AI is transforming employee experience: Sathesh Murthy, RingCentral

RingCentral delivers mission-critical communications for organizations of all sizes. From small businesses to Fortune 1000 companies, brands across the planet rely on RingCentral to stay connected, secure, and compliant — from anywhere.

Sathesh Murthy, MD & Engineering Head, RingCentral, tells us more. Excerpts from an interview: 

DQ: What is the transformative impact of AI on both customer and employee experiences?

Sathesh Murthy: AI is revolutionizing both customer and employee experiences in India, reflected in its 2024 AI adoption index score of 2.47, up from 2.45 in 2022. Once limited to basic chatbots, AI now powers sophisticated personalized recommendations, proactive customer service, and even fraud detection, taking meeting notes, summarizing calls, and significantly enhancing customer satisfaction.

Simultaneously, AI is transforming the employee experience. Tasks like data entry and scheduling are being automated, freeing up employees for higher-value work. AI-powered tools provide personalized training and real-time feedback, fostering skill development and boosting productivity. With 87% of companies at the Enthusiast and Expert stages of AI adoption, this evolution is creating a win-win situation for businesses, employees, and customers alike.

DQ: How can AI benefit Indian businesses, particularly in customer service?

Sathesh Murthy: In today's competitive Indian market, delivering exceptional customer service is paramount for business success. This is where AI emerges as a game-changer, offering transformative solutions that empower businesses to exceed customer expectations.

AI can analyze vast amounts of customer data, including call logs, emails, and chat transcripts, to understand customer sentiment, identify pain points, and predict future needs. This enables businesses to proactively address issues, personalize interactions, and offer tailored solutions, fostering better customer experience driving loyalty and sales.

Imagine a scenario where AI analyzes a customer's call history and identifies recurring issues with a specific product. Armed with this knowledge, customer service agents can proactively reach out to the customer with a solution before they even contact support, demonstrating proactiveness and care.

For example, RingCentral’s native AI-first contact center RingCX, empowers businesses to identify coaching opportunities for agents, deliver personalized feedback, and automate workflows, freeing up valuable time for leadership to focus on strategic decision-making and fostering a customer-centric culture.

DQ: How does AI augment contact center staffing, reducing after-call work and saving time per call?

Sathesh Murthy: AI optimizes contact center staffing by automating tasks and augmenting agent capabilities, thereby reducing after-call work and average handling time (AHT). Generative AI (GenAI) and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms can automate call logging, transcribe conversations, call summarization, and populate CRM systems with relevant data, eliminating manual data entry.

Simultaneously, AI-powered knowledge bases and real-time analytics provide agents with immediate access to information and insights, facilitating faster and more accurate resolutions. This reduces the need for agents to conduct post-call research or escalate issues, minimizing after-call work and shortening call durations.

By streamlining workflows and empowering agents, AI facilitates efficient resource allocation, enabling organizations to achieve higher service levels with potentially leaner staffing models.

DQ: Why is it necessary to customize AI solutions to address specific challenges and understand customer behaviour and preferences effectively?

Sathesh Murthy: Generic AI solutions often lack the contextual understanding necessary to effectively address the unique challenges and customer nuances faced by individual businesses. Customizing AI solutions allows for the incorporation of industry-specific data, business rules, and customer interaction histories. 

The tailored approach enables more accurate sentiment analysis, personalized recommendations, and effective automation of business processes. By aligning with specific customer journey touchpoints and anticipating behavioral patterns, customized AI solutions deliver more relevant interactions, leading to increased customer satisfaction, improved conversion rates, and enhanced operational efficiency.

DQ: What is the role of AI and ML in personalizing customer interactions and predicting customer needs in the Indian context?

Sathesh Murthy: In the Indian business landscape, where personalized customer experiences are paramount to success, AI and machine learning are essential for driving customer engagement and loyalty. Metrigy's research underscores this trend, revealing that nearly 50% of 700 companies surveyed already utilize AI for customer interactions.

In business, time is money and leveraging AI/ML allows businesses to analyze vast quantities of customer data, enabling the identification of behavioral patterns and predictive modeling of future needs in near real time. This data-driven approach facilitates hyper-personalization, enabling businesses to tailor product recommendations, offers, and support interactions based on individual customer preferences and purchase history.

By integrating AI-powered solutions, businesses can deliver highly customized experiences that resonate with Indian consumers, ultimately driving customer satisfaction, repeat business, and a competitive edge in the market.

DQ: What should Indian businesses focus on when implementing AI for customer and employee experiences?

Sathesh Murthy: When implementing AI for enhanced customer and employee experiences, Indian businesses should focus on creating a unified, AI-powered ecosystem that prioritizes seamless communication, comprehensive functionality, data-driven insights, and demonstrable ROI.

Specifically, they should seek solutions that offer:
Unified communication and collaboration: Embrace platforms that unify calls, video conferencing, messaging, and other channels into a single, AI-powered solution. This fosters effortless collaboration and streamlines workflows for both employees and customers.

Simplicity and flexibility: Prioritize solutions that are easy to deploy, customize, manage, and use, requiring minimal IT overhead. Flexible migration paths and integrations with existing systems are crucial for smooth adoption.

Real-time AI and insights: Leverage AI for real-time transcription, sentiment analysis, and actionable insights from customer interactions. This data empowers personalized service, proactive decision-making, and continuous improvement.

Deep integrations: Ensure the chosen one! The solution integrates seamlessly with existing business applications and workflows. This allows for data sharing, process automation, and a unified view of customer interactions across the organization.

Cost savings: Prioritize solutions that offer a strong return on investment. For example, RingCentral deployments have demonstrated a 30% reduction in overall phone system costs, highlighting the potential for significant cost optimization.

DQ: What is RingCentral's vision for the future of customer experience in India, and what are their plans for adapting to evolving customer expectations?

Sathesh Murthy: RingCentral is significantly deepening its investment in India, recognizing the immense potential of the market and the evolving needs of businesses to deliver exceptional customer experiences. 

Our recent approval of a PAN-India license by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), a first for a global cloud communications provider, is a testament to this commitment. This milestone enables us to operate across all 22 telecom circles, offering our fully compliant and industry-leading UCaaS and CCaaS solutions to businesses of all sizes throughout India.

We are not just expanding our geographical reach, we are also investing in building a strong team in India. We believe that having a deep understanding of the Indian market is crucial to delivering solutions that truly resonate with businesses and their customers. 

This commitment to local presence, combined with our cutting-edge technology, positions us to be a true partner for Indian businesses seeking to elevate their customer engagement and internal collaboration. We are incredibly excited about the future of customer experience in India and are dedicated to playing a key role in shaping its trajectory.