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A software veteran of 25 years, Jonathan has held leadership positions in major US software companies, such as Aspect Software, Verint and NICE Systems. Jonathan co-founded OCX Cognition Inc., an AI platform focused on improving retention outcomes for large B2B companies. After selling part of his shareholding and maintaining a board position, Jonathan then founded Anthrolytics in 2021. Anthrolytics combines behavioural and data science to predict the next likely behaviour of employees or customers. Anthrolytics proprietary Predictive Behavioural Analytics SaaS platform allows major B2C and contact centre companies to predict customer churn and likely upsell. For employees, the platform predicts likely resignations, unplanned absence, and the drivers of the predicted behaviour. In addition to these activities, Jonathan is on the advisory boards of two other SaaS start-ups and occasionally lectures on go to market strategies for University of Buckingham.

In this episode #95, the hosts Naveen Samala & Sudhakar Nagandla interacted with another guest Sweety Sweety Rath works as a Global Vice President HR with Aspect Software.   Aspect works in the Contact Center Product industry creating enterprise solutions to drive peak performances in large contact centers. Aspect's best-of-breed capabilities extend across both contact center and workforce optimization needs and can be deployed in the contact center environment of choice—for an on-premises or hosted platform, or Aspect Via® for a cloud-neutral contact center platform.   Sweety has been supporting and enabling businesses in creating strategic intervention to optimize productivity, enhance culture of ownership to drive results. She has been a business partner to the technology stack, Sales and Professional Services stack over the last 16 years.   She was awarded Women Excellence Award for 2020 the International Leadership Development Council (ILDC) & Academy of Management Professionals (AMP) for exemplary contributions in the field of Talent Management.   Sweety's Insights: Career journey – becoming a Global HR VP Values to be exhibited at workplace for a successful career How can an employee move up the value chain with his/her work? How can the talent workforce make a mark for themselves by uniqueness? Post covid avenues for contributions to a company Tips for accelerating the productivity of salesforce, positively Sweety's candid answers to surprise & interesting RAPID fire questions One piece of advice to those planning to make big in their career & life Trivia about Apple company Enjoy the episode! Connect with Sweety Rath on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sweetyrath/ Dear #TGV Audience…Here is a chance to broadcast yourself

Jim Freeze is the Chief Marketing Officer, and he focuses on brand strategy and awareness, thought leadership, product marketing, demand generation, creative services and public and analyst relations. Jim brings more than 25 years of experience leading marketing teams at Fortune 1000 and other enterprise technology companies, a history which includes proven success in all aspects of marketing, sales and business development.   Most recently, Jim served as a Chief Marketing Officer at Aspect Software, where he was responsible for all aspects of global marketing, including product management, product marketing, branding, advertising, customer experience and demand generation programs.   Questions   Could you just take a little time and share with us how it is that you got into what you are doing today, brand strategy, thought leadership, just tell us a little bit about that journey to where you are now. You were talking a little bit about Conversational A.I and this has been a very unconventional year no matter which country you’re living in the world, everybody's impacted by this pandemic. How do you see, just almost like a kind of prediction for 2021, if you could maybe share some insight with us, maybe based on data or just insights you've garnered from conversations that you've had with other people, Conversational A.I really flourishing in 2021 and do you see changing just the landscape of how customers interact with different businesses? Customers focus a lot more on the quality of service that they're getting than before. Would you agree? Do you find that as a result of the pandemic, there's just more emphasis on how people are being served, are they exercising empathy, are they exercising care, customers are just more aware of those softer skills in the interactions that they have, especially since this year. So we spoke a little bit about Artificial Intelligence. What are some other insights in terms of, like customer service trends that you've seen for 2020 that you think will definitely accelerate in 2021? And let's say a lot of our listeners are small business owners. They may not necessarily have the big budgets like some of the bigger organizations. Are there any trends that came on board that you think they could possibly take on a small scale that would make a difference in their customer experience? Could you share with us what is the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business? Could you share with us maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you? It could be a book that you read a very long time ago that still has a great impact on you or maybe a book that you read recently that still resonates with you. What's the one thing that's going on in your life right now? It can be something that you're really excited about, either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people. Where can our listeners find you online? Do you have a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge you’ll tend to revert to this quote – it can help to refocus you or get you back on track in terms of any form of backtracking to you may have been experiencing.   Highlights   Jim’s Journey   Jim shared that he had a little bit of a kind of an unusual journey to be honest. He finished his undergraduate and graduate work and graduated back in the late 80s with a Master’s Degree in Mathematics. And his first job out of college was actually as a computer programmer. It's kind of an interesting background. And he wasn't actually in marketing, but through a number of things that happened in his first position within the first 6 months, he was actually put in front of some customers for a number of reasons and the sales and marketing team thought he was quite good in front of customers. So they said, “You're wasting your time programming, come over and join us on the marketing side.” And that started the marketing journey. Along the way he picked up his Law Degree as well. So he actually practiced law for 2 years and 2 years was enough practicing law to convince him that he wanted to go back into to marketing.   So he came back to after his stint in law, came back to high tech marketing and has been doing it ever since. And it's been fascinating. The first company her worked for was a company that some listeners may have heard of called CompuServe, it was kind of a pioneering company that was one of the first companies to allow people to use their home computers to go online, a proprietary online service and then eventually became an internet service. And he has watched the advances in technology from 9.6 dial up modems to where we are today.   