The Future of Customer Engagement with Voice AI (Scott Thomas)

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Welcome back to the podcast, guys. Today we are joined by Scott Thomas, a marketing and customer growth operator with experience in marketing automation and work helping organizations like the Central Indiana Community Foundation. Scott, welcome to the podcast. >> Mickey, great to be here. Thanks for having me. >> To start, could you share a bit about yourself? What do you guys do? >> Sure. So I, as you pointed out in my introduction, have been in the tech industry and have been serving in the tech industry now for 20 plus years. Primarily based here in Indianapolis, uh, Indiana. I have had a chance to work for marketleading companies like Exact Target, Salesforce, Genesis, and I'm currently at a company called Sales AI where we help companies win the moment through the use of voice agentic AI agents. Primary use cases are speed to lead, tier one customer support, booking assistance for meetings, among other use cases.

You've been around marketing technology since the exact target days. What were the key points in your career that shaped how you think about growth and retention today? >> It's been a great experience over the 20 years and and I've learned a lot and and you're right. I I started at Exact Target and I kind of joke today that when I started at Exact Target, email marketing was very similar to where AI is today. And and let me explain what that means. You know, back in the early 2000s, right, it's hard to even think about this, but people were very afraid to get to give up their email address, right? They didn't want to give up their email address to companies, right, to to market to them. And quite frankly, lots of large brands didn't quite see the benefit in email marketing either. They were kind of like, well, why would people want to use email to market to people? We have a website, right? And and we want people to come to our website. Why would we want to communicate to them via email?

Our experience on the web is so much better and and AI is very similar today, right? I'm in the voice agentic AI space and I often jokingly say to people, well, how many times has a voice AI agent called you? And they're like, oh, ever, right? And and I've never experienced that. And many companies that we talk to obviously have never used voice AI before as well. And so they're still trying to figure out what does that mean? But as it relates to the question you asked, I think the thread that has held true from my very first day at Exact Target to the time I'm here at Sales AI, whether I was at Salesforce or Genesis or or other stops along the way, is that when you couple a great platform that's easy to use, makes sense, and most importantly brings outcomes to a company. It's very easy to retain customers and it's very easy to continue relationships with those customers and actually grow those relationships with customers.

So even in the early days of exact target to the early days now here with sales AI and the voice agent AI for the companies that really figure out how to leverage the technology and are focused on the outcomes that they're trying to achieve not just oh we're using AI or in the early days we're just doing email right but they're really thinking about in our case how they put those voice AI agents into workflows into business processes that are there to help them accelerate their business and accelerate that they work with their contacts, they see great outcomes. And when they see great outcomes, they're going to renew and grow their business with you uh in your platform. >> You've been writing about customer success not being vanity metrics. What do most teams get wrong about the adoption and what does real adoption look like?

>> I think for so many years we've been focused more on the vanity metric if you will of adoption and I would even say seesat to a certain degree and we live and die as as CX leaders and I've done this throughout my career on both making sure that we're driving adoption and that we're driving high sees scores, right? And when neither one of those happens, we spend a lot of time and energy trying to figure out why is a company or a segment of customers not adopting the platform andor why did we get that low seat score. However, when I look back on my career, which is why I'm writing some of the things I'm writing right now in my LinkedIn newsletter, is that of all the companies I've ever worked with, yes, adoption was important, seesat was important, other aspects of the relationship were important, but again, as I mentioned in my first um answer to your first question outcomes is why businesses made the investment in the software in the first place, right? they had a problem. We were able to convince them that by using our platform and our expertise that we would be able to fix that problem andor accelerate them getting better results.

And that's what we should be driving. So we should be driving outcomes, right? So in my business today, as a great example, I can create the best AI agent in the world for you. I can have that AI agent sound as humanlike as possible. I can train it to do everything you need that AI agent to do when talking to one of your customers, but at the end of the day, if I'm not booking a meeting or I'm not helping that agent's not helping answer questions that customers are calling in about or it's not helping qualify potential prospects into your business in kind of a speed to lead use case, it doesn't really matter at the end of the day. So the adoption may be high, the seesat may be high, but if that platform is not performing and outcomes are not being achieved, it really doesn't matter at the end of the day.

