Zoom Is Disrupting Contact Centers and Redefining CX

Speaker A: I think we have a lot of. There's a lot of talk around ex. The employee experience. Right. There's a lot of talk around the customer experience. And there's been these things like unified. It says like, you know, you can try to get them to work together kind of thing. To me, the. The real, the real thing is meshing them into what I call an orchestrated experience. And I think that's what's next. That's what the, what the evolution is. Right? When, when you say is, is there. Is there a bigger impact on AI on the front end or AI on. On the back with the agent? I think the answer has to be yes. Yeah, we have to make that less of a handoff, less of a bridge, less of a. And I hear all these terms that. Well, you know, we work together. We. It. It needs to. And I know this is. It's probably overused, but it needs to. Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome to the Press One for Nick podcast. My name is Nick Glimsdahl and my guest this week is Brandon Knight. He is the head of CX ecosystem at Zoom. So he leads the Go to Market Strategy for Customer Experience product suite, which includes contact centers as a service, virtual agents, workforce engagement management, and AI. So if you are curious about how Zoom is shaping the future of customer experience and where AI fits into the equation, you want to stick around for this one. So with that, Brandon, welcome to the Press One for Nick podcast. I do want to jump right in there because I got a whole lot of questions in a little bit of time, but, uh, you ready to get started?

Speaker A: Yes, sir. Let's do it. Thanks for having me. Let's go.

Speaker B: Yeah, let's go. All right, so the first question I got for you is, you know, really just how did you get started in the contact center space? And really just what drew you to Zoom specifically?

Speaker A: Well, this is going to be fun because this is. Right off the bat, this is a Press One for Nick exclusive. I have never told this story on camera before. There are a couple people that know how I got into the content center space, but never Mass M produced or the podcast or anything. Uh, because it's kind of funny. I was actually right out of grad school, I was managing a doctor's office in the city of Philadelphia. And I was, um, a young guy, 22, 23 years old. I was in the hospitals by 4 o' clock in the morning, done my day by 2 o' clock in the afternoon. All my friends were still working. I was bored. I wanted to do something. My sister worked at A contact center. Didn't even know what that was. The only thing she told me was they're hiring all the time. So I went in there, um, as a contractor first, and I worked the 3 to 11 shift, and then I became a part timer. And after about five months, I literally resigned from a job as the general manager of one of the, like, the fifth largest medical practice in the state of Philadelphia. And I went and became a Contact center agent. That's how I got into Contact Centers. And I worked my way up, you know, team lead, supervisor, all the way up to leadership. Um, so that's. That's how I got to the center space. And then I became a consultant. What actually led me to Zoom? You, uh, know, I was. I was in the channel space working at tsd. Uh, and, um, Zoom attempted to acquire, you know, five, nine. And, you know, that, that didn't go through, but that would have kind of shaking up our space a little bit. But then when Zoom announced that they were going to build their own, that interests me. That opportunity to build something from scratch and kind of change the game a little bit. I know everybody says that, but I think you can really be a disruptor when you're doing it from ground zero. And I wanted to be part of that selfishly. So that's why I came here.

Speaker B: That's cool. So I think in the market, in the CCAS market, just, uh, you know, over the last two and a half, three years, you kind of mentioned Zoom was trying to potentially acquire 5, 9. It ended up not working out, and so they decided to build their own from the ground up, which is why Brandon Knight is sitting here today talking about how awesome ZCX is. But, you know, I think there's a lot of misconception of Zoom in the marketplace, the CCaaS in general, uh, not just manufacturer to manufacturer, but really just the customer service leaders who maybe saw it when it was added at its infancy. The first six months in, and these sales reps are saying, hey, you should check out our new Contact center. And you demo it. And maybe it wasn't up to snuff, but, ah. What's the biggest misconception that you see right now about Zoom Contact Center?

