need to install the first server into your rack in order to get something running. It's just running, and you can just apply it like the marketplace. And I don't want to stress it to death here, but if you are a Genesys customer, you can just go straight to the marketplace, go for SightCall, try it out. And if it works, you can just go for it. And if you just need that solution by tomorrow because somebody out of product management forgot to tell you, "By the way, by tomorrow we are launching this new product," you can just do that straight out of the cloud. And that is a true advantage.

Carmela: That's right. So Juergen, let's say I'm a customer. I've made this massive transformation going from on-prem to the cloud. I've been through a lot of change management conversations, a lot of internal navigation, and then I let you know that I am still in need of transforming my organization with some of the items on my customer experience roadmap. I'm not sure about video. I'm not sure what that means in the contact center. What would that first step be for me?

Juergen: Well, the first step would be for sure to look into the App Foundry. Look into the different video vendors we have there. Of course, I would just like to talk about SightCall, but quite honestly, I mean, we do have multiple video vendors there. And it might be the case that SightCall is not 100% tailored to your customer needs, right? That's the beauty of the marketplace. And in the marketplace, you can always, you know, you can hit the "Contact Us" button. You can just, you know, collaborate with the different partners straight out of the marketplace experience. You can browse through videos, you can, you know, download collateral. All this information is just there with the marketplace experience or, you know, all the vendors which are partners going to our elite cohort, they provide their solution as a free trial option. So you can just go in there, hit the free trial button and test the solution right away. And, you know, I have lots of partners who are telling me, "Sorry, I can't offer my solution as a free trial because it's too complex. I'm selling to the enterprise and those kinds of things." And I believe if Salesforce, if Adobe, and if Genesys can provide their software as a free trial to customers, why the heck can't you do it as an enterprise software vendor as well? You can. And if you just provide a particular use case where the customer can see and feel your solution, it's a completely different play compared to, "Yeah, you need to hit a 'Contact Us' button, then we have a lengthy conversation." This is not the way customers would like to touch solutions these days. And that's exactly why we embrace the marketplace experience with our partners who are offering their solution as a free trial because with the free trial, the customer can just use it and go.

Fred: Juergen, as the director of the App Foundry, the marketplace of Genesys, you've already accomplished a lot in terms of program, in terms of infrastructure, and in terms of the number of partners that have joined the App Foundry program. What's next for what you envision for App Foundry in the coming years?

Juergen: So I think we need to make sure, and this is a general marketplace question, because the marketplace—I don't want to become the next Google, right? Where we just pull everything into the marketplace and customers can search but also have the burden on their shoulders to search and to find the right solution. I think we will see, not just in AppFoundry but in marketplaces in general, we will see better curation. We will see better recommendations. We will see better tailoring to customers' needs. Because, you know, it might sound bold, but Genesys powers thousands of customers worldwide already today. We know exactly what challenges these customers are facing, so these CX providers are facing. I would say with our professional services organization, our customer service organization, we know by heart what a good customer experience center is. And this is in our bones on a daily basis. So that's why we will be better at providing a marketplace experience that is tailored to customer needs so that customers can actually see, "Hey, I'm right now in my customer experience journey. I'm right now here. I could do these things. I could apply video for particular cases like Nespresso did." And I'm not tired of mentioning that business case because it's genius, in fact. I love it seriously. When you have a piece of hardware and you want to provide customer service to it, why not enable video in case something doesn't work the way it's designed to allow the customer to get a quicker resolution? And that's exactly what we are looking for when we're looking to the future of the marketplace experience.

Fred: SightCall has been a Genesys partner for three years, right? And we are already super proud to be an App Foundry partner, an elite App Foundry partner among the top 20 of your partners. So we have many joint marquee customers together. Why do you think we are seeing such success with Genesys? And I think that I'm asking that question because it can be beneficial for current and future App Foundry partners, right?

Juergen: We are not afraid of the competition.

Fred: But also for your competitors, to be frank.

Juergen: I think you did something extremely well. And I take this as an example each and everywhere I'm being asked about it. You tailor your solution to particular customer needs. And I was talking to Thomas Cottereau, I don't know, about 10 years ago when he had his ideas around SightCall. He was already successful with it with lots of customers already. And you have a clear vision and you execute among that vision, which is you don't provide video to each and everything. You won't provide video to a person-to-person conversation in a financial environment right now because that's not your business case, right? And you rather focus on AR capabilities within video. You focus on lots of other things but in your tailored business case, and that speaks to customer demand, not just, "Hey, here's a piece of technology you can hit this button, that button, that button, and you get different variations of whatever we provide." No, you are rather saying, "This is what we do, this is what you can achieve with this, and this is why we make your customers happy." And that is a true differentiator. That's what everybody understands within three minutes. And I think that's what gives you the success.

Carmela: All right. Well, Fred, Juergen, thank you so much. We had such a great opportunity to learn more about the future of the customer experience, about the App Foundry, about the Genesys ecosystem. And it's really taking us into the future with service organizations and what they can anticipate. To learn more, check out SightCall on the Genesys App Foundry to learn more about what we talked about today. And Fred, Juergen, thank you so much for the time.