And most companies will turn and go to try to find another solution to fix that problem. >> I see a lot of companies that ride the AI wave. They often express bus words and they basically don't say what they do. They say that they implement AI solutions or some kind of vanity goal. And what do you think has fundamentally changed in the life cycle marketing tooling or data or buyer behavior? >> I would actually say it's probably a combination of all three. I think over my 20 year career, it's definitely buyer behavior that's changed the most. Right. I would say that's changed the most, but that's because of the tooling that's available to consumers now and businesses, right? I even look at myself and you know the way that I evaluate and start to look for software, right? I actually go to chat GPT first now. I don't go to Google. I don't go to other places. I share with chat GPT what my problem is or what I'm looking to try to do. Can you recommend some platforms or some solutions that are out there that can help me go do that?

Then I'm involved in many networks of peers, right? Whether it's through Pavilion or LinkedIn groups that I'm involved in. So let's say Chat GPT gives me the name of three platforms I should go take a look at to help me solve a problem. I then reach out to my network first and say, "Hey, I'm looking to solve this problem. Here are three platforms that have been suggested to me, right? Have any of you ever used these platforms before? If so, what do you like about them? What didn't you like about them? You know, is there anything you can share with me? And and I trust those network of people and I I trust their opinion. I I trust their perspective. So, by the time I'm probably reaching out to a company, in many ways, I've pretty much already said this is the platform I need to go with.

And I already have a pretty good idea of what I want to do and how I want to leverage it. And I don't think I'm much different than any other consumer out there or any other business um leader out there who's making decisions around software. I think the days of going to five or six different websites, filling out a form that says, "Yes, I'm interested. I'd like to learn more." Right? Setting up the first call with an SDR and and doing a discovery call and and then leading into a demo. as we think about B2B sales, right? And then lead into what can be either a short or very lengthy price and contract negotiation, right? Depending what you're buying, obviously those sales cycles continue to get shorter and shorter and shorter. And more importantly, I think you're starting to see customers, they come into those conversations already very well educated of what they're looking for, how they think that platform may help solve their problem.

They're really looking for the finer points of that that platform and the things that they may not have heard from their their network andor chat GPT and then quite frankly what's the price going to look like and even that has become very public right I mean so many platforms now the price is on the website in fact I'd be interested to see a study of companies who list their price versus who say talk to one of our sales reps right >> my assumption working from my own experiences. If you don't have your pricing on the web page, I'm probably not going to talk to you because I don't even want to get in to that back and forth. As I said earlier, mentally, I've probably already made my decision. Now, I just want to solidify that decision and I just want to know the price and then I'm going to move forward from there. So you think it's not strategic to put a pricing on the website since you cannot handle objections and you are basically getting compared like a commodity when you put your pricing on the website.

>> What I'm saying is it may not be strategic not to list your pricing. the opposite of that. I I think at least and I look at my behavior and I I talk to my peers and I talk to others and many of us I think are in the same way. Like you need to give me at least the framework of what the pricing is going to look like. Put that on your website. Make it easy for me to understand. It may not have to be the exact final price. In fact, my assumption is I'm probably going to be able to negotiate with you, especially if I'm buying, you know, multiple licenses or looking for a multi-year contract or services around that platform. like I think there'll be room to negotiate, but I at least want to go into that conversation before I even talk to someone at that company with an idea of what the framework of pricing is and at least what the range is because again, I just think B2B buyers and consumers, we're very price sensitive now, especially in the world of budget reductions and staff reductions.

We have to be very cautious of that. And so before we even get engage in conversations, I at least want to know the framework. I don't may not know the exact price, but I at least want to know what the framework is and probably what the range is. And I think companies who aren't doing that today are probably suffering a little bit because of that. Especially in in this world where I believe as AI continues to grow, there's going to be decisions around do I buy the software platform, do I do nothing, or do I let AI build it for me? and how do I go work with all the tools out there now from AI that quite frankly I could probably go build something that I could use myself that's going to get me there without having to even hassle with negotiations of a contract and working with a third party. We're on the the tip of that becoming more and more reality as we move forward. >> Let's talk more about AI agents since that's what you guys do. Where do you see the most leverage mate?