Speaker A: I think you nailed it. The biggest misconception, um, uh, is twofold. One is how we started off. It was, um, you know, we bust onto the scene, and, um, a lot of those earlier demos, earlier sessions were the first iterations of the product. Right. But probably the biggest misconception is, to me, I think it has to do with, because the price is so low, I think customers automatically uh, assume that it must be a low feature product, you know, that it must be an SMB type product. Um, because we intentionally did not, um, we did not create a price point that was equal to the established players and, and that, that was on purpose. We talked about it in house. Um, this is no offense to anybody else, but our owner kind of likened it in the early days. He used to talk to us like about Nike sneakers. You know, they really don't cost $200 to make and, and they probably shouldn't go nothing against Nike. I love, you know, I love them, I love the shoes. But we, we felt that. So I think a lot of people look at the price point and they think well, maybe all the features aren't there or maybe it's not a competitive product or uh, maybe it doesn't have all the integrations. And, and they could not be further from the truth. Mhm.

Speaker B: So you know, I kind of want to go back and then go forward. So with, with that in mind, what's different even in the last 12 months that uh, with, with Zoom Contact center and, and I think I feel like, you know, uh, the, the Zoom Contact center specifically. And I'll just speak personally, right. Like I feel like it's, it's aging in, in dog years. Like it's, it's consistent. It's growing so fast and all of a sudden it, it's now a 20 year, a 20 year old company. It's only four years old. Right? Like it's.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Ah. So what's changed in the last 12 months if you can remember back? Um, yeah, 12 months ago.

Speaker A: Seems like 10 months ago, five years ago. It's so crazy. I was actually at an event last week and someone asked about um, a ah, product or a feature and they said when will you guys get that? And I said oh, we actually rolled that out five months ago. And they said well I saw that was on your roadmap. Just like I said yeah, that's the thing I said, I literally go, um, we have these internal product meetings. I probably spent about six to eight hours a week in those meetings because they told us like what they're working on, what's coming out and it's, it's the pace of it. I think at one point we were doing like 30 features a month. I think we're probably around 15 to 20 now. But uh, so I think when I look at what has changed, this is, this is um, it's kind of mind boggling because I feel like we went from anybody know what AI is in the contact center space to. We went from, you know, is AI real for contact center to chatbots to gen AI and now agentic AI. And I felt like it was a blink of an eye, you know, that we went through that, that evolution of AI. We went from, you know, can we make chatbots better? To now they have agentic agents that do the work for you. And that was really all in the last, like nine months, you know, so that's crazy to me to, to see that happen. Um, and then to think about what's that going to be three months from now, six months from now, you know, so that. That's the fastest evolution.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, AI is, is for sure the buzzword. And. But it also, it does solve for outcomes that you're hoping to solve for with the right use cases.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Um, so from your perspective, where does Zoom see the most value of AI right now? Is it customer facing? Is it, um, on the back end where it's agent facing? Uh, is it routing agent assist? Is it the reporting? Like, from your perspective, what does that look like?

Speaker A: Um, that's a great question, and I think it's one that's actually being actively debated right now because, like, the stuff I mentioned, you know, with, with a gentle guy, is more like front end and people are worried about, like, we'll replace agents, you know. But then on the back end, um, even with, um, expert Assist, we've gotten to the point now where it was, we started off, it was like just, just ping a database and bring something up for a screen. Agent can read that right now. You can listen to the call in real time. Compare what that agent is talking about and the customer's talking about to your best agents that you've created this AI model of. And then, you know, tell the agent, hey, you should say this or bring up the right thing instead of telling the agent where to go. Look, bring it up for them, you know, prompt them. So I'm, I'm still looking at that back end stuff. I still think, and I just thought about this. This is going to be another press one for Nick exclusive, because I'm pitching a term internally that I've never said in public. Uh, hopefully my cmo, uh, signs off on it by the time we air this. But I think we have a lot of. There's a lot of talk around ex. The employee experience, right? There's a lot of talk around the customer experience. And there's been these things like unified. It Says you can try to get them to work together kind of thing. To me, the real thing is meshing them into what I call an orchestrated experience. And I think that's what's next. That's what the evolution is. Right. When you say, is there a bigger impact on AI, uh, on the front end or AI on the back of the agent? I think the answer has to be yes. We have to make that less of a handoff, less of a bridge, less of a. And I hear all these terms that, well, you know, we work together. It needs to. And I know this is, uh, it's probably overused, but it needs to be seamless.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: For. For the true experience, it needs to be seamless. You know, the. The. What fulfillment needs to happen on the back end to make what that person on the front end told that customer. Uh, we got to get a lot better. You know, I feel like as an industry, we need to. We need to get a lot better. So orchestrating experiences. You guys heard it here first. That's what I'm putting out there. Okay.