So it's been quite a journey, but one he has really enjoyed. And in particular, the last almost 9 years of his career have been spent in the customer service/customer experience base. As mentioned, the previous company he worked at, Aspect Software, was kind of traditional software company that focused on delivering ACDs and IVRs and workforce management software to enterprise.   As he was there for 6 years as the Chief Marketing Officer, loved the company and loved the space. And for the past 2 ½ years, he has been the Chief Marketing Officer of Interactions, and his attraction to interactions was understanding the customer experience space and understanding kind of legacy technology that is primarily still used today for delivering customer service and customer experience. He was really attracted to new contemporary solutions that were based on Artificial Intelligence that had the potential to dramatically change the customer experience in a very positive way and at the same time helping companies drive cost out of their businesses.   So, that's what really drew him to Interactions, Interactions as a leader and conversational A.I, a very unique solution that combines their Artificial Intelligence stack that is once again called Conversational A.I. with real time human understanding. So, it's humans and Artificial Intelligence working together and as a result of that, they deliver extraordinary human like conversations for their customers to their customers and help them dramatically improve customer experience and drive cost out of the business. So, it's a fun company where they're truly transforming the contact center and they're excited about it. They're a late stage startup, well over one hundred million dollars in revenue and growing, so it's a fun time to be in the customer service/customer experience space.   Conversational A.I Flourishing in 2021 and How Customer Interactions will be Impacted Across Different Businesses   Jim stated that this year has been profound in terms of changes that we're seeing. And across the tech landscape, what we've experienced because of the pandemic has really accelerated a lot of initiatives, specifically those that relate to Artificial Intelligence, that relate to automation.   And part of the reason for that and this is based on actual conversations they've had with customers of theirs, it's pretty clear that business continuity plans that companies had in place didn't envision what ended up happening as a result of the pandemic. And he'll give a couple of very specific examples.   So, they certainly have had customers who in the March timeframe of this year had to basically send employees to work from home and in some cases, their contact centers, that meant sending contact center agents at home. And they thought a lot of companies that were not prepared for that, their business continuity plan didn't envision something like that happening. Now, the assumption is, well, that we can just transition to home and set something up so they can work from home over their Internet connection. And in many cases, that worked but if you think about many companies rely on offshore agents, a lot of agents who are in Southeast Asia, and the assumption that agents in Southeast Asia have high speed internet access at home is a bad assumption.   And so, they saw a lot of companies struggle. They worked overtime, 24 hours a day, really trying to help some of their customers address some of the challenges that he thinks that they hadn't necessarily anticipated. And as a result of that, they think there's a new set of priorities that are coming out for enterprises that they think about customer experience and certainly one of those is increased use of technology to enable automation, but enable automation in a way that's not robotic but truly human and delivers a good customer experience. So there's no doubt in their mind, based on what they've seen with their customers, that there is a significant acceleration of Artificial Intelligence initiatives and there's very much a mandate now.   Emphasis and Importance of Quality of Service as a Result of the Pandemic   Me: Amazing. So, customer experience has definitely forced us to transform. And I personally think that as a customer myself since the pandemic, that customers focus a lot more on the quality of service that they're getting than before. Would you agree? How has it been where you are, where you live? Do you find that as a result of the pandemic, there's just more emphasis on how people are being served, are they exercising empathy, are they exercising care, customers are just more aware of those softer skills in the interactions that they have, especially since this year.   Jim shared that he thinks the emphasis and the importance of that has come to the forefront. And part of the reason for that is once again, when the pandemic hit, a lot of companies were not necessarily prepared for how they had to change. And as a result, many of these companies, their service levels relative to how they deliver customer service, really started to drop off. And, he saw that personally and in the companies he as a consumer do business with where in the past, if he had an issue, he could maybe get it resolved after waiting in a queue for 5 minutes. And, there were companies he was doing business with where he was in a queue for an hour waiting to talk to somebody to resolve an issue.   And he thinks those companies had good intentions to try to be able to resolve that. But they didn't have the infrastructure, the technology, and certainly not the people in place to address it. So this pandemic has demonstrated how fragile some of that infrastructure is. And so, there's a heavy emphasis on trying to fix that. And there's no doubt, especially in this environment that customer care, customer service, customer experience is becoming a huge differentiator for businesses. If you think about it, if you pick your favorite cell phone carrier, they use the same 5G, 4G technology, it's the same, iPhone or pick your favorite Android phone and there's not a lot of differentiation in terms of the actual service and the devices that are used. And you got to try to find a way to differentiate some other way and customer experience is a great way to do that.   Same thing with airlines, they all fly the same Boeing planes, they all say the same Airbus planes, the same seats, the same routes in many cases, they've got to find a way to differentiate. And you can do that with price but nobody wants to do a race to the bottom on price. So customer experience, delivering a terrific customer experience is a great way to differentiate. And it's more important now than ever.   