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People everywhere have had to go home during COVID. Although technology is not as widespread in Mexico as in developed countries, more and more customers need the cloud. Finance remains regulated but retail, healthcare, financial services, technology, and business services are all moving online. On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, we talked with Gilberto Godinez, CEO & founder of GRUPO ITS (PCSNets Mexico), about: The partnership between GRUPO ITS and Five9 The pandemic's impact on the marketplace in Mexico What cloud adoption been like during this pandemic in Mexico Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

The latest episode of “That’s Genius!” is a very special one. They’re all special, but for this episode, we got to sit down and talk with our newest hire, Five 9’s new Chief Marketing Officer, Genefa Murphy. Genefa has one of the more unique marketing career journeys we’ve seen in a while, so she seemed like a natural fit for an interview. Our conversation centered around: How she’s enjoying the Five9 culture during her first few weeks Her biggest surprise in joining Five9 What drives her passion for the marketing work that she’s doing Her favorite books, authors, food, and so much more Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

To a large extent, AI is a buzzword. The trick — and the challenge — is finding the practical implementations of AI for contact centers. If you can show how AI helps customers during COVID, you get extra credit. On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, we talked with Martin Cross, Group CTO at Conn3ct, about: What the "stabilize, enhance, transform" journey is all about How COVID accelerated the migration to new platforms 3 practical ways to deploy AI in a contact center Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

COVID provided the inflection point for the transition from legacy to the cloud. Even before the pandemic, companies were slowly moving toward cloud because it had gotten to a level of resilience, features, functionality, security, and uptime that persuaded the legacy base to trust it. The movement had already begun. Add in a pandemic and AI, and suddenly you have all the ingredients for a perfect storm. On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, we talked with Thomas John, Vice President of EMEA Channels at Five9, about: Why AI is helping companies transition to the cloud How Five9's tools automate, inform, and even provide simple answers for customers The ways different levels of channels benefit the end customer Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

In 2020, contact centers underwent their biggest stress test yet. People had to figure out how to continue their operation with their agents working from home, a remote office, or even a hotel. Did their technology support this kind of diffuse team? Then, they had to handle a surge of anxious callers. Scary times for some companies, but exciting for many others. What's next for the enterprises that can pass the stress tests of 2020? On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, we talked with Vikas Bhambri, SVP, Sales & CX @ Kustomer about: Why a barrier exists between CRM and contact centers How contact centers are being more proactive in engaging customers The current and future role for AI and automation in contact centers Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

The pandemic changed everything. The pandemic changed nothing. I'm not being philosophical. That's a realistic picture of contact centers in 2020. The pandemic sent agents home, ate up more of their time, and moved their data to the cloud. But in fact, all those trends were already in place. COVID just accelerated them. What's up next for revolution in contact centers? On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, we talked with Dave Michels, principal analyst and founder of TalkingPointz, about: Key trends in the enterprise space in 2020 Who's accelerating cloud strategies as part of digital transformation Most beneficial tools for contact centers as work from home models start to solidify Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

During the pandemic, 75% of people have changed brands. 75%. Just let that number sink in for a minute. Rowan Trollope, our Five9 CEO, shared that state from McKinsey as part of his address at our CX Summit. Given that trend, it's imperative that companies of all sizes automate their processes to better track customer engagement. On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, we talked with Mike Bourke, senior vice president, product at Five9, about: How workflow automation helps you understand customer pain What it means that the contact center is the new front door The new Five9 tool that can help you know what your customers are feeling Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

Remember racing into the kitchen as a kid to grab the phone off the wall as soon as it rang? Answering the phone was fun because almost always it was someone inside your world, someone who had a legitimate reason for calling you.  That's no longer true.  But voice remains the most powerful and important channel. How can you keep it from breaking down? On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, we sat down with Jeff Woodland, director of vertical marketing at Five9, to talk about: Why consumers are losing trust in outbound calling How we can solve the phone problem for customer service What it will look like when people can manage their incoming call traffic better Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

