Artificial Intelligence can be a game changer for the contact center industry: Keith Budge, Genesys

Genesys, a known name in contact center solutions, is betting big on AI to redefine customer experience. Express Computer, spoke with Keith Budge, Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific & Japan, Genesys, and Raja Lakshmipathy, Managing Director, Genesys India, who share their perspective on the huge potential of the Indian market, and how emerging technologies can be used to drastically improve customer experience.

Some edited excerpts:

How do you see the potential of the Indian market?
Keith Budge: India has great potential – both from a R&D perspective and a market perspective. Today, more than ever, it has become more important for customers to differentiate using customer experiences. They can do this by leveraging artificial intelligence, digital channels and the cloud. Businesses today need contact center solutions that deliver faster business outcomes and they realise that the best possible way to do this is by connecting every conversation with consumers across voice and digital channels and by leveraging artificial Intelligence and the cloud. These developments are driving businesses to invest in Customer Experience solutions at a faster rate. At Genesys, we believe that we are in a tremendous position to help our customers take their customer experience to a new level.

To support these evolving trends in the Indian market, we have expanded our headcount by more than 3.5 times at our Chennai facility over the last two years. The primary focus areas in India for Genesys are around Research and Development (R&D) and will primarily support new product development and testing while Professional Services and Genesys Care Support Services will support the customer base across the globe. Percentage increase of overall Genesys India headcount in the last one year is 20%.

Can you share some more details on your R&D centers in India?
Keith Budge: Globally Genesys invests 250 million dollars in R &D. In India, we have R&D centers in Hyderabad and Chennai. More than 50% of Genesys headcount in India is focused on R&D. Genesys Chennai has 250 people in R&D and Hyderabad has 75 people in R&D. Our Hyderabad center has contributed significantly to our all-in-one CX platform, Genesys PureConnect, while our Chennai center has contributed heavily in terms of architecture.

How do you see the impact of AI on customer experience?
Keith Budge: Artificial Intelligence can be a game changer for the contact center industry. AI can truly augment the human experience and add greater value. Agents can be AI enabled and the future could be AI augmented human experience. AI can be used in predictive routing, and for making significant improvements in first call resolution rates. AI can also be used to provide a proactive customer experience and play a huge role in supporting the lead qualification process. We have partnered with players such as IBM and Watson to leverage their AI capabilities in our solutions.

Raja Lakshmipathy: From an Indian perspective, the existing KPOs and BPOs can enhance their value proposition and margins, by focusing more on automation. For example, in the case of a human versus a chatbot, the cost to serve ratio can be significantly lower in case of a chatbot. In the future, as more deals for KPOs and BPOs will be based on outcome rather than time spent, automation and AI will play a huge role in improving efficiencies.