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Ascendo offers top-notch GenAI-based customer service and field service solutions, seamlessly integrating with CRM systems and leveraging historical data for faster response and issue resolution. Elevate customer experience and drive revenue growth with Ascendo. Physical AI Agents in a Box 1800 workflows fully transformed with 16 AI agents We at Ascendo Believe in Resolution instead of Deflection Resolution instead of opening a ticket Resolution before Escalation Expert in your Back pocket Ascendo AI is a virtual expert for Enterprise Support and Field Service teams that helps reduce downtime, cut costs, and preserve expert knowledge. We help you do your jobs faster and smarter by giving you AI that acts like a seasoned expert on call 24/7. Unavoidable Three V's With inconsistent similarities between large amounts of incoming data along with the frequency of product updates, support teams deal with exponential complexity to process and unearth trends in data. Organizations want to get real-time customer pulse as support experience becomes critical to revenue growth. Knowledge first AI brings in Volume, Velocity and Variety of data together to drive Consistency, Quality, Performance, Safety and Scale to your teams. 01 V olume 02 V elocity 03 V ariety Read full white paper > Ready to Deploy Knowledge Mapping is one of the magical ways in which our human brain works. Here, at Ascendo, we want to provide our customers with the best experience. For that, we keep it very simple and easy for them to use Ascendo’s components, dive deeper into them, and observe their data. Ascendo takes you on a journey to find out what you have been missing! For very raw data, Ascendo generates information, which in turn is converted to knowledge. This knowledge comes in the form of problems, symptoms, rootcause, and solutions. And this knowledge comes to you in the simplest of forms. All you have to do is swing the magic wand and get all the insights that can make your experience with your end-customers fantastic. See How> 01 Cognitive Intelligence 02 Conversational Intelligence 03 Agent Guides 04 Leader Patterns Built-in Intelligence What We Do Predict, Prevent, Resolve, Precise No more guess work on what the intent, relevance, sentiment and context is in every interaction. Significantly increase efficiency from day 1. Learn More Establish Connection Ascendo establishes connection with existing CRM, support data and historical service data, responses, knowledge bases, and bug database are ingested. Transforms information into multidimensional adaptive schema. Semantic Inference of data Ascendo engine organizes data to symptoms - problems - root cause and solution. Automated data pipeline, cleaning, organizing across many types of products is what Ascendo excels at. Recommendation Engine Look at the dimension of problem context, solution effectiveness, recent solutions, Provides top solution(s) for the root cause which users select amongst possible options. Symbiotic Man - Machine Built on the symbiotic Man-Machine principles to improve solutions continuously that never stops with the initial learning. Enterprise Ready 01 Security Encryption in rest; Encryption in motion; true multi-tenant; secure transfer learning; SOC 2 compliant. We have you covered! 02 Access Control Control User, Permissions, Groups, Roles, access forms down to the Business Unit and product level. Scale Onboarding. 03 RAS Reliability - Availability - Scalability - performance. We take these seriously in our so you have the peace of mind. 04 No code Truly no code deployment. Start with one product, one business unit, see ROI right in our tool from day ONE! 05 Open API Want to bring in AI functionality to your search, bot or other channels? Want more flexibility? Try our API integration. 06 Integrated Truly no code integration. If you find your system of record software not in our list, let us know. Warranty Automated warranty management that drives accuracy, compliance, and customer confidence. Resolution Multi-modal, Multi-lingual search or conversation to diagnose and repair Knowledge Intelligence Generate Complex technical documentation, MOPS, SOPS Cognitive Routing Route to the right person based on skills, geography, availability or cost Escalation Address issues before escalation including sentiment Smart Backlog Reduce backlog with a few clicks and make customers happy! Privacy Filter Obfuscate data to protect privacy before any Al consumption Smart Inbox Automated Inbox for Omni-Channel communication Training and Quality Al shares the Top Technician for a given problem and shares on- demand training and guides quality Cognitive Spares Identify shortage, surplus and reorder points based on failure patterns to make spares planning proactive Entitlement Connect all the data sources for instant verification Auto Root Cause Understand root cause of issues in real-time to improve Operations Top Drivers What are the top issues that drive your support team? Log Analysis Trends and patterns from logs to predict Failure Risk Smart Contracts Create service contracts and analyze them with AI RMA Automation to streamline returns, reduce processing time and enhance service Warranty Al Warranty management that drives accuracy, compliance and customer confidence READY FOR PROACTIVE SUPPORT? Connect Now First Name Last Name Email Submit Thanks for submitting! Escalation Highlight potential Escalations so teams can be proactive Smart Backlog Manage backlog with a single click Privacy Filter Obfuscate data to protect Personal Identifiable Information (PII) Smart Inbox Employee AI agents in one place across all interactions with your customers Training Replicate expert knowledge and use it for onboarding and continuous training Cognitive Spares Auto spares planning based on failures and parts in depot Quality Learn who the expert is for any given issue and troubleshoot to provide quality and consistency across teams Auto Root Cause Understand root cause in real-time across your interactions Top Drivers Understand Top issues faced by customers to know what to fix in next version of the product Risk Analysis Analysis of logs to a deeper detail to understand Risk in Install Base RMA Smart RMA automation to streamline returns, reduce processing time, and enhance customer service Workflow Tie individual AI agents to system of agents that automate full workflows Resolution AI Agents Resolve issues anywhere Knowledge Intelligence Generate knowledge On the Fly Cognitive Routing Route to the right person at the right time

n this episode of Experience Dialogue, Ascendo AI CEO Kay Narayanan speaks with Jaspreet Singh, a customer leadership veteran with over 30 years of experience at companies like Microsoft and Autodesk. They discuss the growing talent shortage in healthcare and how AI can amplify specialists rather than replace them, while enabling a new era of human-AI collaboration in regulated environments. Beyond the Shortage: Scaling Healthcare Support with Agentic AI | Jaspreet Singh & KAY (0:51) Thank you for having me. (0:52) Yes, I think, as you said, we've all been in this industry (0:56) for the last three decades and more. (0:59) And fortunately, I've been very fortunate (1:02) to actually dabble my hands in all parts of customers' life cycle. (1:07) So I consider myself lucky. (1:09) But also I think that I've been very intentional (1:13) about my overall customer journey. (1:17) Because, I mean, this is one thing that I actually talk (1:21) to a lot of youngsters and early career professionals also. (1:26) How do you think about your career? (1:28) And I think when I was starting, obviously I started (1:32) in customer support, but I was very clear (1:34) that I don't want to be in customer support all my life. (1:38) I want to be managing a P&L. (1:41) I want to be general management at some point of time, (1:44) not the title per se, but I want to be doing general management. (1:49) So that took me to a journey where I moved from customer support (1:53) to consulting, then professional services, (1:56) then sales, delivery, sales excellence, by the way, (2:01) and then back to support. (2:03) So I think it's been very intentional choices (2:06) that I made during my career. (2:09) And part of it was to really make sure (2:12) on how I can participate across the customer life cycle. (2:16) Because I think many times we tend to gravitate (2:20) towards one area, make that as our expertise area. (2:24) And we say, oh, we are good with that and we're going to stick with that. (2:27) And that's not a wrong thing to do. (2:29) But I think for me, the choice was more breadth and depth (2:33) in every single area, but then keep going breadth and so on. (2:38) So I think in my case, I just chose that path, (2:41) not saying one is better than the other, (2:44) but I think it has served me well (2:46) because I personally believe that having touched customers (2:51) across the whole life cycle, I can appreciate (2:54) what their issues are, what their requirements are, (2:58) what the outcomes that they expect, (3:01) what builds trust, what creates loyalty, (3:05) rather than just saying I'm going to sell by relationship (3:09) or sell by force. (3:11) So I think it just has been intentional, (3:13) but a very, very fortunate career journey for me also. (3:19) Yeah, for you it was intentional, for me it was accidental. (3:23) So my first, right out of college, (3:26) I had a company where there were three amazing people working: (3:30) me, myself, and I. (3:32) So I didn't know how to scale the business. (3:35) And that's when I moved into working for bigger companies (3:39) where I did sales engineering, marketing, etc., (3:43) and learned the various aspects