Speaker B: Don't copyright it before Brandon does. Just exactly do it before I hit stop.

Speaker A: Go.

Speaker B: We'll pause this real quick. So crystal ball this for me. Um, uh, AI will take over majority, 50.1% of all interactions by what year?

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Is it three years out? Is it five years out? Is it ten years out?

Speaker A: I think the trigger for me and what you just asked was the percentage, the 50%.

Speaker B: So majority, right? 50.1.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. If I'm going 50.1, I'm going five to seven years. Yep, that's what I'm saying. Five to seven years.

Speaker B: And it's only going to continue to escalate that. So it's kind of hard to project that. But I put you on the spot, so I'm glad that you at least gave me a range. You could have been like, that's shenanigans, Nick. Uh, why are you asking me that question?

Speaker A: No, hey, listen, I got to step up. Like, um, who was it? Salesforce's. Yeah, yeah, Salesforce. Right. The Salesforce, uh, owner who said that, uh, he believes this is the last generation, um, that will be leading a purely human workforce. And I don't know that I disagree with him.

Speaker B: Yeah, he even said that most of his developers will need to reskill to something else because he believes that majority of those developers will be replaced by some type of A.I.

Speaker A: um, on that. Can I do a quick plug? Uh, um, um, um, real, uh, fast.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I found out about a program from um, our owner, that CEOs in the tech space are driving and I think we should put more information out there around it. There's a push by a group of CEOs to make, um, computer science and AI training required course in high school, not just an elective, not just nice to have. Um, and I think it's tremendous. I don't know who's behind it or anything like that, so I apologize for that. But I heard about it and I think we, we're, we're doing ourselves and our future generations a disservice if we, if we still think the knowledge of how computers work, the knowledge of how software works is a, is a nicety or an option. It is a must to have.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's for sure. Yeah. Uh, well, if you send me that information, I'll make sure it's in the show notes, um, and we'll get that in there. So kind of staying back on that on the ZCX side, uh, uh, of what you can talk about and kind of pull the curtain back of, uh, you know, what's been presented or at least projected from a timeline perspective. You know, what are you most excited about when it comes to that Zoom contact center in the next six months?

Speaker A: Well, the next six months. Um, um, uh.

Speaker B: Because that's like five dog years. Right?

Speaker A: Yeah, I was going to say the next six months. That's like, that's, that's, that's tomorrow. Um, there's a couple of cool things.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That, that Zoom has, um, introduced in the last. I, um, would say four or five months that maybe were on the, um, the workplace side or the side that they're bringing into the side. I want to say. I'll, uh, give you an example. There's, um, there's notes, uh, and tasks that are, that are active. Um, we now have like Zoom docs, you know, so, but they're bringing that stuff and incorporating into the contact center space, um, that I like. One that I'm really excited about is, um, there's one called, um, uh, Zoom Clinical Notes. And uh, it's super cool because no one has. Nobody has even attempted to tackle this space simply because the words in the healthcare, the medical space are insane to say. So when he's talking like transcribing, they're like, uh, uh, what did that doctor just say? Right. So you can't really do it easily. So it took quite a while to develop. But, um, we now have a feature, um, and it was designed for back office clinical staff to just like run while the doctor's talking to the patient, it'll do the transcription, put it in the patient file, tell the nurses and other staff if there's action steps to take, what medications person is taking, it'll do all that stuff. Um, I'm looking forward to, to that, um, coming a little bit closer in the contact space and the healthcare contact centers being able to use that, the health insurance contact center companies being able to, uh, use that and get more accurate summaries from their interactions, whether it's things like Teladoc and those types of things. Um, I think that's the next logical step for that product. Um, but yeah, so for me, I kind of like, like you said, there's a bunch of developers, you know, that are sitting, you know, around creating all these things. And I like to see, uh, one of the things that zoom is they want them to be holistic. So we don't simply create something and say, oh, well that's only for over there. Only for over there. I get to, uh, I get to play with it and see it and figure out how it can be incorporated into the CX world.