Me: I totally, totally agree with you, Jim. And as you said, we're all competing. I think I was talking to an entrepreneur recently who said she was a little discouraged and she was saying to me, “Oh, but other people do the same thing I do.”And I said, “Well, yes, I think every industry has competition. There's no industry that you are in, whether public or private sector, that you don't have somebody else that's doing the exact same thing that you are doing.” I think the only thing that differentiates you is how it is that you deliver that service. Are you flexible? Are you available? Are you giving great value, depending on what value is to the customer that you're serving. And so, that to many people is different things, depending on what is important to me or to you. And, of course, convenience, people will pay for convenience. Over the weekend in Jamaica where I live, we have almost the equivalent of Costco that you guys have in the States. It's called Pricemart here in Jamaica.   And Jim, the line it took me almost an hour just to get from the main road just to get into the company's parking lot. I'm not talking in the building where the actual products are. Just to get parked on their compound, it took over an hour and this was on Sunday morning. And I had a brilliant idea. Okay, if I get up at 7:00 am in the morning and to get there by 7:30, I'm sure I can get in and out before 8:30 am. I didn't end up believing that to close to 10:00 am. And it was after I left, I was told by a few friends that they often deliver services now, they don't go there anymore because they just delivered to them, and it’s so much easier. Now that I'm thinking of it in hindsight I'm saying, “Boy, that would have been a much better experience than me sitting in traffic for over an hour, then going inside and joining these elongated lines that was just so frustrating.” So, convenience is something I know customers will pay for because time is money.   Jim agreed and stated that there's plenty of research from many different companies and research firms that suggest that consumers will absolutely pay a premium for good or great customer service because of the point you're making, which is, time is money and people don't want their time wasted. They want companies that they do business with to respect them and one of the ways you can respect them is to respect their time. He'll share a story that happened to him recently.   He was calling a company he does business with and it was on a Saturday and the service he was getting wasn't working. So he went through their frustrating menu tree and finally got into after about 5 minutes into it, into what he thought was going to be a queue to wait for somebody to come onto the phone and after basically 5 to 6 minutes of finally getting to the point where he thought he was going to go into a queue and wait longer, they come back with a message, “We value you as a customer. Please call us back on Monday at 9:00 am. He’s like, “No, you don't value me as a customer; you just wasted 6 minutes of my time. You could have told me that from the beginning.” And as a consumer, he’s like; “Do I really want to do business with this company?” So it's he couldn't agree with Yanique more.   Insight In Terms of Customer Service Trends to Accelerate in 2021   Jim stated that one certainly they just hit on, which is that differentiation; customer service is a great way to differentiate. Second, the enabling self-service for customers. And there are lots of different kinds of technologies that can help with that. He thinks the assumption that some companies have certainly a lot of some larger companies have this assumption, but smaller ones as well, is that when there is a contact from a consumer that consumer necessarily wants to speak to a human.   And that's actually not true, at least from his experience, it's not true. What consumers really want is to be able to resolve their issue; they want quick and effortless answers to questions. And that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to go through a human to do that. So if you can enable self-service in a way that's effortless and quick, that will lead to really satisfied customers, if you make it available 24 by 7 on a channel of choice, that also will really help, having it not be robotic but truly conversational and just having it personalized.   A lot of companies, if you call in with your mobile phone and they have that number or your landline, if they know who you are, why go through an authentication if you can say, yeah, we know who it is and personalize the experience of that. So, he thinks that one of the trends we're seeing is that companies are starting large and small alike questioning really what their customers want and not necessarily just assuming they know, but questioning it and having a good understanding.   He'll give a great example based on their experience, it's very common for them to go in and displace at their customers legacy technology. A legacy technology would be something like an IVR, when you call in, it says press 1 for this, press 2 for that or you can say things like billing. It tells you how you're allowed to behave. And it's a terrible customer experience and customers don't like it, it's very frustrating but one of the things they've seen with a number of customers they've dealt with is that they assume that they know the 4 or 5 reasons that customer are calling them.   So, they'll present those 4 or 5 options in a menu, 1 for billing, 2 for technical support, or whatever it is. So, they assume they know. And one of the things that they've found is that and they counsel their clients to do this is take a step back and say, what are your customers really trying to solve here?   And sometimes they'll do something where they call an intent study where they'll inject themselves. And instead of saying you can press 1 or 2; they’ll do this brief, intense study where they say instead of all that, they just say, “How may I help you?”    And the consumer tells you and they do that over the course of about a short period of time, you come back and you realize actually your customers are calling 4 different reasons than you thought they were. So he thinks it's really important that companies focus on understanding why their customers are calling them. And as a consequence of that, you can enable much better automation and self-service that ultimately delivers a much better customer experience.   App, Website or Tool that Jim Absolutely Can’t Live Without in His Business   When asked about an online resource that he can’t live without in his business, Jim that that's a tough one. He doesn't necessarily know that there's just one single site, but he thinks it's a combination of news sites, research, financial and analysis tools that kind of allow him to gain customer insight, competitive analysis and keep himself current on technology. So, he has some go to sites.   They as a business, they subscribe to some research from analyst firms, he finds that very helpful. Find some on his own and there are certain news sites that he also finds really helpful. So it's tough for him to say one site because he thinks there's a combination and that's the beauty of the web, you don't actually have to rely on a single site, but he has some go to sites that and research and analysis that he finds really helpful in keeping him current and helping him better understand kind of what's happening in the market.    Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Jim   When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Jim shared that a year ago, he might have answered this differently, but he'll tell you what which kind of resonated with him recently and he did read this probably, 8, 9, 10 years ago. There's a book by Doris Kearns Goodwin, who's a presidential historian, and she wrote a book called No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II. And it was about kind of the 1930s through the 1940s through basically the Roosevelt administration in the United States. And it was an extraordinary time that the country was going through, a depression, trying to come out of that depression and then rolling into World War II.   And the reason he thinks that book was so impactful for him was thinking about this notion, he put together this idea of Roosevelt, of a team of rivals, where he realized that he needed people who had a different perspective than he did to navigate through an extraordinary time. And part of the reason that book really is resonating with him so much today is because of what they've all been through since March with this pandemic. The world is so different than it was in February, just 8, 9, 10 months ago; it is a very different world. And he thinks of how we could all benefit from that notion of coming together and focusing on tackling very large issues, not in a partisan way, but in a kind of a way that brings us together. So that book has been on his mind recently. And he thought the current circumstances remind me of that.    What Jim is Really Excited About Now!    Jim shared that it relates to their company, but it's another result of the pandemic. He'll tell a little story, which is kind of interesting. They at Interactions, they were in February, March, about to sign a new 11 year lease on a brand new corporate headquarters, it was like 55,000, 56000 square feet.   They were going to spend millions of dollars in renovating and it was a dedicated building. Early March hit and the pandemic came and they started working from home and they were literally within a week of signing the agreements and the lease for that towards the end of March. And they took a step back and they said, “What are we doing? We've been working at home for 3 weeks now and everything's working great. Maybe we can learn something from the current circumstances.”   So they went from in the course of about 6 weeks from about to sign a new lease, 11 year lease and spend millions, millions of dollars on a renovation to making a decision to become a full time work from home company. And when they've seen other companies do that as well and talk about lots of companies are doing that and very profound in for them as employees, for him personally, that meant that he had flexibility to work from wherever he wanted.   They were headquartered in the Boston area and he lived in Boston and but he has a second home in South Florida. And so right after Thanksgiving, he has moved to South Florida and he’s talking to Yanique from South Florida right now.   And this is his new home and it's exciting for him because he has tremendous personal flexibility now that he didn't necessarily have before. They've seen that with a number of their employees, it's impacted their business in that they were recruiting for new employees and they're hiring right now. So, it's another example of how the pandemic has accelerated decision making and thinking among companies and how it impacts individuals personally, he’s super excited about that. He’s really excited about the fact that he can live in a place where he didn't think he'd be living for another 5 or 6, 7 years. So, there are some benefits that are coming out of what we've all been through.   Me: Definitely. It's so interesting that that's what you shared, because I recorded a solo podcast last night, Christmas Edition that we want to release hopefully for tomorrow. And in doing my research, it said that according to a PWC report, it said 82% of office workers would prefer to continue working remotely, at least part of the time, even after COVID-19 has subsided. And a whopping 73% of executives say working remotely has been a success. Here in Jamaica, there's a client I have and one of their business lines is pensions and their entire pensions department has moved to work from home and manager for that department has said that she doesn't think they're actually going to go back to in office because she's actually seen the team be more productive since they've been working from home and they've saved so much.   Jim stated that well, it's interesting, they obviously spent a lot of money on a facility and they do still have a facility that they'll meet occasionally face to face, but it's been scaled back dramatically. So, if somebody is in town on business, they can go work in the office if they want or if they want to have a department meeting, they can do that. But to the point about productivity, he used to drive to the office in Boston; it was an hour drive from, to work. And then based on what traffic was coming home, another hour, typically an hour and 15 minutes, that's over two hours of his day that now he can dedicate to work as opposed to being behind the wheel of a car. There are so many more productive things to be doing than sitting behind the wheel of a car.   The impacts of this are pretty profound. And it's not just obviously in the U.S., it's everywhere, the impacts are profound. What does this mean for the commercial real estate market? Office space? He thinks a lot of large towers or office spaces now are having to rethink, what are we going to do with this space? There may not be that much demand for it. We're all using less gas because we're not going as many places; we're changing everything about our lives. And it has impacts all the way down the supply chain. It creates opportunity for many and in some it’s forcing businesses to change and adapt. So, it's a scary and exciting time.   Me: Yeah, it is so true, because even as you mentioned, in terms of traveling, you're spending less on gas, as you said, one person maybe benefiting in one area, but then the persons who benefit from certain amount of gas sales, they are definitely not benefiting as much because people's cars are clearly parked more than they would be driving on the road back and forth. So, yeah, there are definitely advantages and disadvantages.   Jim stated that hopefully when we get back to 6 months from now, hopefully, people across the world have been vaccinated and this thing by virtue of herd immunity goes away. But he thinks we're never going back to life the way it was, it's different, it's going to stay that way.   Me: I was listening to a podcast yesterday, funny enough, and the lady said something. I thought it was so hilarious. She said we're never going to go to a birthday party again and you're going to see a bowl full of MnM’s, as in, for kids to dip their hands in, for parents dip their hands in, so everybody's not going to start buying the packaged Eminem’s or anything that you would have shared communally, you're now going to ensure that each person has their own individual packet and all of that was born out of COVID. I just think certain things will change for the long term. People are going to be so much more conscious of just touching and sharing in terms of different things. And they won't be as open to just doing things that we would have taken for granted before.   