Pete Lee of Observe.AI On How To Use Digital Transformation To Take Your Company To The Next Level
Number one is a source of truth. Deciding that this is the data that you are going to be actually running your business on. An example of that is your marketing, your sales, your product, and your operations. If they are all building a business together, they need to be building it from the same data source. The number one objective is making sure the source of truth, whether it’s Microsoft, or Salesforce, or a data warehouse that it is absolutely something that everybody is aligned to.
As part of our series about “How To Use Digital Transformation To Take Your Company To The Next Level”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Pete Lee, Vice President of Global Alliances and Sales, Observe.AI.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
Yeah, absolutely. I proudly served in the US Military out of high school. After that I jumped into technology, where I became very interested in disruptive technologies ultimately leading sales teams to drive value to market, specifically around the Microsoft AI stack. If you look at digital transformation obviously Microsoft is in the forefront of using Cloud and innovative technology to drive that forward. This ultimately lead me to Observe.AI where we are using what is probably the most critical data, which is the conversations between every single agent and customer, to drive businesses to top line, bottom line and eliminate risk.
I am also the father to two beautiful baby girls, ages three and one. It is a lot of fun to spend time with them in a small San Francisco apartment during COVID.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?
Yeah, absolutely. When you are trying to explain digital transformation, obviously different verticals, different customers are on different parts of their journey. So I quickly learned that depending on where the customer is at, some things are going to resonate and some are not. One perfect example is, I was super excited back in early 2010, using analytics and using data to be able to make better business decisions. When a customer is still using servers and still using on-prem, they don’t even have the data sets to do that. They look at you glossed eyed, extremely confused saying what is this analytics, what is this data reporting?
The lesson I learned is, we have to be very empathetic with customers that are at different parts of the journey. Ultimately, our goal as technologists is to take them to the end state, but again you can’t scare them away before they even put their foot in the water.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
Yeah absolutely, in my previous life I was running sales at a consulting company. Guiding people down the digital transformation journey. I had the privilege to meet a CIO, his name is Marcio Ribeiro, and what caught me off guard was his professionalism in managing his people and making sure he is very empathetic to their needs, understanding technology, and putting people in the right places.
The thing that stuck with me was his mental health, dealing and compartmentalizing family and work. Marcio would do a meditation everyday when he wakes up for an hour, knowing that was his only alone time before he had to deal with his children, his wife and then all of his coworkers, and then back home to his family.
That alone time is where he really set the stage of being comfortable with himself, being self-aware, reflecting on the day that is to come, reflecting on the past, and really bringing more stability.
In this chaotic world we are dealing with COVID with people in different situations. It is always important for you to take care of yourself mentally before you can proceed throughout the day.
Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
Podcast: Smart People Podcast
https://www.smartpeoplepodcast.com/2014/08/03/episode-151-roger-hamilton/
There are these profiles of successful people that we all want to replicate. We all want to be Bill Gates, we all want to be Oprah Winfrey, right? Your personality type actually matters on what you can achieve in terms of success.
For example, one thing from this podcast that really resonated with me was a story about this guy that grew up in Asia. He ran up to his father saying “father I got an A+ in art” and the father’s like “I don’t care. What about science? What about math?” Now you are already shooting down what I think a person is really great at.
What I learned is, while you still want to fulfill the gaps and you always want to become a better person. You still want to go downstream and what you are good at and what you are built for.
Warren Buffet is really good at the timing of stocks, but he’s not great at evangelizing the business world like Richard Branson. RIchard Branson is really good at being able to excite the audience, but he is not great with the operations and tactics like Bill Gates.
So ultimately you stay with what you are good at, and you surround yourself with great people that compliment you.
Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. When your company started, what was its vision, what was its purpose?
I think vision and purpose is critical. Vision in being able to see this futuristic flag of what you are aiming to. Purpose of having an inner drive of being able to reach it, which is even more critical during COVID when times are pretty tough mentally for people and their families.
The vision of this company is always pretty simple, customer experience, which is the lifeblood of revenue is extremely poor. No matter what technology folks have thrown at it 30 years ago to now, 50% of every customer experience engagement between the agent and customer is still seen as being very poor, and we can move that metric. Not only will folks be able to drive more revenue to build their businesses, but they will also be able to be competitive, be able to retain jobs, and be able to pivot on the information to build the right product sets that are aligned to what the consumers are demanding. That is the vision, we want to solve customer experience, because we believe that is the core to every single business across the world.
Now, the purpose of this company is obviously rooted in our values. I think if you look at our values and address this, one is the grit to be able to do things. As a start-up, you have to wear many hats, you have to be able to do it in chaotic situations, yet be able to go with little processes and go build those things. The second theme when it comes to a company’s purpose, is the collaboration and having this customer experience centric mindset. Treating not only your customers, but your peers, your partners, your vendors, your competitors with respect so you guys can work really well together.