Speaker B: Yeah, I do see a lot of value in that with the, with the whole Teladoc. I mean ultimately time is money for those doctors. If you think of, you know, a big practice, you could, you could save two, three minutes here, just like a contact center agent. You can save through that summarization of that interaction with that, with a doctor. They're going to the next patient instead of sitting in the hallway typing up the next note or the eye doctor for that matter. You can see them all sitting out in the rows with their, with their booth for, for their, for their computer and they're trying to type it out their tablet. Um, but if you just had somebody sitting in. I actually, one of my kiddos has an eye doctor, um, and there's somebody in there taking notes with him, but they're literally typing it with the computer. It's, it's a mobile system, um, and they walk around, but if you could just record it, um, and talk about those next steps. You create a prompt that potentially says, here's the output that I want it to do. Um, you can maybe see another three, four more patients throughout the day. And then what does that actually do from an outcome perspective?

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. There's always someone, um, in there transcribing. I, um, even was talking to my dentist about this. I had one of my checkups. I'm um, doing something similar to, uh, Invisalign. And there's A process, um, when you get your teeth, uh, cleaned or you go to exam the first time, where the dentist is in your mouth calling out numbers, basically calling out measurements, where your gum is, and there's someone else either writing them down or at a computer putting them in to me. And how many more patients could they see if that other person didn't have to be in the room with them? And it was fast and it was automated, it was accurate. So there's so many uses, uh, use cases for this. Uh, I'm excited to bring it out.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So we've talked, uh, for a few minutes here on the AI side. So how do you make sure that it's not just about the AI, Right. It's also about the human touch. So how do you make sure that you're blending in both the AI, um, you know, the machine that is working in the background to drive efficiencies, but also, uh, having, uh, the personal touch along with that. Are you guys constantly kind of playing the, the black and white or the poll on that?

Speaker A: Yeah, it is something that we talk about. I literally just talked about this yesterday with one of my colleagues. It seems kind of simple to say, but you have to practice it. We do it with priority. And the same way that I think, um, an advisor like yourself, who's a true consultant does with the clients that you help. Right. You, you know, AI is out there. You know the things that it can do. Just like, you know, there's technology and the things that it can do, but you don't go to your clients and I'm, I'm going to sell you some AI today. Right. And you know what I mean, like, you're having consultative conversations with your clients, figuring out that there's gaps, if there's opportunities for them to be more efficient or to be more customer centric or to be more profitable, whatever they're trying to do. And then you go back and say, you know, now, now that I know what they're trying to do operationally, there might be some technology that can help them internally. Um, we're saying, how could businesses be better operationally? And is there a missing technology that could help them? And whether it's AI or otherwise, we want all of the technology to be. And it goes back to what, um, as corny as it says. But these things are literally painted on the walls in our buildings. Our owner is about customers being happy. So one of our internal things is very simple. Will this make a customer happy? Will this allow a business to make their clients or Customers happy, then it kind of makes sense. I think AI is great. Uh, I think it's wildly. It's growing like weeds all over the place. Right. And that's exciting. But AI, for the sake of AI, uh, isn't exciting at all.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's like somebody turning on a chatbot just because their leadership came back from a conference and says, hey, you need a chatbot. And that was, you know, five, six, 10 years ago. And you turn on chatbot, and all of a sudden you're giving away a free suv, right? Like, and they're like, no, no, no, I was just kidding. I didn't mean that. And you're like, you put my bonus on that. I needed AI or I needed a chatbot, so I just turned this on. Like, this is the best effort. It's not, you know, and that's not good enough.

Speaker A: No, it's not good. But what you just explained, unfortunately, I hear it so much from, um, customers that just have a. They have either a contact center leader or CEOs that went somewhere or they saw a commercial or they heard about, you know, the dreaded. My competitor does this, you know, and so they just tell them, you know, go get A.I. we need that. Like, it's a, uh. Like it's something you can buy in a box off the shelf and bring me back.

Speaker B: That. Yeah, like. Like it's a. Like it's, uh, a, uh, rose bush or some begonias that are. You're supposed to plant. And it's going to be great.