Jim stated that he was thinking about this the other day. He hasn't shaken somebody's hand since mid-March. He stated he is a business executive and he meets people and nobody does that anymore. And he kind of wonder if we're going to go back to that or if we're going to adopt much of what's done in Asian cultures, which is bowing, which is kind of interesting, maybe that's what we all do. So, everything is changing. And some people hate change, he loves change. He thinks change is exciting and so he tries to embrace it when it happens. But the world is going to change.   Where Can We Find Jim Online   LinkedIn – James Freeze Website – www.interactions.com    Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Jim Uses   When asked about a quote or saying that helps him to refocus, Jim share that he does and talk about it being very pertinent to the current days. It’s from Maya Angelou; she is a wonderful writer and poet. And she has an expression that he has used a number of times over the course of the past few months and it is kind of instructive to him personally and she said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did but people will never forget how you made them feel.” And it’s a constant reminder to him especially in times of adversity for the people he deals with, he kind of want to leave them with an impression about he makes them feel. It’s so instructive and he thinks it’s a very powerful statement.   Me: That’s actually one of our favorite quotes for Navigating the Customer Experience and one of my personal favourites as well. And it’s so true Jim, you being in the technology and data side of customer experience in terms of Artificial Intelligence, I am sure at the end of the day, even though technology is there to assist us in delivering or solving our problems for our customers, at the end of the day, people still want to be treated well, they want to feel good after they have done business with your company. And that feeling can’t come if you’re not being responsive, if you’re not fixing the problem, if you’re not giving them what it is that they are seeking in that moment, they are not going to want to spread good news about you and your company. And so, it’s really about how you make people feel, their emotional needs.   Jim agreed and shared that just being honest with people and being understanding and being transparent and just being cognizant of how somebody feels when they walk away. They may not even get the answer that they want but if you’ve treated them respectfully and you’ve been honest, people will remember that even though they didn’t get the answers. He just thinks especially in our current times, it’s really important and it’s something he thinks about a lot in terms of the way he interact with others as well.   Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest   Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners   Links No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin    The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience   Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience.”   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!

  Being at the top of any team is truly a regaling feeling, but keeping your position also means dealing with loneliness, marketing strategies, and the constant urge to improve. In any CEO experience, a tenacious and curious mindset plays a huge role. Bob Roark is joined by cohost Jamie Zawmon in talking with https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickjdennis/ (Patrick Dennis), the President and CEO of https://twitter.com/_patrick_dennis (Aspect Software). Patrick spends some time detailing what it takes to lead a team, from getting rid of the fear of change and learning how to get out of a messy situation in the most optimal way, to the right way to motivate oneself. --- Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/XpHLa48uODo[/embed] Breaking Down The CEO Experience With Patrick Dennis And Cohost Jaime ZawmonWe have Patrick Dennis. He's the President and CEO of https://www.aspect.com/ (Aspect Software). We have my cohost Jaime Zawmon. She is the Founder and President of https://www.titanceo.com/ (Titan CEO). Welcome. It’s good to be here. Thank you for taking time, Jaime and Patrick. I appreciate it. We'll go right into it. Patrick, tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve? We are the leading provider of contact center software and workforce management and optimization software for enterprises around the world. Four of the five top commercial banks are our customers, three of the top four telecom providers, four of the top five tech companies, and six out of the six top airlines. You've interacted with our software if you've ever called Southwest Airlines to book a reservation. You've interacted with our software or the people that are behind our software if you've ever ordered anything off Amazon, Apple or from Microsoft. That's what we do. It's an awesome job. There are about 1,300 people that work here and we do about $300 million in revenue. [bctt tweet="If you don't have the curiosity bug, it's hard to figure out what went off track in a business." username=""] Nothing to do. It keeps you busy. Yes, it keeps us busy. I'm excited Patrick, that you are a 2020 Titan 100. For those reading, Patrick was selected as one of Colorado's top 100 CEOs and C-level executives. We featured him in https://www.titan100.biz/titan100-book (The Titan 100 Book). What I always ask every Titan who we interview on this show is what characteristics do you believe that it takes to be considered a Titans of industry? Jaime, you asked me this question a lot. For my little niche of what I do for a living, tenacity plays a big role. Much of what I do involves turning businesses around or helping businesses that were at one time struggling. If I think about the arc of my career and what's helped me be successful, tenacity has played a big role. It's hard to take on challenges like the ones taken on historically if you don't have the intestinal fortitude to want to win and stick with it. The second one is you need to be a little curious. If you don't have that curiosity bug, it's hard to figure out what went off track in a business. Some combination of tenacity and curiosity has served me well over the years. I completely agree with your curious statement there. I've watched you in interactions for many months and I believe it's a part of your DNA. I always see you asking incredible questions. It makes sense to me that you would say that. For those of you that don't know, I helped Jaime out in a board capacity occasionally with her business. I find the best way to get Jaime a benefit is to ask her questions that she should have contemplated the answers to. That's been a fun part of our relationship. It's fun to watch you craft your business based on some of the answers to your own questions. You have gotten to see that in action. That's true. Patrick, you have an interesting journey from beginning to now. If you would share with us a little bit about how you got started and what brought you to where you are...