And then, lastly, I think the ownership that everybody had to drive this company in the right way, so with those values and that purpose it allows you to really persevere and reach that vision, that goal.
Are you working on any new, exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?
I’m working on this project called Observe.AI.
Going back to my previous statement about customer experience. We think that with the AI that we do, we can impact a lot of companies for good. We are also doing the lens of enabling people to achieve that.
Think about this. When you are flying, and I know we probably haven’t flown in awhile, but when you are flying Delta, American, United. The last experience you have with the flight attendants, the folks at the counter and the people who are serving you is the experience you have with the airline that actually matters the most. These people are the brand representatives.
So, if we can enable the customer service agents, who are ultimately the brand ambassadors for your product, and help them improve on customer satisfaction, help improve on addressing different scenarios and improving compliance, you ultimately create better CX (customer experience).
I use this analogy of, you don’t get people to brush their teeth by sending infomercials to the entire population. You get people to brush their teeth by the influence of a dentist.
In addition to building Observe.AI, we are now getting into new ways of automation. This is really going to help streamline and make the agent performance even better, which includes automating a lot of the mundane tasks. Which also includes things such as being able to capture calls or conversations in real time that can arm the agent to de-risk a bad situation, or to really accelerate when there’s a buying situation.
A lot of interesting things are coming from this space.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about Digital Transformation. For the benefit of our readers, can you help explain what exactly Digital Transformation means? On a practical level what does it look like to engage in a Digital Transformation?
Digital transformation has been happening ever since the advent of technology; internet, computers.
We’re moving a lot faster obviously with modern Cloud. Ultimately, digital transformation is leveraging the technology to be able to accelerate pieces of your business and move it forward.
If you look at it we’re at a very interesting time. Cloud computing has driven the speed up so high, and the cost down so low that it allows you to be able to accelerate faster with this technology to achieve your business gains.
Now again, folks are in different parts of the journey. That’s from a lot of different factors, a lot of factors you can address quicker. Factors including personnel, you know people equipped to be able to handle some of the newer technologies versus addressing the older ones. It could be due to the industry that compliance is holding you back, or it could be your customer profile in which the ways you attract customers are different. But, ultimately, if you look at digital transformation, people who are embracing technology and leveraging analytics and AI have a much higher success rate during COVID when people are all of a sudden working from home.
Jason, your demands on what you’re buying completely changes. Keep in mind that there is no historical information that replicates what just happened during COVID. It is absolutely critical for companies who are embracing digital transformation and have leveraged data and AI are able to pivot very quickly to the new demands that are happening during COVID, versus somebody who is scrambling to get the infrastructure in place.
I think the lesson is to future proof yourself and deal with these anomalies that will happen, right? Recessions, booms, you know maybe if you are in the south there’s a hurricane or tornado, or in Dallas there is a deep freeze. You need to be able to pivot on the fly, and really that’s what people who are laggards at digital transformation are not agile with their business.
Which companies can most benefit from a Digital Transformation?
I think the answer is all companies.
But the truth is that companies that are traditional slow movers. We are talking about, financial services, healthcare, education, folks who have traditionally slow adopters are the ones that can benefit the most. If you look at that space you see that there is a lot of fintech, education tech, healthcare tech companies who are thriving during this time. My point is, the number one reason we are going after the contact center industry is because that is probably one of the slower spaces, but it has the most opportunity. So yes, the answer is that all can benefit, but I think there is opportunity for people who are laggards in the journey to really accelerate forwards.
We’d love to hear about your experiences helping others with Digital Transformation. In your experience, how has Digital Transformation helped improve operations, processes and customer experiences? We’d love to hear some stories if possible.
It really comes down to this. How do you create processes without data to tell you what processes to create. Digital transformation is, again, leveraging the technology around you to take in all of the isolated data and be able to make some decisions objectively on the data. What this means is that now you can build processes based on any variations of the data. You can actually see if processes are impacting, having a framework in place and see if there’s any improvements based on those adjustments, this has to be the objective.
This has happened for multiple customers. If you look at customers who are using data as a baseline it is very simply, as being an individual and having a bank account. You want to see variations in your bank account, but imagine if you only have access to 3% of the data, so you can only see three line items versus an entire thing. Imagine if you can’t see trends of what am I spending today, what am I spending tomorrow. You need the baseline and the data to be able to even build the structure and put a process in place.
The companies thriving are ultimately all companies using data in this way to be able to make informed decisions on their business and be able to pivot on any circumstance.
I think what Observe.AI achieves in this whole journey is we are a cloud based platform that solves cx, if you were to look at two basic things the biggest analogy is nobody has insights into 100% of the conversations because of compute, accuracy, the cost of security, or anything else.
We now have the ability to take 100% of conversations and give you so much valuable insight, so therefore even having a starting point of how you should be building your processes and workflow.