Speaker A: I'm going to put it in the ground, and I got this to be great.

Speaker B: Nailed it. Right. Flower. You don't water it. You don't put soil down or compost. You're just like, I got it. And all of a sudden, got it. Thirty months down the road that.

Speaker A: Asking me about it. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. I already did it. All right, so with that in mind, like, the whole set it and forget it model, uh, is not good. I feel like, um. And I call it. Ah. And you can copyright this too. I'm going to continue to use it, but, uh, I call it the Go Live. The Go Live gap. Right? Like, there's a gap where the market that I see. So, uh, I would say majority of our clients, um, have already gone to the cloud once. And I feel like, what does that mean? That means that, um, they have either got bamboozled on the front end, that the product isn't going to do what they say it's going to do. It wasn't implemented correctly, and it doesn't provide ongoing support to maximize that investment. And those are three really big things to make sure you get right. And so they're just like, okay, well, I'm going to go to the next stack to make sure that it's the right fit. So, um, from your perspective, uh, what does great post Go Live support actually look like for, for clients to. To maximize their investment?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think to, to maximize your investment post Go Live to me starts with an accurate realistic expectation presale.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You know what I mean? Uh, what, what am I really going to get out of this? What is the technology actually going to do and what do I have in place to improve user adoption? Um, so to me, there's some components of that. Right. All of which, um, And I'll say this for the content center leaders out there, I say this to people all the time when it comes to digital transformation. This is not the time to let your pride cost you money. Don't go it alone. I had a great. She was actually a human resource leader years ago when I was the contact center leader. And she said when it comes to human resource things, you gotta think of it as deep water. Nobody scuba dives alone. Nobody goes out swimming in deep water alone. You know, she said, so when you have to do stuff like that, don't go it alone. Take an HR partner with you or one of your colleagues at work. I feel the same thing for contact center center leaders. And listen, I'm gonna say this on camera. Nick did not tell me to say this, okay? But I'm going to tell you, don't go this alone. Okay? You want Nick to go with you? You want someone that's been down that path. I think sometimes contact center leaders are, you know, like, well, our situation is too unique or no one knows about it, or we're very different or I've been doing it this way for this long and we're making money. We're all those things I think are pitfalls, quite frankly. Um, and people try to go out. So that's my, my thing. I think if you want a great post sale, implementation or support, get yourself a true consultative advisor on the front end because they'll help set expectations not just for you, but for me as a, as a vendor. Right. Where the, the, the partner makes sure we all stay on the same page. They make sure. Um, because in practical terms, depending on what you're implementing, it could be something that you and the partner can run on on their own and it could be something that you're going to need one of my technical account managers or you're going to need extended professional services, or you may even need managed services. Outside of me as a vendor, you may need a third party managed services. It depends on the complexity of what you're doing. Um, and you having realistic milestones that you hit. And that only happens if you know what success looks like. Right. And I can, look, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty good, but I'm not going to be as good as a third party partner who, who's um, making sure everyone stays aligned. Right. I can control my side of the fence, but I think someone needs to, someone needs to herd these cats. So yeah, best, best post implementation for me is get the presale right.

Speaker B: Yeah. New, new podcast, uh, episode title. Heard these cats.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: There you go. I love it. So, and, and I like what you said there about don't let your pride get away and get in the way of your success like that. That is a, that's a real conversation. That's an article for you to write here in the future. Because I think there's so much truth in that and I think it, it needs to be said and, and, or written and, and spoke a hundred times at your next, at your next speaking engagement. Because yeah, uh, uh, and, and I'm not, it's not just the, the VDS team or somebody else. Like it is just matter of fact. Like you just need to find a way to, to do it right the first time. So. Yeah, uh, you know, I, I think the ZCX platform is a great platform. Uh, uh, I feel like if you're not going to lean, uh, on Zoom Direct or you're not gonna lean on a partner like vds, uh, you're just gonna go through it at best effort again. And, and you know, you know what, you know, you were talking about the release notes, the things that are coming up on the roadmaps, like what if you're releasing 50 things a month every single year, um, how are you making sure that they're aligning to your outcomes?