of the business. (3:46) So I always think what you just said, (3:49) everything about doing from professional services to sales (3:53) and all of that, gives you a perspective (3:56) to run a business completely. (3:58) Another fascinating thing with your background is you have done, (4:02) you know, you started at Microsoft, (4:05) then you were at Autodesk, and you have been in technology companies. (4:10) Why Empower Pharmacy? (4:12) That's an interesting question because I keep getting that a lot nowadays. (4:16) So I think it was an interesting choice to make. (4:19) I mean, when I was, you know, when we all reach this stage (4:23) of the career—I don't want to mean that I'm old, (4:26) but the stage of career that I had— (4:29) You look like you're 18. (4:31) No, 21. We'll make it the drinking age. (4:33) 21, you guessed it right. (4:34) Yeah, exactly. (4:36) So I think when I was at a stage of my career (4:39) where I was deciding what makes sense for me (4:42) professionally in terms of my learning growth, (4:45) which actually has to continue, whether from a breadth standpoint (4:48) or from a depth standpoint. (4:50) But also at this stage, I was also looking (4:53) to find more meaning, more purpose for what I want to do, (4:57) which actually can leave a larger legacy and impact (5:01) not just to myself, but to the larger community, (5:04) to the world that I belong to. (5:06) And I think when I got this opportunity (5:09) or when I was thrown this opportunity over to me, (5:12) I thought this medication is a huge area of challenge (5:16) that this country faces. (5:18) We all need to participate in these challenges (5:21) and be able to solve those challenges (5:24) because the larger humanity needs those. (5:27) And that's the legacy that I want to leave. (5:30) I want to make sure that whatever businesses I do, (5:33) I'm able to not just leave the legacy of me and myself, (5:37) as you were talking about, and growing it just vertically (5:41) or from a monetary standpoint, (5:43) but also leaving a lasting impact to the humanity (5:47) that we all belong to and can contribute to (5:50) worldwide problems that we have. (5:52) Now, within the US, as we all know, healthcare has been a huge issue. (5:57) And I've been very passionate about healthcare (6:00) from the word go. (6:02) As a matter of fact, some of my family members tell me (6:05) you're a pseudo-doctor also because I can prescribe medications (6:09) and then talk about a lot of the symptoms. (6:12) No, I don't prescribe, but I can try. (6:15) So I think that the interest was always there on what we can do. (6:20) So I think when I got this opportunity of Empower Pharmacy, (6:24) I was blown away by the fact that this is a compounding pharmacy (6:28) which is making personalized medicines for the people who need them the most. (6:33) And some of these medications are life-changing, (6:36) even though they are not traditional medications in a sense, (6:39) but they're very personalized: men's health, women's health, (6:43) hormone replacement therapies, and so on. (6:46) Newer areas, but it's really life-changing (6:49) for the patients who experience that. (6:52) So I realized that this personalized medication (6:54) or this particular industry will benefit (6:57) if I can go there and bring a lot of the learnings (7:01) that I've been having in the technology space (7:04) and can apply it to our patients, our providers, and our prescribers (7:09) to help them with the journey. (7:11) So I think my intent was two-way: (7:13) one, how can I help the company, (7:15) and how the company can help me in my own growth. (7:19) And both of us can help the larger problem (7:22) that the US is facing at this point of time, which is healthcare. (7:26) So that's why I chose to join. (7:28) Yeah, it makes a lot of sense and it also resonates quite well. (7:32) So we work with medical devices, (7:34) one of the industries that we work with. (7:37) And I can imagine during COVID time, people couldn't go into the hospitals. (7:42) They had to utilize the AI agents to really diagnose, (7:46) troubleshoot, triage problems without even going into the hospital. (7:50) And that was a huge impact. (7:52) So one of the times I actually had it in my LinkedIn, said: (7:57) "Save lives and create experiences with field service agents." (8:01) And then somebody said, "It's cheesy." (8:04) So at some point I removed it. (8:06) But let's talk a little bit more about taking a technology approach (8:11) into a company like this. (8:13) So for example, in the technology industry, (8:16) things are slowing down in, you know, (8:19) you can see the stock market has slowed down. (8:21) But every healthcare company I talk to, (8:24) they have 3,000—if they have 3,000 openings, (8:27) they are only able to fill in 10% of their openings. (8:31) They have so much dearth of specialists because, (8:35) you know, 60% of their workforce is retiring (8:38) and they have a lot of problems. (8:40) They are only finding generalists. (8:42) So it's a very different—is "dichotomy" the right word— (8:46) between what you see in tech and what you see in healthcare. (8:51) How does automation help with the problems (8:54) that you see within the healthcare industry? (8:58) Yeah, I think that's actually a very, very good question. (9:02) And that probably will determine (9:04) what the future landscape of jobs will look like. (9:08) I think just because the supply or the demand was very high (9:12) in the IT software industry, the supply tended to train themselves (9:16) for those needs and so on. (9:18) And now those needs are coming down, (9:20) you will have to self-adjust and make sure (9:23) what is the right demand that's going to happen in the future. (9:27) And if the demand is going to come in healthcare, (9:30) maybe some students will choose those new alternate career paths (9:34) and so on. Who knows, plumber will become the most sought-after job (9:39) at some point of time, HVAC and so on and so forth. (9:43) But I think jokes apart, to your point, yes, (9:47) the reality is talent is short, (9:49) and talent has been short in every industry that we belong to. (9:53) As a matter of fact, I come from Autodesk where, (9:57) while we were a software company, (9:59) we were dealing with construction, we were dealing with manufacturing, (10:03) we were dealing with media. (10:05) And the reality was the construction workers were hard to find. (10:10) A lot of the research and the state-of-the-survey reports (10:13) that we had done, a lot of our customers were telling us (10:17) the talent actually is their biggest problem. (10:20) Talent is the biggest challenge that they want us to solve, (10:24) and we were trying to solve that challenge through software. (10:28) So I think same is exactly what you're saying (10:31) is happening in healthcare too. (10:33) There are not enough good talent available. (10:36) There is talent available, but there's not enough good talent available. (10:40) So the question is, how do you bring the talent and the technology (10:45) and complement them to make sure that you still (10:49) can make a great combination, (10:51) which probably is a new talent? (10:53) And I think in my mind, that's probably the talent of the future. (10:58) You will get the best talent from the human IQ and EQ (11:02) that comes together. (11:03) You supplement that with the AI and the technology, (11:07) and then you get the larger or the complement of better talent (11:12) that is required in the healthcare. (11:14) So I think same is the status for our industry, (11:17) our company per se. (11:19) Take, for example, in the pharmacy industry, (11:21) you need a lot of pharmacists. (11:23) You need a lot of pharmacists right from the verification of the drugs (11:28) to verification of the orders, to taking calls (11:31) when patients call about their prescription and so on. (11:35) And pharmacist is a very unique and niche talent. (11:39) There are not enough pharmacists in the market today. (11:43) So what can you do now, thinking about a pharmacist (11:47) and supply that pharmacist with a lot of technology (11:51) that they actually can use? (11:53) So when I came in—and it's only been eight to 10 weeks (11:57) that I've been here—I realized a lot of the pharmacist bandwidth (12:02) actually is getting spent on the mundane administrative tasks (12:06) that they're doing. (12:08) So now if I compare the talent, he or she is a pharmacist (12:12) and we're asking them to scan a label, do a rework, (12:16) enter the things again, or do the corrections, (12:20) send it back to their data entry department and so on. (12:24) So the reality was the productivity was low, (12:27) and that's the problem. (12:29) If I can bring the productivity of every pharmacist up by 50%, (12:34) now you talked about the healthcare shortages, (12:37) that whole thing shrinks by 50%. (12:40) We can reduce the demand by 50% just by training our pharmacists (12:45) and amplifying their skills by technology (12:48) or supplementing them with technology—you can easily do that. (12:53) So we just started a couple of projects just in the last eight weeks, (12:58) and we have been able to bring our productivity up (13:01) by 10 to 20% already. (13:04) And a lot of that was very small stuff, (13:07) which was like those mundane things. (13:10) Why can't the trigger come from the software (13:13) rather than coming from a manual check? (13:16) Why can't things be scanned from the inventory (13:19) right at the warehouse to right where the ordering system is? (13:24) If these two systems can talk, (13:26) the pharmacist doesn't have to worry about that. (13:29) So I think for me, it's that unique skill that I bring in, (13:34) that