In the end, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, they’re all data companies, but what they do well with that data is being able to take action on that data with a workflow that can achieve a business gain. So what we’ve done is take all of that important customer data and build a workflow to empower and coach and train the agent and drive agent performance. This workflow is critical, and if you can give them a workflow that they can follow it will improve their day by helping them achieve their goals, then they are going to adopt to it.
Has integrating Digital Transformation been a challenging process for some companies? What are the challenges? How do you help resolve them?
I want to be respectful to all of these companies, and each of these have a different lens of adoption challenges, but I don’t think there is an excuse anymore. When you go to a different hospital and they don’t even have the information from your previous hospital it is insane. We are in the 21st century where we have so much information on Facebook and Google, yet we can’t even address a patient properly. There are no more excuses, for all of these industries, you have to be able to have data that is clear and concise and accurate.
Ok. Thank you. Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are “Five Ways a Company Can Use Digital Transformation To Take It To The Next Level”? Please share a story or an example for each.
Number one is a source of truth. Deciding that this is the data that you are going to be actually running your business on. An example of that is your marketing, your sales, your product, and your operations. If they are all building a business together, they need to be building it from the same data source. The number one objective is making sure the source of truth, whether it’s Microsoft, or Salesforce, or a data warehouse that it is absolutely something that everybody is aligned to.
Number two is, deciding on how you should be using the data and building the proper workflows. I think there is too much effort spent on analyzing the data without proper output. So I think this is where it is so critical to build in the workflow and processes with the data that you can measure and create results. A real life example is how do you measure success subjectively without proper data and then be able to see workflow and compare it overtime?
Number three is, underlying all of this is paying close attention to the data protection and the security of the data. Ultimately that data can be breached, that data can have fraud, and that data can be stolen. You cannot have a digital transformation plan without having a plan for risk and security. A real life example is you know all of those folks who hold data hostage, have stolen data, who are not backed up or does not have high availability and the data center goes down, all of the sudden the business is lost.
Number four is probably getting more into some of the more modern technologies. It is important to have historical data, but it is also just as important to be able to adjust on the fly and be very agile. The perfect example is COVID, and this is where the power of AI and predictive analytics will allow you to address the immediate situations. An example of this is, there is a historical situation in COVID that the world has never experienced before, so how do you act on the data when there is no historical example? The only way to do that is to be able to pivot immediately right?
And I think the last thing is, making sure that people, and this is more from I think adoption standpoint, is that you’re building these technologies and leveraging that data to improve the lives of your people. That is an important philosophy from leadership to the adoption standpoint to how people are feeling about the technology. Ultimately AI is irrelevant unless it can impact your life. Why do I care about all the AI on Waze or on Google, unless I can drive my car to another location. Why do I care about all the data on how I should order an Uber or Grubhub unless I can get the food that I want? Make it very clear that this is the support of the customer, which is your employees who are trying to drive the company forward. The last piece very simply, is to use this technology to empower your people, because ultimately it is a combination of technology and people that will improve the process.
In your opinion, how can companies best create a “culture of innovation” in order to create new competitive advantages?
If you want to create a culture of innovation there are a couple of things. One is to not be afraid to fail. Part of this data is that you’re acting and actioning the data, but part of the value of this data is that you can quickly pivot if you are not going in the right direction to go in a different direction. The challenge with I think a lot of companies is, a lot of people that are trying to push innovation are afraid to fail and so they’re afraid to use data and try different things, and test different theories. The goal is not to use this data and just go anywhere. The goal is to use this data and be able to test quickly, fail, quickly try again. The best companies who are leveraging innovation are not afraid to fail. The culture of innovation starts from people understanding the value of technology to enable the people. If you feel like technology and innovation are going to remove your job or remove you, you know it is not aligned to your incentives and you’re not going to embrace it. If you build a culture that people understand and people are embracing the fact that technology can help them thrive in your environment, it can help them better deliver customer service which makes everybody happier. People are going to adopt it a lot faster.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
One of my heroes, Bruce Lee, very simply said, “be like water”. Water can be destructive, but water can also be the source of life. Water doesn’t stop. Water follows the journey of the path that is right in front of us. I think part of this digital transformation journey is to be as agile and as fluid as possible, so you are able to make pivots for your business and adjust on anything that’s coming, so I think you can simply be like water.
How can our readers further follow your work?
Because of my focus on my two baby girls I don’t do a lot of work on Twitter. I do a lot of work on LinkedIn and also on the Observe.AI website. We have a pretty heavy social media presence at Observe.AI. We post very transformative blogs, webinars and white papers, so I think that is the best way to get a lot of information that is very educational and very informative. We have a lot of great customers and partners who were also market experts in providing this type of information which is awesome.
Socials:
Twitter: @observeAI
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/observeai
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