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And you're so focused on running your business. You have these horse blinders on and you're, you know, but I can keep on going on. But I like what you said there. You know, you touched on just the partners. Um, and, and I want to chat a little bit about Zoom Up. I mean you've had Zoom up for a little bit. Um, and I think you've revamped it, put a new, um, coat of paint on it and put uh, some nice New windows, uh, tent, not necessarily spinners. But, uh, we're looking good now. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on Zoom up and why that's important.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think Zoom up is important. Um, for. For. I'm gonna, I'm gonna make a statement, and they might be a popular statement, and I'll say for disclaimer. This is not a VDS statement. This is. This is a Brandon Knight statement. Okay? All partners are not created equal. All right? No matter how much they think, you know, we're all the same welders do the same thing. We don't. And that's, that's not a, that's not a knock. That is my reality, having been in the channel, you know, for, For, For a bit now. Right. You have the partners that, um, they kind of hear about something. I think it might be an opportunity. I'm going to register it and throw it over the fence and then good luck, guys. You know, hopefully it works out. You know, pay me when you finish doing all the work and you have the mirror in between. And then you have the partners who are doing true consultation. They have relationship with their customers. They're evaluating different technologies. They're not doing the, you know, the New York City street corner guy with, you know, all the watches under his. His. His jacket. Right. They really, you know what I mean? It's, it's. It is not a Vanna White thing. It is, it is real engagement to me. The Zoom up program allows us to distinguish between them and then reward the ones that are doing, in my terms, what I call the right way. If you're, if you're doing true consultation. And I don't think there's anything wrong with saying, even as a, Even as a partner, if, If I'm a. If I'm a partner who's investing in my clients, and I have people on my team who are studying the technology, they're becoming experts, they're getting these certifications. Um, I'm doing digital transformation and customer journey mapping. I don't think there's anything wrong with, with my time and effort should be compensated differently than this guy.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I think that's what the Zuma program allows us to do.

Speaker B: Got it. Yeah. I think it's a, uh. And I feel like you also differentiate yourself in the marketplace, too, because the more that you lean into those partners, the hopefully, um, it's the right ones. You know, you can always. There's always going to be a bad apple or two in the process, and there's always going to be the handful that, you know, what you get when you throw in the opportunity over the fence and keep. You know, I call those the trunk slammers. Right. But, yeah, um, but ultimately, if you can grow that partnership, I feel like you're going to gain more of the right partners because they, they see the value of what you're trying to build. And it might not be perfect. And I don't think any manufacturer has the right partner program, but, you know, ultimately, you got to strive for excellence for that, for that partner experience. So, uh, maybe there's, uh, an orchestrated experience for the partner program as well, and that.

Speaker A: There you go. There you go. We'll figure that out. Gotta get that trademarked here.

Speaker B: Yes. So, uh, last, you know, I think we can have an awesome conversation. I got, uh, four lightning round questions for you. So take, uh, take a deep breath and I'm gonna, I'm gonna run at you quick. Um, so what's the biggest lesson you've learned working with CX Leaders over the last 12 months?

Speaker A: The biggest lesson I've learned working with CX Leaders. Oh, CX Leaders over the last 12 months. Um. Wow. Uh, rapid fire. They are not all the same either. Kind of like partners. There's different levels, there's different skill sets, um, and different drivers. Some of them are driven by customer experience. Some of them are driven by what their boss told me to happen. Some of them are driven by what the competitor is doing. Um, there's a lot more flexibility and why they're doing what they're trying to do, um, than I first thought.

Speaker B: Got it. What's one metric you think is overrated?

Speaker A: Average handle time. That's an easy one.