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has power to make field engineers far more productive, and give the companies they work for new ways to retain and grow their competitive edge. My guest is Sam Waicberg, Co-founder and CEO CareAr.Sam Waicberg is an entrepreneurial business leader passionate about building brands that scale. His expertise: driving and inspiring high performing teams, game changing solutions, positioning strategies, innovative partnerships, ecosystems, and communities that create network effects and growth.Throughout his career he’s held senior roles in sales at Oracle, Blue Martini, Aspect Software, Ascendent Systems, Envox, Fluency Voice Technology, Genband, and Vidyo. He’s recognized for strategic out-of-the-box approaches for developing and executing corporate and go-to-market plans, thought leadership, and creating long-term meaningful relationships.In December or 2018 he co-founded CareAR, an Augmented Reality platform for smart services. Their mission: Making expertise accessible anywhere and instantly. This triggered me, and hence I invited Sam to my podcast. We explore the challenges faced in the field services market and how technology can help transform productivity, quality of work, and overall profitability. Beyond that we dig into a much larger problem that the services industry is facing as a whole: the rapidly decreasing workforce, and what challenges that gives entrepreneurs to retain tribal knowledge and their competitive edge.Here are some of his quotes:Innovation is something that constantly drives us. We think about the art of what's possible all the time. And we don't think too much about limitations and barriers.We saw a gap in the market and the other is a is something that evolvedThe simplest issue was applying what we see in telehealth when we see a long-distance learning to field service, getting a remote expert to assist the field tech on site to do a visual consult to solve the problem while they're out there.The big problem permeated as we started getting in there and talking to more C level people.70% of their organization's most valuable assets, employees, are leaving over the next 5 to 10 years. All the knowledge goes out the door with that.So, the C-levels really are thinking, this is what keeps them up at night, about ‘What can I do to retain this tribal knowledge? What can I do to transfer this knowledge to other new individuals coming into the organizations in a way where I can accelerate the pace of that and retain my competitive edge?’During this interview, you will learn four things:How you can drive transformative value by bridging the gap between consumer applications and the enterprise workflowThat instead of constantly worrying about the catching up you have to do, focus your roadmap on the question: “How do you want to be the favourite?”That the opportunity to create unique value is often hidden in developing an eye for rapidly developing issues that can become a catalyst for transformationHow to take friction for adoption out by not only focusing on the user experience, but also on the business model See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In today’s Modern Digital Enterprise, the digital transformation podcast from Anexinet, GM & Executive VP of Digital, Al Sporer speaks with SVP of Digital Transformation, Steve Tranchida on the topic of connected customer experiences: why they’re so important, and how to ensure your organization is providing a great one. “61% of customers are unable to easily switch from one channel to another when interacting with customer service. 91% say they should be able to pick up where they left off.” — Aspect Software, Inc.​ To accommodate customer self-service, successful digital leaders must offer customers a connected, consistent ecosystem of services across many channels—not just isolated applications. Seamlessly creating connected self-service experiences ensures greater customer satisfaction. “Companies with the strongest omni-channel customer engagement strategies retain an average of 89% of their customers, as compared to 33% for companies with weak omni-channel strategies.”​ — Aberdeen Group, Inc. Let Anexinet help accelerate your CX self-service application strategy and development journey.

Listen to this inspiring episode with Tony Ashby and Nicole Johnson from Aspect Software as they share their innovative, ITSM transformation story using BMC Helix Remedyforce.

Who owns “data quality” in your organization? If your answer is, “that’s the IT department’s job!” you may have some issues to solve. Stefanie Causey is the Senior Director of IS Solutions Delivery at Aspect Software and she is an expert on data and digital transformation.   Stefanie joined us for this episode of Possibilities to talk about the evolution of technology, the importance of breaking down silos, and much more.