being in the technology space, (13:36) I'm so used to finding challenges on the technology side (13:40) and the software side. (13:42) And when I come in, I notice how that knowledge can come in handy. (13:47) So yeah, I think exactly as you were saying, (13:50) we have a responsibility to make sure (13:53) that we can improve productivity by using the right technology, (13:57) supplementing the right talent, (13:59) and bringing the overall productivity up. (14:02) And as I said, we already are seeing some benefits, (14:05) but I'm sure if you and I were speaking (14:08) in the next six months, I would have gained a lot more efficiency. (14:13) And we're looking at everything from pre-verification (14:16) to post-verification to all the life cycle (14:19) of the order management, how much more we can do. (14:23) So I think that to me is a great way by which we can help the talent (14:28) which is existing in the market. (14:31) And then there's an altogether different field (14:33) on how you can now bring up the new talent and so on. (14:38) And that's a separate field that we can talk about. (14:41) Yeah, if you remember—which you will—nurses used to stand (14:46) and count in their thing, IV drops, (14:49) you know, how many drops go through in a minute or something. (14:53) All that was changed by technology, right? (14:56) So nurses don't have to do that, (14:59) and they can actually spend time in the empathy, (15:02) in novelty and, you know, high-level governance stuff. (15:07) So that's exactly is going to happen all throughout. (15:11) And people like you who are with critical thinking skills— (15:15) it's one, I think technology gave you that critical thinking skills (15:20) and that you're taking it into another industry and applying that. (15:25) So, you know, these mundane tasks can be automated (15:29) so people can focus on empathy, novelty, (15:32) and the high-level governance that humans need to do (15:36) for them to be in command over whatever automation it is. (15:41) It can be AI, it can be the IV drops that we talked about, (15:45) any of that, right? (15:47) Absolutely. (15:49) You know, talking about that critical thinking, (15:52) you probably are going to be seeing, and especially in healthcare, (15:57) in your field, 60% of the people are retiring, right? (16:01) So the people coming in are generalists. (16:05) We are not able to fill in the roles, and it is impossible. (16:10) And to your point earlier, it's impossible to find good people. (16:15) So what do you—you write a lot of "Tuesday Tips." (16:19) I don't want that here because that will make this question very easy. (16:24) But if I am one of those people who are not qualified today (16:29) and they got rejected from one of those roles, (16:32) what can I do to improve my critical thinking skills (16:36) so the next time I do an interview, I get picked? (16:40) Yeah, I think that's actually a good question. (16:44) I think that has remained valid for all these years. (16:48) It's even more prominent right now when the talent shortages are so high. (16:53) But the reality is that many times (16:55) we are only focusing on the technical skills that we bring in. (17:00) And I think those were important, and they will remain important. (17:04) But the reality is, with all the large amount of information (17:08) that we all have available, you should also know (17:11) how to use the ecosystem a lot better (17:14) compared to what we have done in the past. (17:17) Now, I think if you think about, whether it is pharmacist, (17:21) technician, customer service person in my industry, (17:25) or for that matter in the software industry, (17:28) a lot of the talent that comes in early (17:31) used to be given 12 weeks of training (17:34) to give them all the SOP, all the stuff that happens and so on. (17:39) We have been able to shrink all of that 12 weeks (17:42) to four weeks, two weeks and so on. (17:45) And the reason for that is because now (17:48) there is so much information available (17:51) that I can supply my starting talent (17:54) with a lot of information at their fingertips through bots and so on, (17:59) which could be internal-facing and so on. (18:03) All the time in training— (18:05) So I think same thing is true for a lot of the talent (18:09) coming from outside: that you may not have the practical exposure, (18:14) but if you spend the right time on the internet (18:17) and use the right AI tools, there's so much that you can parse through. (18:22) There's so much that you can learn. (18:24) Like, I did not know about the healthcare space a lot (18:28) just before coming, but within 10 weeks, (18:31) I've been using ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and so on. (18:36) And you can't believe the amount of knowledge I have gained (18:40) in just these last 10 weeks. (18:42) It's probably more than four years of degrees (18:46) because the information was so sparsely available and so on. (18:51) So I think my recommendation to those individuals (18:55) is that they can actually get onto a lot of these tools (18:59) and do a lot more research. (19:01) Think a lot more about what prompts they can ask, (19:05) because there is information available. (19:07) The question is, how are you asking for that information? (19:12) And believe it or not—forget the talent that has not come in— (19:17) but even the talent that actually comes in, (19:20) I noticed that there is lack of urgency (19:23) and lack of initiative with these individuals (19:27) who think of AI usage but only for casual purposes. (19:32) They're not using it for formal purposes like training, (19:36) like coding, right? (19:38) Think about a coder, right? (19:40) People are able to use a lot of cloud code (19:44) and build applications which were not even possible (19:48) just a year ago or so. (19:50) Same way, I think if somebody is coming in the healthcare space, (19:55) if they could just spend two weeks of critical time, (19:59) very focused time on the AI, asking the right questions, (20:04) researching the right topics, going deeper (20:07) into certain facets of those topics and so on, (20:11) and then come back, I'm sure they'll be a lot more prepared (20:15) for those interviews and those opportunities. (20:18) Because the specialization—there's so much information available (20:23) on the market and now it is becoming so much more accessible. (20:28) So I think it is all up to us, our own intent. (20:32) So yes, use that for fun stuff, (20:35) but use it for real stuff also, where you can train yourself, (20:39) you can challenge yourself, you can learn yourself, (20:43) you can do real-time projects with those AI tools (20:47) at your fingertips and so on and so forth. (20:51) But I think all of that is possible. (20:53) I couldn't say this five years ago; (20:56) you will have to come, make your hands dirty. (21:00) And I will always say on-the-job training (21:03) is the best form of training, which probably it still is, (21:07) but I think enough virtual paths have been created (21:11) where you can actually make your hands dirty (21:14) without literally putting your things in a mud. (21:18) So we are really hiring for the attitude, right? (21:23) Because the aptitude can be gained as you're working (21:27) and utilizing these AI tools to just say, (21:31) "Hey, I am learning about this. Help me, question me, (21:35) or make me a better person or skilled with this thing." (21:40) Whatever the topic is—making apple pie— (21:43) is a very clever way to utilize. (21:46) So definitely. (21:48) So when it comes to change management, (21:51) do you see healthcare to be slow when compared to tech (21:56) in terms of change management? (21:58) Or are you seeing at this point there's so much investment (22:03) that's happening in healthcare? (22:05) So I'm doubting that, but I would love to hear your perspective (22:09) on where you're seeing differences. (22:12) Yeah, I think in general, the regulated industries (22:16) tend to move slower, right? (22:18) I mean healthcare, financials, and so on and so forth, (22:23) because of the inherent risks which are present to those industries. (22:28) And we are no different, being HIPAA compliant, (22:32) privacy, PHI, PII—all of that is critical, right? (22:36) So in general, there is a lack of pace or slowness (22:40) in terms of the adaptation and change management in general. (22:45) But having said that, I also will say, (22:48) it also depends upon the area of change that you're talking about. (22:53) Because many times I notice the companies or organizations (22:57) who tend to be slow also want to shield behind the reason (23:02) or an excuse that they're not moving fast enough (23:06) because of this regulation and so on. (23:09) Not saying that you have to break those regulations, (23:13) but the reality is there are a lot of internal things (23:17) that you can change without touching the PII, (23:20) without touching the HIPAA, without touching the PHI. (23:25) So why there is a lack of change on the, let's say, (23:29) infrastructure upgradation that you have to do? (23:33) There's no reason for you to not upgrade infrastructure and so on. (23:38) So I think that's where the leadership becomes very critical. (23:43) We as leaders have to make sure— (23:46) it doesn't matter which industry we belong to— (23:49) have to make sure that we are able to paint the larger picture, (23:54) paint that better vision that we are trying to create (23:58) for our individuals and our employees on where we are taking them, (24:03) what problems they're facing today and how we make those problems disappear. (24:09) As long as you can make sure that people who are going to go through the change, (24:14) you can get ahead