You mentioned speed to contact. That's definitely a big one. Is there any other? >> Yeah, I would say right now where we're seeing the most success across our customer base and seeing the most success ourselves is in points of the customer journey where scale matters. So again, you know, speed to lead, right? Having someone who's available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and can handle one phone call at a time or thousands of phone calls at a time, that's a scaling moment, right? Customer inquiries from a support perspective. If I can have an AI agent who is trained to be able to answer basic questions from a customer, provide basic guidance, provide basic resources to a consumer, that allows me to keep my humans focused on the more difficult issues, the more difficult bugs and situations that they need to resolve. Not answering for the fifth time that day, how do I reset my password?

As an example, booking meetings, right, and booking appointments. Again, that's another place that we're seeing customers instead of leveraging someone sitting on a call going back and forth with a customer around when can we come out to meet you or when can you come in to see us and oh, I have Thursday available and and trying to go back and forth. Allow an agent to do that on your behalf, right? They're good at doing that. They're effective at doing that. And again, they can handle one call at a time versus thousands of calls at a time. So, you know, we've all probably been there when we've called in to the doctor's office and you're on the phone with someone and they're like, "Oh, can I put you on hold?" And then they start the com, "Oh, can I put you on hold?" Right? Um, you know, just recently, one of the doctor's offices that I go to, they've moved to an AI agent that handles booking appointments for their providers. Uh, and I just happened to talk to him about it during my uh, recent visit with them and the the woman at the front desk told me that she's like, "It's completely eliminated that part of my job.

It's doing a great service for us." And so now I'm able to focus on more high value things than going back and forth with customers or in this case patients on when's a good time for them to come in and see the >> Yeah, great answer. I think the the scalability is is a big part of it. So if there is a team that's listening and they want to improve their life cycle marketing and their customer outcomes in the next let's say 30 days, what are the first moves that you would recommend? Well, for me, I think the first thing that I would sit down and do, and and I think I wrote about this recently in one of my LinkedIn articles, is sit down and truly map out where you think those moments of outcomes are truly there for a business, right? What is the value that you can deliver for your customers and what are the true outcomes that you can deliver for them? And then most importantly, after you've defined what those outcomes are, you need to define a framework and a set of metrics on how you measure those outcomes.

Because it's one thing for me to tell you, hey, we can deliver more meetings booked for you or a better response rate to tier one support, but then if I don't give you a framework to be able to measure that and also measure how you're doing that today versus what that outcome looks like after you've implemented the tool, it doesn't really matter. And I and I have a hard time convincing you that I'm making an impact in those business outcomes. So defining what the outcomes are, putting a framework in place to be able to measure what those outcomes are, and then finally making sure that you're putting tooling in place and/or sessions in place to evaluate where is those outcomes in terms of the metrics, right? And again, having a framework in place that if the outcome is first ticket response rate through my AI support agent, right? Okay. Well, what is that current rate?

What was your anticipated goal? And if there's a delta between what's that rate versus the anticipated goal, what are the levers that I can help pull for you to help you fill in that gap? I also need to be an expert in that. I need to be able to come in and say, "Hey, I told you you could get an 80% first call resolution rate. You're sitting at 60%. Let's evaluate that 20% gap and how do we get you there?" Because it's one thing to tell people, I'm going to be able to get you outcomes. You got to go prove it and you got to have a framework to prove it in. So the three steps I share is define what the outcomes are. Define the framework on how to measure those outcomes and how those outcomes can be measured by the business. And then finally three, how do you monitor those outcomes? And when there's gaps, how do you help strategize and work with the customer to figure out the strategies they need to put in place or the judge adjustments they need to make to what they're currently doing to fill in that gap? >> Awesome.

So, last one for people that are listening who want to follow your work or just connect, where should they go? >> Great question. So, uh, my LinkedIn profile is probably the best because I have a newsletter right now called the AI human handshake, which I put out every other week at a minimum. In some cases, if an idea hits me, I I put it out weekly. It's where I share a lot of my thoughts and opinions about this. and uh be on the watch because I'll be taking that out more broadly in other ways soon around this idea of the AI human handshake and how companies need to start using AI along with their humans to deliver outcomes for their customers. >> Perfect Scott, thanks again. I will add links so people can actually click through to your LinkedIn profile and they don't need to search it. >> Oh, I appreciate Thank you guys for watching and we will see you in the next