If you are tackling a job that hasn’t been done before, you need a strong team. One full of people who challenge the status quo and who aren’t afraid to ask why. Stefanie Causey is the Senior Director of IS Solutions Delivery at Aspect Software. Aspect Software is a provider of customer engagement, workforce optimization, and self service solutions geared towards mid-sized to large enterprises. Stefanie has been in IT for many years and has witnessed a complete transformation in the way things are done in the industry.  She was brought onboard at Aspect when it was clear they needed a solutions architect to work on their very outdated systems and servers. Stefanie joined us for this episode of Digital Transformation Pioneers to talk about putting together a team to overcome unique challenges at Aspect, Artificial Intelligence, and her key lesson learned along the way.

Simon walks you through some great new things you can use on your projects today! Shownotes: Amazon Lightsail Announces 50% Price Drop and Two New Instance Sizes | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/amazon-lightsail-announces-50-percent-price-drop-and-two-new-instance-sizes/ Introducing Amazon EC2 T3 Instances | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/introducing-amazon-ec2-t3-instances/ Amazon EC2 M5d Instances are Now Available in Additional Regions | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/09/amazon-ec2-m5d-instances-are-now-available-in-additional-regions/ Amazon EC2 C5d Instances are Now Available in Tokyo and Sydney Regions | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/09/amazon-ec2-c5d-instances-are-now-available-in-tokyo-and-sydney-regions/ AWS Batch Now Supports z1d, r5d, r5, m5d, c5d, p3, and x1e Instance Types | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/09/aws-batch-now-supports-z1d-r5d-r5-m5d-c5d-p3-and-x1e-instance-types/ Amazon ElastiCache for Redis adds support for in-place version upgrades for Redis Cluster | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/amazon-elasticache-for-redis-adds-support-for-in-place-version-upgrades-for-redis-cluster/ Introducing AWS CloudFormation Macros | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/09/introducing-aws-cloudformation-macros/ AWS CloudFormation Now Supports AWS PrivateLink | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/aws-cloudformation-now-supports-aws-privatelink-/ New Amazon EKS-optimized AMI and CloudFormation Template for Worker Node Provisioning | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/new-amazon-eks-optimized-ami-and-cloudformation-template-for-worker-node-provisioning/ Amazon EKS Supports GPU-Enabled EC2 Instances | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/amazon-eks-supports-gpu-enabled-ec2-instances/ Introducing Amazon EKS Platform Version 2 | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/introducing-amazon-eks-platform-version-2/ Amazon ECS Service Discovery Now Available in Frankfurt, London, Tokyo, Sydney, and Singapore Regions | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/amazon-ecs-service-discovery-now-available-in-frankfurt--tokyo--/ AWS Fargate Now Supports Time and Event-Based Task Scheduling | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/aws-fargate-now-supports-time-and-event-based-task-scheduling/ Amazon Athena releases an updated JDBC driver with improved performance when retrieving results | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/amazon-athena-streaming-jdbc-driver/ AWS Key Management Service Increases API Requests Per Second Limits | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/aws-key-management-service-increases-api-requests-per-second-limits/ Use Amazon DynamoDB Local More Easily with the New Docker Image | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/use-amazon-dynamodb-local-more-easily-with-the-new-docker-image/ Amazon DynamoDB Global Tables Available in Additional Regions | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/amazon-dynamodb-global-tables-available-in-additional-regions/ Performance Insights Supports Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) for MySQL | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/performance-insights-supports-amazon-relational-database-service-for-mysql/ AWS Glue now supports data encryption at rest | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/09/aws-glue-now-supports-data-encryption-at-rest/ Deploy an AWS Cloud environment for VFX workstations with new Quick Start | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/deploy-an-aws-cloud-environment-for-vfx-workstations-with-new-quick-start/ New in AWS Deep Learning AMIs: TensorFlow 1.10, PyTorch with CUDA 9.2, and More | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/new-in-dl-amis-tensorflow1-10-pytorch-with-cuda9-2/ Amazon Rekognition announces the ability to more easily manage face collections | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/amazon-rekognition-announces-the-ability-to-more-easily-manage-face-collections/ Amazon SageMaker Supports TensorFlow 1.10 | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/09/amazon-sagemaker-supports-tensorflow-1-10/ Amazon SageMaker Supports A New Custom Header For The InvokeEndPoint API Action | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/09/amazon-sagemaker-supports-a-new-custom-header-for-the-invokeendp/ Amazon FreeRTOS Over-the-Air Update Feature Generally Available | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/amazon-freertos-over-the-air-update-feature-generally-available/ Announcing New Custom Analysis Features for AWS IoT Analytics with Custom Container Execution for Continuous Analysis | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/announcing-new-features-for-aws-iot-analytics-including-custom-container-execution/ AWS IoT Device Management Now Allows Thing Groups Indexing | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/aws-iot-device-management-now-allows-thing-groups-indexing/ AWS IoT Core Adds New Endpoints Serving Amazon Trust Services (ATS) Signed Certificates to Help Customers Avoid Symantec