of the resistance curve, I think change is possible. (24:19) But it depends upon the leader to comprehend that resistance (24:23) and understand what are those underlying reasons of those resistance (24:28) and how you can make sure you have a better world (24:32) that you can take them to. (24:35) So I think ultimately it is up to the leader to pick the right sponsors of change. (24:41) You again do the usual change management techniques: (24:45) pick people who are going to be your supporters or change agents, (24:50) and pick people who are going to be dragging those change (24:54) and really attack or confront them with what those resistances are (24:59) and how we can help them overcome that resistance. (25:03) So I think the principles will remain the same, (25:06) but I urge lot more leaders to listen closely to their employees (25:11) as to what that resistance really is. (25:14) Many times, I think leaders are trying to make change (25:18) just because they think change is great, (25:21) but just because they think doesn't mean change is great. (25:25) You have to make sure change is great from an employee's perspective too. (25:31) It resonates quite well. (25:33) Essentially what we are saying is a leader's role (25:37) is changing from being a taskmaster to being a role model. (25:42) So, and because they have to model that critical thinking and that alertness, (25:48) because a lot of times, when you use some of these AI tools, (25:52) they are fed with what it's fed with. (25:55) So you have to still use the alert (25:58) and you put it on your critical thinking cap (26:01) and be the skeptic and start questioning which one is right, (26:05) which one is not right. (26:07) And a lot of that role model comes from the leaders themselves. (26:12) And a shameless plug to the "Beyond Break-Fix" book. (26:17) Yeah, we have a chapter dedicated to it, right? (26:21) And you're right, whether it is PII or whether it is HIPAA, (26:26) whether it is any of that stuff— (26:28) all of that can be augmented today with AI agents. (26:33) And all of it can be—anything can be augmented. (26:37) So there is no excuse to not bring down that onboarding time, (26:42) like you said, down to 40% of what it used to be (26:46) or 20% of what it used to be. (26:49) It's a little scary that every talent who comes in today— (26:54) for example, in our company, we have four times AI agents. (26:59) So even if you hire them, they are a manager of AI agents (27:03) right off the bat, right? (27:05) So you are managing a hybrid workforce. (27:08) You're managing your "carbon employees" (27:11) and you're managing your "silicon employees." (27:14) So in that realm, how do you think traditional companies (27:19) have to look at this level of automation (27:22) for them to be relevant 10 years down the road? (27:26) Yeah, no, I think, again, in my mind, (27:29) because the companies don't change, it's the leaders who will change the company. (27:35) So I think the fundamental of this actually starts with the leaders. (27:40) I noticed that a lot of leaders today come and talk about, (27:44) "Hey, we all need to be AI native, we all need to be AI aware, (27:49) we all need to be very deep into AI." (27:52) But what does it mean? (27:54) The moment you dig deeper, a lot of the leaders themselves (27:58) are not dabbling their hands with the AI. (28:02) If you don't role-model the AI usage in your own company (28:06) by you being the AI user first, (28:09) then you can't expect your managers, your supervisors, your directors (28:14) to be AI aware either, right? (28:16) And that actually happened to me. (28:18) In the last 10 weeks, I've been using a lot of ChatGPT (28:22) and other tools in my own life. (28:25) And the moment I started sending presentations built by AI, (28:29) my team actually started feeling uncomfortable: (28:33) "Hey, if you could make this presentation, why couldn't I make this presentation?" (28:38) And they started going deeper and asking for that (28:42) because I sent a presentation on a topic I don't even know, (28:46) but it felt like I knew a lot about it (28:49) because I could gain a lot of that knowledge from AI tools. (28:54) So I think for me, it's very critical (28:57) for all of us to really start thinking AI native. (29:01) We have to start thinking it's the human plus machine (29:05) which have to coexist going forward, (29:08) whether it's the managing that you're talking about, (29:11) whether it is as a peer, right? (29:14) You could be developing, AI could be testing, or vice-versa. (29:19) Or you could be using humans for the empathy and the software skills (29:24) to communicate those messages. (29:26) A lot of the work that you're carrying to your client (29:30) could actually have been done by AI. (29:33) You are the presenter, you are the empathizer, you are the connector, (29:38) but you're not the "doer" of that work. (29:41) In the past, all of those roles were so separate (29:45) that you could do all the way from writing those things (29:49) to presenting those things and so on. (29:52) So I think we all have to get comfortable with that. (29:56) And the reality is productivity will go up dramatically. (30:01) I mean, think about the support world. (30:03) I was reading an article just last week (30:06) where it said that 60% of the support jobs are down (30:10) compared to just last one year. (30:12) Not saying that the overall support roles are down— (30:16) support roles are still up because overall companies are there— (30:21) but the same company is able to do a lot more (30:25) with 40% of the agents that they had in the past. (30:29) So the reality is that the workforce will shift. (30:33) So are you investing in those future-forward insulating areas or not? (30:38) And so I think as leaders we have to start identifying (30:42) what is possible to be done with AI, (30:45) where it has to be human plus AI, and where it has to be human only. (30:50) Because there are certain cases, like in my own case, (30:54) when a patient calls and they have questions about a medication, (30:59) they do not want to talk to AI because that's where they have a concern. (31:04) They want to really make sure that this particular thing (31:08) will not infect me or give me another thing. (31:12) At that time, telling them "press one, press two"—it's very uncomfortable. (31:18) So I think we have to make choices for which roles (31:22) are right for a human interaction versus where we can do the stuff. (31:27) As I was saying, the prescription can be scanned and processed (31:32) and that can be fully automated—the patient doesn't care (31:36) because that area is not impacting them personally speaking. (31:41) But when somebody is talking to them (31:44) and talking about the after-effects of that medication, (31:48) then you need the human and so on. (31:51) So I think as leaders, we have to become a lot smarter (31:55) about bifurcating our departments into every single department: (32:00) marketing, sales, consulting. (32:03) Every single department has to think what all is possible (32:07) from an AI perspective and what all can be trained. (32:11) And then we will have to make sure (32:14) that we are all becoming a lot more AI native (32:18) in terms of our own trainings and in terms of our own usage. (32:23) And then also, I think we have a responsibility as leaders (32:27) not to just take care of the employees that we have, (32:31) but also the future talent that is coming in (32:35) so that we can show them the light. What are those newer areas? (32:40) Because just like when the internet revolution happened, (32:44) newer roles got created. (32:46) I'm sure there'll be a lot more newer roles (32:49) that will get created in the AI. (32:51) I'm not here to make a prediction whether AI will take away jobs, (32:56) but the reality is that there will be new jobs that will get created. (33:01) We have to be ready for that. (33:03) So I think we all will have to make sure (33:06) that we are contributing from our perspectives (33:10) to move the company forward, to move our employees forward, (33:15) and to move the future talent forward also. (33:19) Yeah, thank you so much for that. (33:21) You and I can talk for another hour on this topic, (33:25) but we try to keep the experience dialogue to sizable chunks. (33:30) So I'm going to pause the recording for now (33:34) because I think the biggest lesson that people can take away (33:38) is to be a role model and give it a try. (33:42) Try to be a role model, try to get the bite-sizes of how to use AI (33:47) and automation into the system so we can alleviate (33:51) some of these concerns in healthcare. (33:55) Thank you so much, Jaspreet, for your time. (33:59) Thank you so much for being here. (34:03) Thank you so much for having me, it was wonderful. (34:07) Thanks a lot. Previous Next

Speaker: Jaspreet Singh with Kay Narayanan Beyond the Shortage: Scaling Healthcare Support with Agentic AI | Jaspreet Singh & KAY Speaker: Jaspreet Singh with Kay Narayanan February 18, 2026 Previous Item Next Item In this episode of Experience Dialogue , Ascendo AI CEO Kay Narayanan speaks with Jaspreet Singh, a seasoned customer leadership executive with over 30 years of experience at global technology companies like Microsoft and Autodesk. The conversation explores the growing talent shortage in healthcare and medical device support, and how AI can help address it—not by replacing experts, but by amplifying their capabilities. They discuss how automating routine tasks can boost specialist productivity, the emerging hybrid workforce of human experts and AI agents, and why leadership must embrace an AI-native mindset to drive transformation in highly regulated healthcare environments.

