In an exclusive interaction with CRN India, Raja Lakshmipathy, VP & MD, Genesys India, dives deep into the evolving landscape of customer experience and the pivotal role of technology. Lakshmipathy discusses how Genesys is navigating the complexities of cloud adoption, leveraging AI for empathetic interactions, and adapting to the unique demands of India’s booming digital-native and D2C sectors. He also sheds light on the strategic shift of contact centres from cost centres to revenue generators and Genesys’s commitment to data privacy and regulatory compliance in the Indian market.
Customer experience (CX) is now a boardroom priority across industries like BFSI and manufacturing. How has Genesys India’s role evolved in shaping the customer experience transformation journeys of Indian enterprises over the past couple of years?
Today, product differentiation is becoming minimal. Most companies offer excellent products, which makes customer experience even more relevant and critical in the market. This is why we see CX officers, or rather “experience executives” (XX), now holding a seat at the board. Consequently, the CCaaS (Contact Centre as a Service) platform has transitioned from being a tactical tool for customer service to a strategic platform for enterprises.
Another significant driver for this change is that the contact centre is increasingly becoming a revenue centre, rather than just a cost centre. It’s driving loyalty and empathy. Market and customer expectations are also changing rapidly, leading to either business growth or customer churn. Therefore, it’s more important than ever for organisations to focus on customer experience.
To meet this growing market and business demand, companies are embracing digital transformation, omni-channel strategies, personalisation, empathy, and journey mapping. This is precisely where Genesys has been helping our customers, especially in India. We were the first global player to launch a cloud node in India in 2021, helping customers migrate to the cloud where most innovations are happening. Today, almost 100% of AI innovations, along with other advancements in customer and workforce engagement, are occurring in the cloud environment. Genesys empowers customers to adopt these changes and innovations by facilitating their cloud migration.
We’ve assisted customers across almost all sectors, including banking, BPOs, e-commerce, and more. For instance, a recent case study with one of our customers showed that by moving to Genesys Cloud, their agent adoption rate increased by 90%, operational costs went down by 22%, and service levels improved by 9%.
Furthermore, for Indian enterprises, our third-largest R&D facility is located in Chennai. This facility is a key driver of innovations within Genesys’s product portfolio, which directly benefits the local market.
You mentioned helping customers with their cloud journey. However, with increasing cloud costs, some organisations are moving to a hybrid model. What challenges do you foresee or face in this evolving landscape?
We don’t view cost increases or decreases in isolation. Our focus is on the overall Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for the customer. For example, if a customer moves to the cloud and leverages innovations that increase agent occupancy by even 10%, or connection rates by 7%, or first call resolution by 4%, the TCO becomes significantly stronger. We believe that the overall benefits customers reap by moving to the cloud far outweigh looking at cost in isolation. This perspective helps us advocate for cloud adoption and helps our customers embrace it, given the tangible benefits they gain.
Genesys has been a strong advocate for AI-powered customer engagement. How are you balancing automation with the need for empathetic human interactions?
Let’s first consider the Indian market specifically. With a population of 1.4 billion, we have a massive consumer base, leading to very high transaction volumes compared to other countries. This means more customers to serve, but also rising operational costs due to increasing salaries and real estate prices. At the same time, revenues are getting optimised. Industries must navigate these parameters. You can’t sustain operations if your transaction volumes increase significantly while your cost to serve also rises, without adopting new methods.
Given this scenario, AI adoption is no longer an option; it’s mandatory for businesses. It’s an essential enabler for moving from a transaction-driven services economy to an experience economy. In an experience economy, customers expect more than just transactional interactions. They don’t want to call multiple times to resolve an issue. They expect proactive understanding of their needs, guidance on the next best action, and intelligent routing of their calls, whether through AI or a human agent. Today’s leading brands have redefined customer engagement by delivering empathetic, personalised experiences, not just transactions. This is where AI’s ability to drive business efficiency through automation eliminates mundane administrative work, creating a more powerful and engaging experience.
Regarding the balance between AI and human engagement, I would say it’s not “either/or” but “and”. The most effective and experiential interaction occurs when you combine the power of AI with empathy. These are not mutually exclusive. This approach, focusing on both automation and empathy, is what Genesys Cloud brings to our customers.
One critical aspect is the seamless flow of information and experience when transitioning between AI and human agents. For example, if a customer ends an interaction with AI and needs to speak to a human agent, the agent should pick up exactly where the AI left off, without asking the same questions again. It’s crucial that there’s a continuous flow of information and experience across channels.
In the context of AI, particularly conversational AI and sentiment analysis in Indian languages, what linguistic and contextual challenges do you face, given India’s diversity?
Our AI capabilities span conversational AI, generative AI, and predictive AI. We use a combination of these to deliver comprehensive experiences. However, you’re right, the majority of the scope and challenges remain in the conversational AI domain, especially given India’s linguistic diversity.
