0:09
that's a very fundamental very important
0:11
question to ask and you know to start
0:15
with I think the biggest challenge is
0:17
resistance to change change anything
0:20
that has been practiced traditionally
0:22
that's the first most fundamental
0:24
challenge second is the lack of a a
0:27
unified view of the entire customer
0:29
journey and that helps uh you know make
0:32
decisions in a different way and the
0:35
lack of that visibility creates the
0:37
third challenge which is the presence
0:39
and prevalence and probably even
0:41
dominance of internal silos
0:44
those are the top three
0:50
first is definitely a blended view of
0:53
the the customer across all of the
0:55
various functions in the journeys and
0:57
that's that's the number one thing and
1:00
it's also the thing that is going to
1:02
change the way companies approach
1:05
the second is of course the emergence of
1:07
self-service and that has been
1:10
accelerated by of course the pandemic
1:12
and the events happen thereafter but it
1:15
has also become you know more elegantly
1:18
accepted by customers for a variety of
1:19
use cases so that's number two and of
1:21
course the third I cannot development in
1:28
that's a good question um in fact I
1:30
would even say great customer experience
1:33
leads to better everything not just
1:35
marketing and I say that because the
1:37
moment companies start optimizing for
1:42
um of course most companies start with
1:43
optimizing for the customer's experience
1:45
but overall you know that that leads to
1:47
a better understanding of the customer
1:49
better understanding of the market and
1:51
that leads to better personalization
1:53
better messaging positioning all of that
1:55
stuff so it improves marketing
1:57
Effectiveness even though it's a it's a
2:00
paradigm shift right the at the
2:03
day-to-day level it's quite a bit of
2:04
change but just that strategic shift
2:07
from uh you know engagement to
2:11
just has a huge impact on on marketing
2:13
itself and of course you know more
2:15
personalized marketing leads to um you
2:17
know much more effective marketing I
2:19
think a lot of marketing has been
2:21
traditionally based on engagement so uh
2:24
to shift that from from that mindset of
2:26
likes and comments and things like that
2:28
at the engagement layer to move forward
2:31
into you know getting customers the
2:33
outcomes that they need and the outcomes
2:36
that they benefit from right and that's
2:38
that's the shift that um that marketing
2:40
will have to go through and on the flip
2:43
side you know a great customer
2:44
experience strategy at the organization
2:46
uh after leadership buy-in has been
2:48
completed uh it presents marketing with
2:51
a seat at the table across all content
2:53
experiences not just with sales or
2:55
service or marketing but to own all of
2:58
the content experiences
3:04
CRM essentially contributes to
3:06
personalization at every level and at
3:08
Zoho we are one of the very few uh
3:10
companies that focus on
3:12
the experience of every employee who
3:15
participates in the customer Journey not
3:17
just the customer themselves but also
3:18
every employee including ecosystem
3:20
partners and so on and so forth so uh
3:22
the the personalization Works across
3:24
various levels the first is of course
3:26
the data which uh which can be
3:28
personalized uh can be transformed uh
3:30
you know manipulated in whichever way it
3:32
runs as a layer across all of our
3:34
products at the bottom the second is of
3:37
course in how you draw inferences and
3:40
insights from that data and that is also
3:42
personalized to each business if you're
3:45
um the the needs of somebody like Nike
3:48
who's who may also be on the same
3:49
platform will not be affecting what the
3:51
system does on your data your data is
3:55
going to be inferred and insights are
3:57
going to be generated in the context of
3:58
your own business that's another thing
4:00
and the third is of course all of this
4:01
becomes meaningless if um if it's not
4:04
presented in the right density to the
4:06
right person at the right time so we
4:08
also work on personalizing the user
4:10
experience itself we generated a ton of
4:13
Interest around all of these topics and
4:14
we released what we call canvas for CRM
4:18
in 2021 which allows you know business
4:20
users to customize the entire CRM
4:23
experience for every role in the the
4:30
we do believe that the subservice is
4:34
going to play a huge role whether
4:36
self-service service will replace all
4:38
person-to-person interactions uh not
4:40
likely subscribers works extremely well
4:43
for transactional needs where the the
4:45
presence of a human being or the fact
4:47
that a customer needs to be assigned to
4:49
a human being and needs to be taken
4:50
ownership of and things like that a lot
4:52
of that impedes the customer from being
4:55
able to be successful right so
4:57
self-service helps a lot in that in that
5:00
direction the second is of course
5:03
is amazing because it helps small
5:07
um across you know regions across
5:09
languages across time zones and things
5:12
like that so you don't really need a 24
5:13
7 to be Global if you have self-service
5:16
so in that sense uh cell service would
5:19
play a huge role there's already a a
5:21
decrease in person-to-person
5:23
interactions and that is in many cases
5:25
uh for for the better
5:27
um you know human beings do not
5:29
necessarily make every experience
5:31
amazing uh but they do have to get
5:35
involved in cases where there's a high
5:37
amount of risk for the customer or
5:39
there's a possibility to create more
5:40
anxiety for the customer or if there's
5:42
complexity in the offerings for example
5:43
with something like say health insurance
5:45
or something like that there you would
5:47
not really prefer to do a lot of things
5:49
self-serve because the presence of a
5:51
human being to acknowledge your
5:52
situation comprehend it uh process uh
5:55
break down the situation to come into
5:56
simpler actions and things like that all
5:58
that come in handy having said that you
6:01
know person-to-person interactions are
6:02
also um expensive in a certain sense
6:05
There's an opportunity cost of you know
6:07
when when a human being is helping One
6:09
customer there are two or three other
6:10
customers that may need their attention
6:12
more but are not being helped because
6:14
there is a bottleneck there so that's