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Learn when customer playbooks are most effective and how to design adaptive, evolving strategies that improve support outcomes and customer experience Customer Playbooks When is it useful and How to Create One that Evolves | Transcription Welcome to the experience dialogue. These interactions. We pick a hard topic. That doesn't have a straightforward answer. We then bring in speakers who have been there? Seen bears and approached them in very different ways. This is a space for healthy disagreements and discussions, but respectfully, just by the nature of how we have conceived this, you will see passionate voices and opinions. Friends. Having a dialogue thereby even interrupting each other or finishing each other's sentences. At the end of each dialogue, we want you and our audience to leave with valuable insights and approaches that you can try at your workplace and continue the discourse in our slack channels. The topic for today. Customers' success playbooks. When is it useful and how best to create one that is evolving? Customer success. The playbook is a series of actions that are meant to be executed by customer-facing team members to achieve the desired outcome for your customer. If a series of past events can be delegated to a group of users at different measures for the customer journey to help them. Adopt your product successfully when the, but when is customer success, Playbook is useful and how best to create one that is evolving, that's why we're going to talk about. I am. So privileged to be joining our introduction, our speaker Emilia She's a Management Consultant board advisor author, educator, and partnering with companies, to create scalable growth, and metrics, driven, customer programs, from onboarding to adoption, renewals, and advocacy. She's also the founder of a management consulting firm. Her area of expertise is building high-impact and measurable full lifecycle customer programs across the voice of the customer, renewals growth operations, customer education offshore BPO support, team management csat, and NPC initial initiatives. So, you can see it's such a breadth and the depth that she brings to the table. She is part of Gainsight top seven influential women in customer success. And as being awarded the Stevie award for customer service, so much pleasure to welcome you to this speaker event, Emilia. Emilia - Thank you for having me on your show today. Ramki. Ramki - Awesome. So just to get started I've seen your goal of the Playbook from your standpoint. The way I understand this, we need to arm CX teams with tools to manage risk and mitigate them, right? Right. So you had recently written about enabling more channels to use data to answer questions raised in those channels. When would you enable more channels can you comment on them? Emilia - Yeah. Absolutely. I believe you should start raising channels as soon as you possibly can and what does that even mean? It means ensuring that your product team, customer success, and support are aligned. So once you create a Customer Journey that everyone adheres to, and thought that is the customer Journey because remember it's not like this, it's not like this, it goes up and down all the time. So it's really important that you identify the key opportunities to engage with the client throughout that journey and understand what is the best channel to meet that client sometimes it's customer success with the more proactive and sometimes it's customer support and that is often reactive, but But the best way I can describe it is something like for anyone who owns a Tesla there no keys. There's no customer support per se. There is an app on your phone and that is how you engage with the app and the car telling you when you need to proactively engage with their customer service. Now, that is meeting a client at the client's need not when you want to engage with the client. So that's just the best. Well, you need to have channels where the client will engage with you, in a way that works for them and sometimes it's in different ways. Sometimes they want phones, sometimes they want to chat slack. So really understanding the client's journey and their needs is when you should start engaging with the client through various channels. Ramki - That's perfect. So, you kind of covered the channels from bread, and then I hope support or services to look. Proactive, you also talked about data, right? When you save data, what data are you referring to? Emilia - I'm talking about the data that you can pull from your client’s usage of the product and actions, there are so many products out there that you can interact with your product team with Customer support success sales to see, where is the Klein engaging most and where are they dropping off. So, Able to look at data by cohort. And I mean, when I say cohort, I mean by segment or by quarter, when did they sign up, maybe a new product change was implemented that increased churn or mitigated it. So that kind of data will help you better understand how to serve your customers and what are the key moments in that customer Journey that are leading to growth if you those key moments, maybe it's a decision maker, downloading a report, or scheduling a report to come to their inbox or maybe it's getting a decision maker to come to an executive business meeting, those kinds of things that they're proving that you have more adoption and engagement with the client. Then you should be using that data to make decisions for your product moving forward. Ramki - I love the way you're talking with the data, right? You don't typically either talk about all the internal events and we are, we talk about external enmity. When the customers onboard it, it is the first 90-day experience. First, 30 days of experience is kind of a thing, right? I think what you're talking about is this? Yes, you want to look at the customer journey and also see the main events that might be happening. Like product announcement products, upgrade product changes, new modules, you're trying to connect both of them and then, and then see from the customer angle. So, have you seen success or support in making this call and making the decision individually? Jointly? How does this work between success and support or I guess? Emilia - Yeah, I will tell you that in the times when one of the teams has made a decision and not informed the other, there has been a breakdown in the client experience and when I was a vice president of customer success at a previous company that had of making a product change decision failed to tell support and success. And you can imagine what happened the next morning, my WhatsApp, my cell phone, my text email exploding, and that product leader was fired almost immediately afterward because there was a breakdown. And so, what I recommend is making sure product operations, success, and support are continuously aligned with the Customer Journey, especially when you're making any product changes, communicating with the clients, and how you're servicing them. If there are any changes you need to ensure that first, your internal team feels confident to speak to those changes and then notify your customers proactively, especially if it's a massive change, you can't just announce it. You need to announce it leading up to that change, just like for anyone who uses Google. I know they're Some changes to their services. We've been getting emails about it for months so it won't be a big surprise when the change comes. Ramki - That's right. Because yes, it’s not like, depending on the changes I assume, right? Some changes you can make short early. I guess. Big changes where you need some internal time and you're saying think of it from a customer angle and not what you've done a prod complete is not enough, there is a big difference between product complete versus Product consumption. Yes, awesome, awesome. So, you mention getting feedback from all interactions. um When you say all interactions, I would love to understand what you mean by them and how you act on them. What does this mean to you? Emilia - I will give an example to illustrate an answer for you. This past week. I was stuck in my stripe account so growth molecules we have a customer Success Academy. For training, I needed to make a change in my stripe account. And the support experience asked me, would you like to chat with us? Or would you like a callback? And the Callback will be in 3 to 5 minutes. The Callback was in about 10 seconds and not only did the woman help me and stay on the phone until I was successful with my change immediately afterward an email was sent to me explaining exactly what we went through. Should I need to make a change again? And then not long after I received a support survey with a simple question. Well, 1, how was your child's experience, and 2, you did you, did you complete what you intended to complete through this support experience? I was blown away that I was able to do much in just a few minutes and that is an experience of a very proactive successful supposed support experience that you should be measuring and ensuring that the clients are happy because I could have been telling you right now, very different story. So that is one of the best in class. They're not only ensuring that the client is successful with the product. But also afterward, confirming that yes, I agreed with what the support agent had closed the ticket with. Ramki - Yeah, it's complete. Close the loop. I think what you're saying is too few things I can see, right? One, when you had the issue and reached out to them, they kind of expected it. What you were going through. , they unloaded already understood even before coming to you unassuming, right? That's one. So, he understood what the issues were too. I think they were working with you and they kind of set the right expectations and beat the expectations, right? Five minutes versus ten seconds is kind of a thing. So, they are, the first response time or quick response, time was the first thing. A, when you have a problem at least there is somebody that helps you. I think. that second one. The third one is when they were on it, they didn't make you repeat all the problems. Again, they kind of understood. They were well prepared for it and you are really in there to solve the problem at that time and that changed the game, right? And I guess closing the loop did solve the problem? Make sure that you are good and with cap problems, how do you get back? I think that's your problem with that. Fantastic, fantastic. So let's talk about switching the gear right now, Playbook assessment. So, give some examples of how support metrics are tied into this kind of Playbook: what to do, when to do it, and who is the best student? I know it's kind of a broader thing, you can split it into multiple things. So I thought I was just asking a broad question. Emilia - Absolutely. Well, I will start with just breaking it down and singing. Before you build a Playbook, you need to ensure that you understand the company, the company culture, who is serving the client, and then the client's needs. And if you're building a customer success Playbook, without looking at the customer support experiences, well, you're missing out on the key moments in the customer's Journey because a customer's journey is not just adoption and growth Shirley throughout the customer's experience. Even product LED companies that have no support and are helping the clients. Through the product, never talking to a human per se or support ticket, they need to ensure that they're including the support experience and I love examples. I love storytelling. So I'll give you an example: Ticketmaster. I recently had an experience with them. They don't have support. There's no way to get a hold of them. The tickets disappeared from my account after the concert was canceled due to covid. And I was never able to retrieve that money, and I've never been able to get ahold of them. That is the worst customer experience. I've probably ever had, and it's because they built a customer success Playbook without assessing the client's needs first. So, before you build a Playbook, and sure, you understand, how do I enable my team to use the book. What do they need to support our customers? And secondly, what does the customer need to be successful? And if there are challenges in that Journey how can we support them successfully? So they're not on LinkedIn life or Twitter or other social