Contact centers drive a lot of the core strategy for a big, diverse telecommunications company such as AT&T. Because these companies need speed and agility, they're taking a cloud-first approach. The pandemic is only accelerating that strategy.    On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, we sat down with Mike Rajich, director of contact center & CX products at AT&T, to talk about his experiences with Five9 and his thoughts about: Why AT&T chose Five9 to power its cloud contact center solution How the pandemic has changed things for AT&T's contact centers Where Mike sees the work-from-home model going The next big thing Mike predicts will happen within the contact center. Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

In Q2, we brought on 75 new hires at Five9. These people say they're excited to be here, and they look forward to participating in our unique Five9 culture. We know we're not perfect, but we're always improving. In May of this year, we did an engagement survey while COVID was bearing down on us, and we were all working from home. It was a tough time. For most tech companies in our space, 50% engagement would be good. At Five9, 92% of our employees said they were engaged.  On this episode of That’s Genius!, we sat down with Tricia Yankovich, SVP, HR at Five9, to talk about Five9's culture and why our employees engage. We covered such topics as: How new applicants find out about Five9 Top line results from our employee engagement survey What we can expect next from an employee welfare perspective Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

90 days into her job, Five9's new vice president of product marketing, Terry Fortescue, has already planned the virtual CX Summit, gone on a hiring spree, and acquired a new Labrador puppy. Despite coming on board in the middle of a global pandemic, Terry has taken to Five9's unique culture. Though due to COVID-19, she has never actually met anybody in the office, she can still feel the warmth coming from the team.   On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, we sat down with Terry to talk about her experiences with Five9 and her thoughts about: The highlights of her first 90 days on the job The virtual CX Summit coming up on September 16 What we're planning for 2021. Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

COVID threw the entire business world for a loop.  A lot (okay, more than a lot) of companies went into triage mode.  Asking themselves, “How do we sustain our services and how to we make sure that there’s minimal disruption to our business?”  It exposed a lot of weaknesses inside of organizations that they didn't know where there, and is forcing companies to take a hard look at a cloud-based solution, rather than a premises-based one.  But remote work isn’t easy. Which is why we reached out to someone who has written some incredibly insightful stuff on the work-from-home solutions, including the things nobody will tell you.  On this episode of That’s Genius!, we talk with Greg Hanover, CEO at Liveops all about:  Standing up 6,000 virtual contact center agents within 72 hours for a crucial government agency at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic The weaknesses that COVID has exposed in a lot of contact center organizations Why a business continuity plan is a MUST for any organization The 5 things nobody will tell you about succeeding at remote work Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

This is normally the time of year that the halls at Five9 are packed with our summer interns.  And while a lot of other companies have done away with the summer intern program all together, here at Five9, we couldn’t possibly just NOT have our summer interns.  So we did what we do best.  We adapted. We decided to pivot.  And on the most recent episode of theThat’s Genius! Podcast, we sat down with three of our summer interns, for a discussion all about: What life has been like as a work-from-home intern What stood out about Five9 when it came to choosing an internship What they hoped to get out of the whole process Their next steps after completing the internship program Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

If you were scheduled to go to a conference in 2020, odds are you’re out of luck. Everybody in the business world is canceling conferences and pivoting to virtual events. And Five9 is no different.  This year’s CX summit is on track to draw over 3,000 attendees, over a 300% increase of last year’s summit in Las Vegas.  On this episode of That’s Genius!, we talk to Ryan Kam, the CMO here at Five9, about  this year’s CX summit, and the four virtual tracks that await attendees:  “Is my customer experience a more human experience?”  “What’s possible in the cloud with Five9?”  “Super powering your agents”  “Under the hood: Five9 technology and innovations.”  Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

The pandemic has proven that CXOs and companies with agile mindsets will likely succeed, while those set in their ways get left behind. It’s the nature of the beast. And the pandemic has been an ultra-beast. In this episode of That’s Genius, Michael sits down with Founder & Principal Analyst of ZK Research, Zeus Kerravala. Zeus gives us the lowdown on how the pandemic has impacted the role of the CXO. Plus, Zeus and Michael discuss: How to maintain the highest level of customer service with a remote workforce Why CXOs need to continue modernizing the customer experience even post-pandemic How consistency in employee experience cultivates a better customer experience Hear ep. 29 w/ Zeus Kerravala here. To hear this episode and more like it, subscribe to That’s Genius! on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or tune in on our website.