6:16
the area where we see self-service
6:18
coming in and helping
6:19
utilize human effort a little bit better
6:21
and like I said if self-service is going
6:24
to you know take up a significant
6:27
portion of the customer experience then
6:29
you know marketing has an outsized
6:31
impact on on the customer experience
6:37
there are a lot of answers to this
6:39
question some of them may not even be
6:40
the right answers we will only find out
6:42
a few years from now but the biggest
6:44
impact that AI will have
6:46
can be on you know to access one would
6:50
be qualitative which is um did you
6:54
really get a great experience as a
6:57
customer in that specific interaction
6:59
right versus can we replicate that good
7:03
experience across millions of
7:04
interactions regardless of language or
7:06
complexity or any about things those are
7:08
the two areas where we think AI will
7:10
have a huge impact and the other thing
7:12
is that AI helps small businesses have
7:15
an outsized impact they essentially
7:17
provide a large uh the same experience
7:19
as a large brand but with a smaller
7:22
actual footprint on the company right
7:23
and that's a kind of leveler that has
7:26
not been seen in the last few years and
7:28
we believe AI will will essentially
7:30
Empower small businesses in a way that
7:32
software has not before so the way AI
7:34
impacts small businesses is in in you
7:39
know making each employee more effective
7:41
at what they do and that is even more
7:43
important for a small business than it
7:44
is for a much larger distance uh larger
7:46
businesses tend to have a little bit
7:48
more cushion for for error and a little
7:51
bit more quotient for uh you know
7:53
opportunity costs and things like that
7:54
well small businesses
7:55
um you know a single opportunity cost
7:57
decision can never break the business so
7:59
um AI certainly enables a lot of
8:01
possibilities in that in that sense uh
8:04
however when when we look at examples
8:06
where a human being is not necessarily
8:08
uh the best person the best option to
8:11
help a customer is for transactional
8:13
needs for example if you'd like to uh if
8:15
you ordered from a small business a
8:17
bunch of t-shirts or whatever and you
8:19
want to change your delivery address
8:20
because for some reason you're you're
8:21
not going to be there at home you want
8:23
to change it to a friend's address you
8:24
don't really want to wait for a human
8:26
being because this is something you can
8:28
type in yourself it's in fact something
8:30
you typed in yourself earlier when you
8:32
put in that address so that's one reason
8:35
that's one one example another common
8:37
one almost even cliche to the point of
8:39
being a cartoon is resetting your
8:41
password you don't want to be able to do
8:43
that by talking to a human being and
8:46
they send you a temporary password and
8:48
then you log in and you might as well
8:50
just do that yourself right and there
8:51
are plenty of such reasons just
8:53
transactional needs where there's not
8:55
necessarily a knowledge interchange or
8:57
there's not nearly enough complexity for
9:00
a human being to be able to simplify
9:02
that experience right those are the ones
9:04
that that are going to go away uh with
9:06
AI and and self-service taking uh all of
9:09
those away uh with respect to something
9:11
like say insurance or financial services
9:13
or something like that you would
9:15
certainly benefit from from talking to a
9:17
human being in fact I was at bnh photo
9:19
with you in in New York I was trying to
9:22
buy a camera and I instantly realized
9:26
the vast amount of knowledge that that
9:27
the store sales associate had that I
9:30
would probably not be able to get from
9:31
any e-commerce experience right those
9:33
were the ones that were I think the
9:34
human beings will continue to remain
9:36
relevant and probably even Prosper there
9:38
are examples across all Industries all
9:43
um the the things that customers need
9:46
things that are simple things that are
9:48
transactional single step all of that
9:50
across so if you're working at so if you
9:53
if you're looking at say Insurance you
9:55
may want to pay out your insurance from
9:56
another bank account of yours instead of
9:58
the current one because you you've
10:00
chosen to go with a different bank right
10:02
that could be one example another could
10:03
be you know getting changing your your
10:06
credit card on a subscription service
10:09
the third could be you know upgrading or
10:10
downgrading uh your your uh you know
10:13
cell phone uh plan right or any of those
10:16
things can be done with a with by
10:18
contacting a human being but the
10:20
experience is going to be substantially
10:21
uh you know impeded by the presence of
10:29
one of the things that I can really
10:30
think of is uh is what we call begin uh
10:34
it's it's a an extremely simple pipeline
10:36
management uh software it works with
10:39
sales pipelines it works with customer
10:40
support tickets it works with uh you
10:42
know marketing processes it's extremely
10:45
simple it's meant to be used in a small
10:48
business context extremely well and um
10:50
we I can also think of a bunch of other
10:53
tools essentially across like Creator
10:56
and and and Zoho books which is related
10:59
to accounting uh and and a lot of these
11:02
tools are aimed at removing the the
11:04
effort involved in managing day-to-day
11:07
operations of a business so that the
11:09
business owner as well as the core team
11:11
is able to then focus on how they can
11:13
make an impact on the customer make an
11:16
impact on the business add additional
11:17
lines of Revenue and things like that I
11:19
think the the biggest impact that
11:21
software will have on customer
11:22
experience is the ability for businesses
11:25
to process the information and make
11:27
changes in a timely manner where they
11:31
can see the impact of those changes as
11:33
well rather than to have to wait for two
11:34
or three weeks to for the data to arrive
11:36
and then you know pray Against All Odds
11:41
the the spray and pray uh sort of
11:44
mindset is going to is has already been
11:46
changing it will change
11:47
um and the democratization of customer
11:51
and in the right context using software
11:54
I think that's the thing that will
11:55
enable every employee to be more
11:58
effective at the customer experience