media saying negative things about their experiences with your product. So that's why assessments are so important. When you're Building A playbook, you need to understand the employee experience of the product. Experience and the customer's experience and build a Playbook to enable all three to work together seamlessly. Ramki - I love the way you connect because a lot of times we just think one or the other and how you have to connect them. I mean when you talk about it I was thinking of a recent example, I was in Costa Rica kind of, me and my daughter. We were doing some kind of an event. Of course, the weather didn't cooperate. We had two back-to-back events. First, one got done, some more Wee, Man. Is it true with so much pouring rain? And with a lot of lightning and thunder. So we decided we didn't want to do it and the challenge was for them, The Print office and the back office operations forces, and customer support. We're kind of originally disconnected. They did not know how to handle it. So, they have to make a lot of calls. They understood why they wanted to do the right thing, but they did not have the processes in the Playbook to manage that, while I was talking to them in life and then trying to figure out a solution etcetera. So finally, they came up with a very convoluted way and cut system. But everything got handled the next today that they had no processes to put in, from what you're talking about, I mean the internal person employee they wanted to do the right thing and they were real because it's your cue point. They also did not want to get different, not that I was going to give you any type of. You've got to be very sincere, um they wanted a good review. They wanted to help out the Back office. They also wanted to do the writing but things went all not connected. I can see how you're talking about when you do these things. You have thought about customers and employees in the process of connecting. Connecting them all. Exactly. So, I know you are a fan of the customer journey? I mean I'm just looking at your post and activities. It's fantastic. Tell me. Why does it matter in terms of mapping them, Using a mirror as doing a risk assessment, like CSM checking for a few times? how you do these things. Can you please elaborate? Emilia - Yes. So the way we do customer Journey building for clients is we bring them together so we bring together leaders, maybe up to eight people in a room on mirrors. Zoom if it's remote and then on sticky paper and big whiteboards. And if it's in a room and we're all together and what we do there is we map out the customer's journey and we include the employee. What does it take from a product? Whether it's a technology or a human touch with the client and what we have found over and over again. Are there a lot of crunchy conversations between product sales marketing, customer success, and support before we can build that Journey that everyone will align with so it isn't it is not a one-time Workshop? First, we survey all of the employees that are engaged in touching the customer experience. Then we gather that data and present it to the executives to mentally prepare them for building that customer Journey from there. We host a collaborative Workshop. It can last anywhere from two to four hours depending on the complexity of the product and then from there we go back and we gather all that data and create a beautiful Journey for them with steps for churn opportunity and growth opportunity. And from there we then present it to them. And from once they have the sign-off, then we can go and start building a Playbook on, all right? Well, if these are churn opportunities, how are we going to build battle cards for your employees to be enabled to mitigate Their growth opportunities? What are the questions? Your employees should be asking so that they can expand with upsells and cross-sells renewals with more seats. Etc. So that's the power of a Customer Journey. It's, it's kind of like me, suggesting you go see a heart doctor and I'm not a doctor and I don't know any. No, I have no idea why you're breathing heavily, it could be something related to your lungs for example. So, you want to make sure you understand the opportunities throughout and that the whole company from the top down is aligned on that before you start building and that's why I believe in customers. Journey mapping is so important. Ramki - This is fantastic. I'm also getting some live questions by the way, um this pretty, similar topic. So I'm going to just interject an Oscar that so when we talk about these playbooks at what Point, do you stop to assess how effective the Playbook is? And from there. How do you move ahead? Emilia - Yes. So when I let customer success at my last company and several of them that I've been leading, I've always reflected on the customer journey in the playbooks on a quarterly Cadence. And it's not just me, it's in a group of people where we sit down, and we look at the product map and what's changed? We look at the support tickets where they're the most challenging with the product, where's The NPS csat, wavering, and from there we update the Playbook and we get feedback from the teams as well. Because maybe we've rolled out a new way to do an executive Business review and it's at an earlier point in the customer journey. All right. Well, then we need to change the customer journey to move that Executive review earlier. And then we need to ensure that the Team has enough time to roleplay and access. The new questions were asking them to use or to feel comfortable role-playing with any rub Junctions to the new pricing, for example. So, I highly recommend at least quarterly Cadence is the Playbook the customer Journey, supporting the customer experience and the company's revenue goals. That's my advice for times a year. Isn't a lot to ask for when You think of the impact you can have on the company and the client, you'll always have a regular Cadence help site. Ramki - I mean if you just put it down and then come back to visit after say, one near 67 Monday becomes, you probably will put a lot more effort to start all over again because you don't understand what this Continuum quarterly has. It sounds real, fantastic. When you talk about the Playbook like how does one Define it? The voice of the customer in the Playbook, right? How important is product feedback to support the voice of customers? can you comment on that like the voice of customer Playbook? Emilia - Absolutely. So there's a school of thought that says NPS is irrelevant and I agree and PS was created by a CEO at a car company. And then two professors from Harvard were hired too. To analyze customer experience and create this NPS score. Now, investors, I believe do indeed, put too much focus on it. But what NPS does or customer satisfaction scores, they're different. So, you want to make sure that you're asking csat customer satisfaction after customer support experience and NPS on a more regular Cadence across the specific Target segments. For example, regardless of what the score is, the voice of the customer is important and you need a Playbook or a way to address any challenges that are uncovered. So at one of the companies, we work with and created a voice of customer program, we added all of the opportunities to experience the voice of the customer into a Slack Channel. And then on their Confluence, we created a guide. So if its product a related product has X number Of days or hours to reply. And here are suggested replies. If it's support related, this is how to address it if its customer success Etc. And through that experience, we were able to expose the voice of the customer to the executives and the employees. And suddenly the culture shifted in the organization because the voice of the customer was being heard now and the customers whom I. Because I wanted to make sure I was diagnosing and delivering the correct experience. They were so happy. They thought that one person said to me wow I thought my reply would just go into some black hole and to have a human being called. I genuinely care about my feedback, I'm taken back. So I suggest you don't just put the voice of the customer program together and say you have an NPS or see Don't do something with it. There's technology out there for you to quickly be able to evaluate and then act upon. Ramki - that's such a wonderful thing that we talked about like, for example, within Ascendo what we have done is to your point. Yeah, NPS has been a very long-standing one. Simple number. You can just get it kind, but the interactions are not at that time, right? It is that you don't want the feeling of the moment, you want to collect the feeling of the customer. So, we have Modeled, which detects that type of sentiment continuously and also on an aggregated basis. All these things are automatically done and it's given as an alert so that people can take action. So, you're not listening as I have to do this and I'm going to get and then I come back, this happens as a natural course of your day-to-day execution. Our customers are loving it. And, it's just taking the whole voice of customers to the next level. I have another question for you on this, right? um Some questions, the customer success, our support teams should be asking before they start to create the Playbook, right? One is, do you have a Playbook? Yes, you have to vacate. It's like, if people, there are some customers, early growth customers they may not have a Playbook. Would you just talk From something or do you, how do you what type of question that you may want to ask to start creating their playbook? Emilia - I would start by experiencing the customer experience. So, going in listening to calls with, from an onboarding perspective, looking at the support tickets, how they're being answered, what is the current state of affairs, and then actually interviewing the people on the front line working with customers. Honoré daily Cadence. So, looking at understanding the customer experience, looking at the data and any processes and systems that have been put into place, and building that assessment to understand the customer experience. And where's the company headed? I've seen companies create products that the customers didn't even rate high on customer needs but the CEO insisted that that was the future of the company. And It flopped drastically. So you need to, put your agenda aside and use data and the voice of the customer and your employees, the voice of the employees who are on the front line to make these decisions. So that would be my advice for this question. Ramki - Awesome, awesome. I'm going to switch a little bit. So we talked about the customer Journey. Then we went into how all the different experiences have to tie together. Then we went into the playbook and kept it. Let's talk about change management, , I mean, that's one of your passions in that topic. Talk about change management. How are they connected to measure the value? Emilia - Yeah, I don't have the exact stats but what I can tell you is changes hard and companies waste Millions. If not billions of changes sunsetting systems, implementing systems, only to experience failure. And so, transformational change with products is really hard because we're humans, we like habits, we like safety, and we fear whether it's our jobs that will fail using the new products, it may feel uncomfortable, it may not feel like it's the right decision. So prepare your employees and explain what's in it. For me it is really important and one of our clients recently hired us to do change management. Current workshop and out of that experience, I better understood doing things like breakouts. Letting people talk about the change in their fears, what they understand, the change to be, and then really ensuring that they understand what's in it for me. Because again, as humans we not only fear it but we want to know why are you doing this? Like, well will it reduce the number of employees you're going to have, is it going to have more work to mine? Wait, what are you doing with this change? That will make me more productive. So, if you put change management with that, if you implement it with that perspective and you give people time to practice, to feel confident with the changes, you will be so much more successful. And that's why we offer these workshops and why we build these playbooks to help understand, okay? This is how we used to do it. This is how we're going to do it. And here's why