Distrust Issues | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/aws-iot-core-adds-new-endpoints-serving-amazon-trust-services-signed-certificates-to-help-customers-avoid-symantec-distrust-issues/ AWS WAF Launches New Comprehensive Logging Functionality | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/aws-waf-launches-new-comprehensive-logging-functionality/ AWS Direct Connect now in Dubai | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/aws-direct-connect-now-in-dubai/ New AWS Direct Connect locations in Paris and Taipei | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/new-aws-direct-connect-locations-paris-taipei/ Amazon Route 53 Auto Naming Available in Five Additional AWS Regions | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/amazon-route-53-auto-naming-available-in-five-additional-AWS-regions/ Amazon S3 Announces New Features for S3 Select | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/09/amazon-s3-announces-new-features-for-s3-select/ AWS Systems Manager Automation Now Supports Calling AWS APIs | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/AWS_Systems_Manager_Automation_Now_Supports_Invoking_AWS_APIs/ AWS Serverless Application Repository Adds Sorting Functionality and Improves Search Experience | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/aws-serverless-application-repository-adds-sorting-and-improves-search/ AWS SAM CLI Now Supports Debugging Go Functions and Testing with 50+ Events | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/aws-sam-cli-supports-debugging-go-functions-and-testing-for-additional-events/ AWS X-Ray Adds Support for Controlling Sampling Rate from the X-Ray Console | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/aws-xray-adds-support-for-controlling-sampling-rate-from-the-xray-console/ Amazon API Gateway Adds Support for AWS X-Ray | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/09/amazon-api-gateway-adds-support-for-aws-x-ray/ AWS CodeBuild Adds Ability to Create Build Projects with Multiple Input Sources and Output Artifacts | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/aws-codebuild-adds-ability-to-create-build-projects-with-multiple-input-sources-and-output-artifacts/ Announcing the AWS Amplify CLI Toolchain | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/annoucing-aws-amplify-cli-toolchain/ New Amazon Kinesis Data Analytics capability for time-series analytics | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/09/new-amazon-kinesis-data-analytics-capability-for-time-series-analytics/ Amazon Kinesis Video Streams Producer SDK Is Now Available For Microsoft Windows | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/kinesis-video-streams-producer-sdk-windows/ AWS Config Announces New Managed Rules | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/09/aws-config-announces-new-managed-rules/ Deploy Three New Amazon Connect Integrations from CallMiner, Aspect Software, and Acqueon | https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/08/deploy-three-new-amazon-connect-integrations-from-callminer-aspect-acqueon/

This week's episode focuses on voice AI events, products and news from the first half of 2018. We discuss Apple's announcements from WWDC and whether it was a big deal or a snoozer, the shift in smart speaker market share to Google, the impact of Google Duplex, what Amazon has done and should be doing and more. This week's guests are Tobias Goebel of Aspect Software, Pat Higbie of XAPPmedia, Chris Messina a developer and product guru best known for inventing the hashtag and Voicebot's Ava Mutchler and Bret Kinsella. We don't just talk about what has happened, we go deep into what it all means. Not to be missed.

How can you avoid SIM swap fraud happening to you? TSB customers have contacted Money Box after their mobile phones were targeted by criminals. The fraud involves an identity thief posing as their victim in order to trick mobile phone providers into issuing a new SIM card. That card is then used, along with other information, to access and steal from online bank accounts. Reporter Tony Bonsignore investigates, and we hear from Keiron Dalton, head of fraud at Aspect Software. There is a call for people who have stopped work before reaching state pension age to check if they can top up their pension through voluntary contributions. In certain cases it could add £244 a year to their state pension. Steve Webb, director of policy at Royal London explains who qualifies and what they need to do. More lenders appear to be offering mortgages to older borrowers, with one provider allowing people to hold one until the age of 99. Jane King, independent mortgage advisor with Ash-Ridge Private Finance discusses what is behind the focus on older borrowers. Presenter: Paul Lewis Producer: Charmaine Cozier Editor: Hugh Levinson.

Tobias Goebel is Senior Director, Emerging Technologies for Aspect Software. He has a Masters Degree in Computational Linguistics and has studied at both the University of Bonn and University of Edinburgh. Tobias also has 15 years experience working in voice technology, first as a developer, then as a designer and more recently as a strategist and marketer. Aspect has a big focus on customer service and contact center automation. Chat and voice are now a rapidly growing part of that work, but these technologies are also taking Aspect customers into conversational marketing and direct outreach to new customers.

Over 40 years, Aspect Software has grown into a multinational leader for contact center solutions, recently launching Aspect Via, a comprehensive cloud-based customer engagement platform. In this session, learn how Aspect used AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway, Application Load Balancer, development tooling from Swagger, and microservices to build a secure, scalable, and maintainable API framework that can be integrated into multiple channels of customer interaction. We focus on best practices for transforming on-premises-based applications and moving latency-sensitive services supporting telephony applications to an API-based platform in the cloud.