If you want to go faster, go alone. If you want to go farther, go together. That’s the mindset of Five9’s VP of Business Development, Walt Rossi. Strategic partnerships with other tech companies have made it possible to bring holistic solutions to Five9 customers. In this episode of That’s Genius, Walt and Michael discuss: How partnering with CRM companies has given Five9 agents a more holistic view of their customers Why Five9 built a marketplace even some of their competitors can sell on How partnering w/ Google has impacted Five9’s approach to AI Explore Five9’s app marketplace here. To hear this episode and more like it, subscribe to That’s Genius! on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or tune in on our website.

Canadians are camping on the couch like everyone else during the pandemic. Working from home is the new reality, like it is around the world. That's one reason we're seeing a dramatic acceleration in Canadian enterprises turning to the cloud. This acceleration comes on top of 30% year-over-year growth that we've been witnessing for the past five years. Canadians have seen the difference that the cloud contact center solutions can deliver to their businesses. And they realize that if you can't communicate with customers the way that they prefer to be communicated with, you're really going to struggle in the market. On a recent episode of That’s Genius!, I sat down with Chris Silver, Five 9's vice president for Canada, who shared his thoughts about:  What's driving Canadian enterprises to adopt cloud technology How the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting Canadians' transition to the cloud What the post-pandemic trends will look like in the Canadian marketplace Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

Are you still working from home?  Before COVID-19 swept across the United States, less than 20% of contact center agents were being supported by a cloud-based solution.  Those 20% had an easy time making the switch to a WFH model. The other 80%?  They had a bit rougher of a go.  It’s hard to equip agents with physical phones, physical servers, firewalls, and VDI instances, rather than just issuing laptops.  Which begs the question: What will this WFH scenario look like a year from now?  Sheila McGee-Smith thinks that for the most part, it’s here to stay. She was a guest on the podcast recently and talked all about:  Why a cloud-based solution was so important in moving to a WFH model Why she thinks that more and more companies are going to keep people home How hiring practices are going to change as a result of this pandemic Listen to this and all our other That’s Genius! episodes with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

Have you ever wanted to be a part of the gig economy? Well, now might be your best chance. With more companies implementing the best WFH solutions, employees are moving to a gig mindset.  This is just one of the themes Anand Chadrasekaran, Executive VP of Product Management & Design at Five9, has seen emerge from the pandemic. In this episode, Michael and Anand discuss: 3 major business themes Anand has seen come out of the pandemic How advanced telecommunications have supported industries from healthcare to manufacturing Why being born in the cloud makes it easier for companies to map out their business continuity plans Catch our previous interviews with Anand on That’s Genius! Acquisitions and Applications: One Year of Success  Acquisitions and APIs: The First 90 Days at Five9 (pt 1) Reinforcement, not Replacement: The First 90 Days at Five9 (pt 2) To hear this episode and more like it, subscribe to That’s Genius! on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or tune in on our website.

During these turbulent times, there has been one constant our team has encountered:   Channel partners trying to figure out what their new normal is.   Really, that’s what we’re all striving for… normalcy.   In this episode, Casey Dunigan, Director of Channel Sales at Five9, shares what his new normal has been working from home and how the Five9 FastTrack Program has helped partners regain some of that normalcy, too.   Plus, Casey discusses:   - Success stories of partners who’ve taken advantage of FastTrack   - The benefits of migrating to the cloud in-full   - 3 pillars every business needs in order to enable a successful remote workforce   - What he believes the next 3-6 months will look like for partners To hear this episode and more like it, subscribe to That’s Genius! on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or tune in on our website.