right? So, being able to give people time to absorb the changes is a really important part of transformational change. Ramki - Yeah, I kind of agree with you disagree with, I mean, this is such an important thing. It is not just listening and building the Playbook and keeping it current really? And a course in and to adapt yourself, people want to do this, right? They just don't want to have to do it, you want to create a Men where they want to do this. And when that happens, the magic happens. The customers get better, the experience gets better, support experience, get better. So um I think we are kind of coming to a kind of a toward the end of this, Emilia, anything else that you want to add a comment? So the team. Emilia - Yeah, I would say, don't skip out on bringing your team together for alignment, and don't assume that everyone at your company understands what the other groups are doing. This is one of the reasons we're often brought in teams working in silos. There's a breakdown in communication internally, which means your employees aren't happy, which means your customer experience is poor. So ensuring that your team's not only are in the loop of what's happening but enabling them with playbooks and technology that will help us proactively serve them is important, just giving them more work or announcing that we're adopting new technology or new playbook is Bound for failure. So we want to make sure they're part of the decision. They feel confident with it and they've had time to practice it on a regular Cadence because if you don't practice the skill, you quickly use it, especially if you're just doing quarterly reviews. For example, once in a while, you need to practice the Also give your employees time to absorb and practice. Ramki - Absolutely. I think it's all not just about learning, it's also putting the things into practice, right? And that's exactly what we worked with us in, do we bring such metrics? It makes it easier from a support perspective for customers to see them right on the leaderboard and the execution of the operational theme so they all can make those changes. So, thank you very much, Emily. This is Fantastic. Fantastic discussion, just for the audience. If you have any questions, always visit. You can also see it on Lincoln Life. Please feel free to contact us on our website. I look forward to having more of such dialogue in the future. Thank you. All. Emilia - Thanks for having me. Bye bye. Previous Next

7634ea8b-1c0a-49fb-a06c-3f6842c3edf6 Knowledge Intelligence with Ascendo AI

Discover how AI is revolutionizing the future of field service in this exclusive interview with Maureen Azzato, Portfolio Director at Worldwide Business Research and Producer of Field Service USA. Learn about the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities in AI-driven service operations, straight from one of the industry’s most influential voices. Discover how AI is revolutionizing the future of field service with Maureen Azzato | Transcription Hi Maureen, it's a pleasure to have you join us today for the Asindo AI Experience Dialogue Podcast. Usually this particular podcast, what we do is it's just a conversation and it comes up with a lot of passion. So we bring in passionate speakers like you and we're talking over each other, just like how friends are having a conversation. And it's a big message for AI in service and you are doing Field Service USA. I loved when you say that you are the producer of Field Service USA, so welcome. Thank you, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here, yes. And as the producer, I know it sounds like a Hollywood role, but as the producer, my role is to create the program. I do a lot of research, we develop the program, we come up with a topics based on what service practitioners and some vendors in the community tell us is needed, where their focus is, where their interests lie, where the next five years, where do they wanna be? And based on that research, we put together the program every year and it's based on interviews with about 50 service leaders as well as about a dozen vendors. And then we also have a more qualitative research that we do here, obviously we're called Worldwide Business Research and we have a big research arm as well. So I rely very much on the information that we generate here to build a very meaningful and relevant, right? We want it to be as relevant as possible to where service practitioners are. So yeah, so I'm really excited about the program, we're only three weeks away, so. That's right, it's only three weeks away and you've been doing this for five, six years, Maureen, and you've seen things are changing over a period of time. What is changing this year? Yeah, I think there's been a huge focus on AI, of course, over the past couple of years, right? I think ChatGPT kind of, when they came on to the scene, everything was more focused on sort of knowledge capture, knowledge management, and I think also internally using AI to become more efficient, more effective on their internal operations. I think what we're gonna start to see this year is a more outward look, sort of how can we use AI to solve real customer problems, right? What are the best use cases to do that? And I think we're gonna see a lot more, a deeper look at AI for real solution enablement on the customer side. Yeah, so one of the things that you're exactly right, service leaders are looking for is consistency, safety, quality, and efficiency, productivity, all of that, right? So an AI sits right in the middle. Within AI, service leaders are looking at use cases and you have covered a whole lot of use cases across the entire spectrum in three days. So can you speak a little bit more about what AI specific topics that you're covering over the period of three days, Marie? Sure, sure. And I think, Kay, as we were saying sort of offline when we spoke a little bit a few minutes ago, is AI is really not just this one thing that sits on the side of your service menu, right? It's being integrated into everything we do. As consumers, as well as service practitioners. So it's hard to extrapolate AI and just talk about it as sort of this standalone thing, but it is running through, the theme is running through the whole event. But I can highlight a few things that we have going that I think will capture people's imagination, if you will. For example, on day one, we have a workshop by Katie Diaz, who is with Schneider Electric, and she's gonna talk about how to maximize service profit in the area of AI. Of course, there's been more pressure on service organizations to deliver more profit as there's a little more inflation and some trouble markers in the economy where people might not be spending money on, as much money on new equipment. So they want their equipment to last even longer. So that's a great thing for a service organization to hear. And service, I think, is also getting credit now for being a profit generator. So I think that's gonna be really interesting. On day two, we have a panel on taking AI- Hey, I just wanted to interrupt you. Before you go to day two, I think you are exactly right. That's this entire thing about profit generation. We did a research recently and we noticed that product revenues are tapering, but actually service revenues are shooting up and you are exactly right with respect to the profitability. And again, AI sits right in the middle of that profitability to enable reduced downtime, to make sure that preventative maintenance is happening right on time by reducing labor costs, by reducing material costs. All of that will increase the profitability and the extension of the asset in the install base. So you're right on. Sorry for interrupting. Please go on to day two. I just was like, brr, brr. No, but you're absolutely, yeah. And it's definitely, and I also managed the event in Europe and the same themes are coming up there because now the economy is even more, a little compressed, right? And a little more concerns about hyperinflation and what's happening. And service is kind of coming up and being recognized as the heroes really in profit. So it's nice because they work so hard. So it's nice to get the enterprise credit, right? As an important department within enterprises. So yeah, it's great. Yeah, yeah. Please go on to day two. You were speaking about day two, yeah. And I'll come back. We are doing the case study showcases for our AI advisory lab also on day one. And I'll explain those more when we talk about the AI advisory lab because that's sort of a very unique and new thing that we're doing this year that we're quite excited about. And that Ascendo is sponsoring. Thank you very much. We appreciate your support in kind of marching out and doing something really innovative and different to communicate the different things that AI can do in the service ecosystem. The other session that I think is really important is day two. We have a panel in the morning and it's taking AI to the next level. That's the title. And it's ensuring accuracy, speed to value and solving real customer problems, right? This is the crux of the matter. This is now, you can do all the internal work and take the cost efficiencies and become more efficient in your service operations. But now I think the industry is ready to look more outward. How can we solve real customer problems using AI? So I think that's gonna be the shift this year in particular. So I'm really looking forward to that panel. We have an amazing roster of speakers for that one. Yeah, that particular one, not just that panel, I was noticing the entire list of people who are actually thinking about all of the use cases all throughout, right? So the day two, I noticed that you actually had a track on supply chain and during the supply chain turmoil, how the parts are coming up and you're bringing in digitization even there. So you're basically covering everything from what a customer is engaging with a service team to when a dispatcher or a remote support engaging with a service team to when field service is coming with that service team all the way to logistics and spare parts and new profit, new sales and marketing opportunities that field service can bring in because they are right in front of the customer. So you have the conference completely end to end which is one of the reasons why we were sponsoring because we look at ourselves as a experienced person hired into the sales service organization because that experienced person just doesn't do one thing like regurgitate knowledge manuals or something like that. They go from customer phasing all the way to logistics to identifying opportunities. So I love that you brought in that end to end perspective. Well, great. Well, thank you. And I think this is what the industry is asking for. So as I said, we build this program based on what the industry is focused on and what they need to know and where their pain points are. So yeah, we're really excited about it. We do have a great track. It's track a D on service parts, inventory management with a global supply chain still in flux, right? Real challenging things going on, not to mention the tariffs and other issues that people are concerned about. So how that's gonna change the world, we'll see. But AI plays a role in all of these aspects of business, in the data piece, which is so important, even in labor and HR and supply chain and service parts and also integrations. I think there's gonna be some help along the way, maybe not yet, but where AI is gonna help integrate more of these platforms and apps together to make them more seamless for that front end field service agent. In a way it puts the service leaders right in center of any organization within the C-suite itself. It kind of elevates them because now they are giving all that feedback to the rest of the company about how they install basis. It's like a pulse of the customer that they are providing. So it elevates them pretty much, right? Yes, yes. No, I would say for sure. I think to what we were talking about before, I think the service department in general is getting elevated because they've done their job. They've worked really hard over the past several years to become more profitable, focusing on the commercialization of service, right? As a profit center, not just a cost center. Years ago, it was just a cost center and it was a drain on an organization. And now it's really coming into its own and getting the credit it deserves. So I'm happy to see that happening. Yeah. So