Speaker B: That M was an easy one. I should have given you. What's two? No, I'm just kidding. So the next one is. What's one customer story that has really stuck with you here over the last six months? Um,

Speaker A: it's funny because, you know, when you do rapid fire, the first thing that comes to my mind I can't actually say because it was a horrible experience that I had as a customer. And that was the first thing that came to my mind. I don't want to put that on here, your program. So, um, I'll tell you another one. A, uh, customer, um, we were doing regular contact center stuff for them, and I happened to be, uh, with this partner, ah, in a meeting, and there was somebody from HR there who was evaluating something else that we were doing. And out of the blue, she said, hey, I wish you guys made something for us. So she said, I have to do all these, uh, interviews, I'm recruiting and I have to put all these notes. I put my notes in Excel and, and then I gotta try to remember who said what and how many years of experience they had and stuff like that. And I, and I told her, I said, you know, you can use the AI, uh, companion for that. You can use our quality program for that. The quality program doesn't care what type of interaction it is or the type of call. It doesn't have to be customer service. You can program it, tell it what to listen for, it'll score it for you and all this. And she was just like. And it sounds weird. Cause it's like, oh, you're selling a product. But no, what was exciting was that there was somebody, uh, there was a customer with a problem, you know, And I was able to get her to think differently about the technology to solve her problem. She doesn't need context in her technology, but she can use a quality program for what she wants, you know, So I enjoy that.

Speaker B: That's cool. What's your favorite zoom feature that nobody talks about?

Speaker A: Oh, wow. Favorite zoom feature that no one talks about? Uh. Oh, my goodness. Well, it's not really fair that. It's not really fair to say no one talks about it because a lot of people do talk about it. But my favorite feature is one that helps me out personally. I am often back to back in meetings or traveling. And unfortunately, sometimes I'm a little bit late getting to some meetings, um, or some I miss altogether. Um, the fact that the companion thing evolved from just taking summary notes to actually being able to do it in real time. So when I go in, I don't upset everybody by asking them what they've been talking about for the last 10 minutes or much worse. I would say like, hey, guys, was there anything for me or did you miss me? Now I can just get a real time update and it'll tell me if I have to, if somebody mentioned my name or something like that. So, um, I say that's my favorite feature. But I will say this. I'm trying to get better. So I don't want people to think like, I just used the feature and I'm just going to accept being late to meetings, you know, so, so. But for me personally, I probably use that a lot more than most people.

Speaker B: Nice. What? So if you could, if you could talk to all of the customer service leaders right now, and they're all on different platforms, uh, outside of the ones you're. You're current closing and crushing right now. But, um, give me, give me a. A Brandon Knight pitch for Zoom Contact Center. To all of these customer service, customer experience leaders who are frustrated with their current state and, uh, why they should be looking at Zoom Contact Center, I

Speaker A: would tell you you should be looking at Zoom Contact center, um, because you're frustrated with your current state, actually. But in reality, I think back to, like I said before, how I got involved in the Contact center, right? And as a Contact center leader, um, one of. One of my first. And this is only one thing. There's so many different reasons, but this is one feature that I would appreciate if I had it then. When I was running Contact center and I was running a bpo, that was the first Contact Center I became a manager in. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you, because it was a bpo, even if I take out the HR system, the time clock system, and the payroll system, my agent still had 13 systems to log into and probably about 50 screens to do their job. And I know that might not seem. If you're not in the Contact center, then you don't know that frustration, that aggravation. But for me, one of the main pitches for Zoom's Contact center is that the app is one app and everything's in there. Not just the Zoom Contact center, the Zoom phone, the meetings, the events, the webinars, the chat. Everything's in one place. And that may sound like, whoa, whoop de doo, but for an agent who has to manage multiple calls, multiple questions, for a supervisor who's used to logging into a QA system and logging to an HR system and then log into an internal chat system and then trying to monitor the stats. I'm telling you, I'll put my operations hat on for a second. As a context leader, I think one of the biggest things about Zoom is it's one login, one screen for everything.

Speaker B: Got it. Sounds good. Well, I'll, uh, clip that little small part and I'll just send it to the world. Uh, we'll see what happens. But, Brandon, I always appreciate the conversation, um, and, um, looking forward to seeing what you guys are up to here in the next, uh, next year, and we'll keep. Keep an eye on it, but appreciate your time and, uh, we'll talk to here soon.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Thanks for having me, man. And, and I appreciate what you do. I, I love more, um, I think there should be more of this, uh, straight talk stuff in, in our industry. Not, not necessarily, you know, you know, selling things or rushing to market things. I. I think the conversations are good, the education is good. Uh, I like the helpful aspect of what you're doing, so appreciate you, man.

Speaker B: Thanks, Ben.