We enhance customer interaction at scale in India by leveraging multilingual AI capabilities that support nuanced conversations across regional languages. Globally, we support over 24 languages, including English and several regional languages like Hindi in India. While English and Hindi cover the majority of the population, numerous other regional languages come into play. This is where our OpenAPI platform is crucial. It gives our customers the flexibility to bring their own Large Language Models (LLMs), in addition to our standard integrations with most LLM providers in the market. We also provide robust text-to-speech support for multiple languages, improving the customer experience.
Regarding challenges, as we build these capabilities, we encounter complexities like code-switching between languages (e.g., English and Hindi, or English and Tamil). Also, dialects change significantly within a particular language or region—as you noted, accent and dialect can change every 100 kilometers. Furthermore, there are cultural nuances that influence intent and sentiment, meaning how sentiment is expressed can differ across regions. These are some of the challenges.
However, there’s nothing technology can’t solve today. A lot of improvements and innovations are happening continuously. To summarise: yes, we offer native language support. Secondly, we’ve partnered with major LLM vendors, and customers are free to choose or bring their own LLMs. We also provide integration capabilities for customers who want to innovate with specific LLMs, offering multiple options.
Given India’s surge in digital-native startups and D2C brands over the last three to four years, how are you evolving your cloud contact centre offerings to serve these high-growth, agile businesses with unique scalability and integration needs?
Digital natives (DNVs) and D2C brands are major growth sectors for us. The easiest part of working with them is that I don’t have to “sell” them on cloud, unlike some legacy enterprises. This is because they are inherently cloud-native companies; their applications are born in the cloud and built for the cloud. This facilitates a very peer-to-peer, relevant conversation with them. Their propensity to adopt the cloud is much higher than any other sector.
These businesses are looking for rapid scalability. I’ve seen DNV startups that were small three years ago, now growing exponentially with successive funding rounds – growth rates I haven’t seen in 30 years with traditional industries. They often start with a few hundred seats and quickly need to scale to thousands. They also want to integrate with a larger, flexible ecosystem. Unlike traditional businesses that stick to a few known CRMs or ITSMs, DNVs often build their own or bring unique solutions and demand the flexibility to integrate.
This is exactly where our cloud-native capabilities and API-first platform help them. We provide a differentiated customer experience by allowing them to plug our APIs directly into their business tools or applications. We run on microservices and Kubernetes architecture, allowing them to integrate our platform into their tools or build their native capabilities onto our front-end. This is a mutually beneficial partnership.
We’re also seeing significant AI adoption in this sector, including conversational, generative, and predictive AI. We also focus on integrating with their existing tech stacks, accelerating innovation and improving customer and employee experiences. These sectors can start their AI journey at any stage and still progress to advanced orchestration without losing existing investments or spending excessive money on innovations. We believe this is a very future-proof approach for DNVs and D2Cs, bringing long-term value and minimising “change fatigue.” They are incredibly agile; they learn by making mistakes and adapt quickly. They aren’t interested in lengthy POCs or two-year waits for outcomes. They are experimental, want to learn fast, and make course corrections quickly, which demands speed, adaptability, and intelligence. Our partnership with DNVs and D2Cs aligns perfectly with this mindset. I’m very passionate about this, seeing this growth over the last couple of years.
With automation and AI advancing, the security aspect becomes crucial, especially with data residency and privacy gaining prominence, like with the DPDP Act. How are you addressing customer concerns around data localisation and secure customer experience operations?
Firstly, we believe the DPDP (Digital Personal Data Protection) Act is on the right path and provides a pragmatic framework for aligning data protection with global standards. With frameworks like the European GDPR already in place, we’ve addressed many compliance areas. This makes it easier for us to implement necessary changes relevant to the local market and comply with Indian regulations. The DPDP Act’s shift away from rigid data localisation allows us to maintain agile, scalable cloud services while meeting local and regulatory norms within the law. We also maintain ISO 27001, SOC 2 compliance, and align our contractual terms with customers’ local and evolving regulations, including fixed customer control over data processing.
DPDP is currently undergoing full implementation, and we are proactively adopting this governance model, which puts us ahead of some peers in the market. To me, DPDP isn’t a constraint but an opportunity to build trust – between us and our customers, and between our customers and their end clients. It helps in delivering a personalised, secure, and regulation-ready experience. Globally, we adhere to most norms, whether it’s GDPR in the European Union or CCPA in North America/California.
For my final question, what would be your key focus areas for this year?
Our focus revolves around a couple of key things this year. First is orchestrating the experience for our customers. This means looking beyond the four walls of the contact centre to include forward and backward integration, mapping the entire customer journey. It’s not just about answering a call; it’s about understanding their digital footprint, preferences, next best action, and routing to the right agent. We are building an entire segment around “experience as a service” – that’s how we approach our customers.
Second is how we make the right use of AI for our customers. This involves creating a seamless experience between the use of AI and human agents to deliver a highly personalised and empathetic experience. These are our primary focus areas for the year. As a platform, we are growing quickly and have been recognised as a leader by almost all analysts in this segment. We aim to lead by example and also take our ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) commitments, including sustainability and governance, very seriously.
thank you