if I'm a service leader of a enterprise and I want to connect with a sponsor like Acendo AI, right? How do I do that? Yeah, we have a great... Well, first of all, we have the website where you can find out everything about the event, every track, every program, it's all listed in the website so you can plan your course. You can see who all the sponsors are. We also have the profiles of each sponsor on the website so you can see what sponsors are focused on, which areas of business, so that you can plot your course even at the expo and determine where you want to go, who you want to see, who you want to meet. The other way is also using the app, which is going to be coming out in a couple of weeks, usually at least a week before the event we send that out. And it's a great way to connect with people. So I always encourage people to connect with the folks they want to meet, do those connections on the app before the event because they'll accept your invitation to connect and then you can hit the road. When you get to Palm Springs, you can begin to have those conversations and meetups and those kinds of things. So I encourage people to spend some time on the app before they even get to the event. Sounds like a lot of learning and condensed in three days. So in addition to that, yeah, in addition to that, you are also bringing in something called the AI Advisory Lab, I believe for the first time, right? It is, this is my baby, Kay. So yes, I'm very excited about it. I just, this was something that came up in our research with several practice, service practitioners, saying, hey, technology companies do this a lot, have like their labs. Why can't we do something like that for AI and make it even more meaningful for people? So we batted it around and really what we're doing, this is gonna, it's all on day three, but, and Ascendo is a sponsor and we have a couple of other sponsors as well, but you have a showcase on day one, which in 10 minutes, you're gonna explain to people what you're gonna be doing at your AI lab in your station and the use cases that you're gonna be focused on. You bring in a client with you, which is wonderful. So on day three, if you have burning questions as a service practitioner, you'll make an appointment with one of the sponsors who have stations at our AI lab and you can sit with them for 15 minutes. You're not sitting with a salesperson, I would say, you're also sitting with a technical expert from the sponsoring company, but they're also gonna have one of their main customers with them who are using AI and you can ask them anything. In that 15 minutes, you can get so much demystified by having this conversation with a practitioner and a technical expert. And you can talk to them about your business, tell them where you are, what your situation is, what your challenges are, and hopefully they'll give you a place to begin. I think that's the hardest thing mostly for people, Kay, is if you haven't really dabbled in AI yet, and there's a lot of people out there are a little trepidatious about AI, but this will give them a place to begin. Everyone needs an entry point, right? You don't have to boil the ocean, right? But just find that one use case that might have huge implications for your organization, but might not be so hard to implement. And then it's a building block from there. But we're very excited. That is very, very, very... Yeah, yeah, I'm so happy to be part of your baby this year. So I just wanted to throw in a statistic that may be very useful for the people who are listening in, right? So Anthropic, which is one of the open source AI companies, released a economic index report that talks about who are the people who are utilizing AI in general. And the fourth use case, of course, the number one is coding. The fourth use case is service and support. And they estimated 4% of the people are playing around with AI. But the real thing is only 4% of the 4%, which is 0.16% of the people have actually implemented AI in the enterprise, et cetera, et cetera. When we read about that, and when we recently had a large chief customer officer get together, and chief customer officer, chief service officer, and they were also confirming that a lot of the people are playing around with it. To your point, people are just trying to figure out where they need it to be. People are actually just playing around with it, and leaders are confused where to begin. So in that end-to-end that you're showcasing in the field service conference, pick one and start from the journey from there to go all around. That is an excellent message. And so thank you for that. Yeah, yeah. No, I think sometimes it gets overwhelming if you just look at the whole thing, you know, it's like, and it just, but, you know, that's really as simple as finding a use case. It's gonna have huge impact to your organization. It's kind of low hanging fruit, you know, take that and then grow it from there. And then you have something to show. I think, you know, all C-suites wanna see results, right? They wanna see ROI. So you wanna have a, you know, a building, you know, you wanna build your case so that they'll continue to support it. Because I think there still is some pushback, you know, from C-suites, like show me the money, show me how it's gonna work, show me how you're gonna, you know, save X, Y, or Z. So we, you know, I think service organizations have to continually prove that this is something that they need. And I think over time, Kate, it's not gonna be long, you know, I think it's pretty apparent to most everyone, no matter, you know, what area of business you're in, AI is here to stay. It's gonna, you know, hugely change how we do business. It's gonna hugely change how we live as consumers even, you know, just as individuals, as humans. So I think it's gonna be cataclysmic changes and it's gonna come really fast. So no time for navel gazing, it's really time to learn, get on the AI train and, you know, start learning and start doing. Exactly, and that is one of the reasons why we architected like AI agents too, right? So one of our customers who will be there during the conference, EDF, they're a very large energy utilities company, but they had, from the time they signed up for terms of service to the time they had the first AI agent up and running, it was 40 minutes. So they were blown away. And this is a very large company who could have a, right? So these kinds of stories are gonna make service leaders feel, hey, I can do this. And it doesn't have to be a six month effort, one year effort to see ROI, right? So it can be fast and it can be quick. The key is to pick one agent that will fit in into that one use case and then build the journey from there to the rest of the company as you're showing ROI. So no longer a humongous implementation that will take a year or two years, et cetera. So this can be fast and that's a good message that people will get. That leads to the next question, Maureen, which is, you know, one of the complaints that I hear from people is vendors like us end up standing up on stage and constantly talk about how great the product is, right? So, and as a service leader, okay, I get tired of it after three days of listening to vendors saying how great the product is. So you are actually making it different to have the practitioners speak about what they have accomplished and that actually becomes a takeaway. Can you speak a little bit more about that? Yeah, in fact, it's rare that you'll see a vendor anymore stand up on our stages and talk just about their product. We don't allow pitching from the stage. We really encourage them to show us the value. And the only way we feel that you can show credible value is to bring a client with you. Let the client show how they're using your product. How can it be more believable than that? Instead of having a vendor stand up there and say, your client is saying, here's the use cases we did. This is the results we saw, and this is what we're doing next. That's a winner. That's a winning presentation, right? So we're encouraging, and I would say 99% of vendors listen to us and bring clients with them because they understand the value of having a client speak for them. Yeah, and can you, is that how you were visualizing the AI advisory lab to be also? Yes, and I think, you know, some people complain in the expo because there's so much in the expo, right? And there's not a lot of time to go too deep on, you know, in conversations because it's kind of loud and it's a lot of all that excitement and they're getting sold, right? And they understand that because that's what expos are about. But they wanted an environment where, you know, they also can be a little intimidating if you don't understand a lot about AI yet and you wanna ask lots of questions but you don't wanna feel stupid, right? So we wanted to give them a forum where they could sit down calmly, quietly and ask those questions, those burning questions that they have about AI. And, you know, with technical experts, not salespeople from the sponsoring company and then their customer. So I think that balance of having both there will be really valuable to the practitioners who sit down at the stations in the lab and have those meetings. Yeah, you know, even as a vendor, someone who's early in the agent tech world, right? I can see that there is a lot of thought leadership that we have to give and it's a journey that we have to hand hold the service teams to. So a lot of times, you know, we also love the opportunity to not be salesy but truly understand the challenges that service leaders are facing and help them with the challenges. And I love that this is an opportunity for to be able to do that. And for service leaders to be open enough and talk to the technical people as well as talk to the people who have seen value from it and learn from that. So that's wonderful. Yes, yes, no, absolutely. And I think for the sponsoring companies who are brave like Ascendo, it's a great opportunity for you to sit with potential customers and hear their pain, right? Where are their pain points? Where are their challenges? Because you all are innovators, right? You're creating solutions and helping service organizations. And I think it'll be very valuable for you all to listen and learn with them. You're listening and learning different things, but you're learning more about their business and how you can better support it in the future. Yeah, I think it's a win-win for both sides. Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you for doing this and thank you for being the producer. I just love it. So, and thank you for taking the time to come here. You must have a next, the very, very busy week. So thank you for being here. Well, it's my pleasure, Kay. Look forward to partnering with you on our AI lab and hearing your showcase and your use cases. It's gonna be wonderful. And thank you so much for sponsoring and taking the risk with us and being innovators. Absolutely, that's what we are here for. Thank you, Marie. Thank you. Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai . Go Unlimited to remove this message. Previous Next

Speaker: Jonathan Shroyer Turning Customer Service into Profit Centre Speaker: Jonathan Shroyer January 19, 2023 Previous Item Next Item Jonathan Shroyer is the Chief Customer Experience Innovation Officer at Arise Virtual Solutions Inc. With more than 20 years of industrial experience, Jonathan has been a part of companies like Microsoft, Monster Worldwide and led customer support and success at Postmates, Autodesk, Kabam, and Forte Labs, and has co-founded Officium Labs. He is currently revolutionizing customer experience in the gaming industry by using his CX Maturity Model, which has been successfully implemented at Arise. Ascendo is addressing the optimization of Support Operations within enterprises so that they can serve their customers better, optimize workflow for their agents and provide dashboards for insights on risk, churn analysis, and visibility for the senior managers. We are revolutionizing SupportOps in the same way that DevOps and RevOps have transformed other areas of business. In the last 3 years, we have created a G2 category and are ranked #1 in user satisfaction. Customer service is still viewed as a cost center and with the increasing and ever-changing customer demands, this perception is further strengthened. However, when utilized correctly, customer service could be one of your biggest revenue generators.