Tell us about your role and journey into Contact Center software.

My journey into the Contact Center space began on the enterprise sales side, having really interesting conversations with executives from large corporations while pitching a cloud contact center solution. It was eye-opening to see how the vast majority was opposed to a browser-based, lean and simple solution. I decided to tackle that challenge by moving over to the marketing side, where I got the opportunity to change the tone of the conversations. Now I am VP of Marketing at Zailab and I continue to work with my incredible team to educate the market about the evolution of technology, specifically contact centers.

How is the Contact Center industry different from what it was a few years ago?

Several years ago, it was much more complex to position a cloud solution in a conversation against the legacy providers; today, legacy providers are investing in cloud solutions to bridge their gaps and expand customer reach. The YoY growth of the market size is an incredible sight — it’s great to see companies thriving to connect with their customers while Contact Center providers focus on expanding their channels of communications to empower businesses to interact with their customers via customers’ preferred channels.

Tell us about the impact of outsourcing Contact Centers and how can Zailab’s software help enterprises build strong customer engagement.

Zailab is not just about outsourcing Contact Centers — we accommodate both BPOs and businesses that choose to keep their support teams in-house. With our cutting-edge technology, we are able to connect businesses with their customers in a way that wasn’t possible before. We’ve eliminated queues and infused our routing with AI, empowering agents to have rewarding conversations with the customers every time.

What is the current state of the Contact Center industry?

The Contact Center industry is one of the fastest growing — analysts predict it will grow to be $481B by the year 2022. We have to continue on our path and be innovative to make sure we remain competitive with other players and offerings in the space.

How do you choose, promote and sustain your markets for business development?

We have a very good pulse on where we are as a company and very aggressive goals on where we want to be. We make sure that we remain different and stay true to our core values — to help businesses grow into the large enterprises of tomorrow.

What are your predictions on the most impactful disruptions in Marketing Technology for 2018-2020?

With the evolution of consumer behavior, we have to be ready to cater not only via multi-channel but via omnichannel for customers to go through their journey completely uninterrupted. And, of course, now more than ever, if you are not on social media — you don’t exist. As a business, it is important to stay connected to your consumers via their preferred channels.

What startups in the technology industry are you watching keenly right now?

Outreach.io is definitely always on my radar! I loved using their email feature both in Sales and Marketing.

How do you prepare for an AI-centric world as a business leader?

I embrace the evolution of technology and as a business leader, I make sure to keep myself educated on the current and future state of innovation in the tech world.

How do you inspire your people to work with technology?

My team thrives to constantly stay connected and in the loop — convincing them to work with technology in this day and age is quite easy; however, having everyone agree on the tech stack is a different challenge entirely! We always make decisions based on what will make us the most efficient and what will be best for the business.

One word that best describes how you work?

Wholeheartedly.

What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?

My day starts and ends with Slack and LinkedIn. I try to not be reliant on apps, software or tools for day-to-day work, although, eliminating manual tasks with automation tools is always a big plus.

What are you currently reading?

My go-to read has always been ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ by Dale Carnegie. Right now, it is accompanied by ‘Extreme Ownership. How US Navy Seals Lead and Win’ by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

If you are going to fail, fail fast and move on.

Tag the one person in the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read?

Keith Messick, CMO at Dialpad.

Thank you, Marya! That was fun and hope to see you back on MarTech Series soon.