The world has moved forward where I don’t I it’s my money in the bank. And let’s take in case since we’re talking financial institutions, I don’t want to wait in the line. It’s my money and I deserve that. I am, whether it’s a $10 transaction or a $10 million transaction, my money needs to be attended and I need my answers. So understanding that intent, the objective of the customer is so critical. Understanding in the less number of steps is so critical. That’s number one point that all contact center leaders would, would, would abide by. Number two comes in again going back to it that you’re not hopping over from one to the other. For example, a lot of I’ve experienced it, I’m sure you have as well is when you call and you have to enter that same account number three times, or say that same account number three times, or, hey, I’m going to transfer you to some other agent and oh, you start all over again.
You okay. What’s your name and what’s your account number? And and and and at some point you say, I want to just get my work done and get out of here. So how do you avoid that? You avoid that by having a proper business process. That business process needs to be tested in a real time environment before you launch it. It needs to be simulated. When we are talking about generative AI coming in now, and there are voice bots and chatbots that we are moving towards, we all know that learning models are great, but those learning models, if you ask five times what is Rise 25 and what does it provide?
It will give you five answers. It will almost be the same, but it will be five different answers. You ask it five more times. It might be five times 525 different answers, but it will all look and feel the same because you’ve asked that question in a different manner. So it’s very, very critical for that business process to understand the intent, the objective. And that’s what we help provide as a value. Number two, we provide as a value is that we reach where humans cannot reach with the permutations and combinations. We have our, our our engines that we have will produce those areas for you where you can easily test it, generate it, automate it.
That way you are guaranteed a coverage before you’re launching your service. And look, I think sometimes we are also looking at it from the 911 calls and the fire department calls and the prevention. So these are where lives are dependent, where human lives are dependent on it. So it’s not just about a bank and a transaction or retail with from a Walmart perspective, it’s a Black Friday and I want to get the best deal out there. We’re talking about something that is much more impactful to a human being.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 12:26
I’m wondering, Rishi, you know, obviously you work with enterprise clients and large clients with high volumes of, you know, whether it’s a chatbot, email, phone, some. But I think it’s instructive for any business just to talk about what are some of the mistakes you’ve seen across all these companies. The biggest mistakes with bad customer experiences.
Rishi Rana: 12:51
Yeah, I think that’s what we help prevent first and foremost. But yeah, I think what we see is sometimes you’re you’re copying a business process from an existing process, and you’re launching a new service or a product and you’re slapping on the same business process over there because it worked in the past. We know the good old saying, what worked in the past got you here, but it’s not going to take you to the next level. So we see that mistake quite often being repeated, because it takes a lot of time to define that detailed business process and understanding the customer’s persona with the customer’s persona, the customer behavior and that behavior.
If you’re in the last piece, I would say the third and the last piece I would say is the is the breadth of your customer persona, whether it’s the person who was born in 1940s Fortress versus a baby boomer, versus a Gen X versus a Gen Z and millennial and all the way you come. It depends on who are you targeting. So you can’t just slap on the same business process. Understanding that is very critical in today’s day and age. And certainly I would wrap it up by saying that, hey, we all are short on time. As humans, we all, when we pick up the phone or we contact a vendor provider that we have done some, we want to do some transaction with our bandwidth is low. Our mine as well. I need to get in the shortest time frame.
My question answered and I’m out of here and I’m not ready to go through the pleasantries of how are you doing and how was your day? And is it sunny? Is it not? Kind of scenarios like, I want to get to the point and get out of here, and I see a lot of that happening. So how do you still attend to that anxiety of the customer or the place of it, but you’re making sure that you’re still providing the best service. And finding that balance is where I see a lot going wrong, where we are slapping all old business processes and launching things and then realizing it and then taking a step back, etc., which can be avoided.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 14:59
I know AI is a big topic, and when I look at your company, you talk about, you know, seamless customer experience, assurance, voice chat, AI and beyond. I’d love for you to talk about generative AI and how it’s impacting companies. How you see it impacting companies could be good or bad.
Rishi Rana: 15:19
Yeah. Look, I think everybody in their moms are talking about AI these days. So that’s the first place to start. Where we come in is we have seen I’ll put it in three different spectrums. One is about deterministic AI where you have deterministic like these business workflows that I was just talking about. You can have that tested confirmed through AI. So rather than humans doing it, AR is an automation place, but you still need humans to do it. How can AI assist and get that job done faster and better? So that’s one that’s deterministic. We then go to all the way to the next spectrum, which is about agentic AI, which is about AI.
Agents in an autonomous manner are able to test and monitor your proactively able to tell, hey, that’s what’s going to fail. I think global businesses that we treat with the Googles and Microsofts and Salesforce and others of the world as well. They have customers in 170 countries. They have more than 200 plus carriers. We support 140 countries, and we support 330 carriers across the globe, which means your your any at any given time, there could be a failure across. How do you proactively are able to get that done. As an example, I’ll say very recently AWS services went down. It was a last week. It happened to a lot of people were affected, businesses were affected.
Our solution was able to predict that before it happened, by the way, to our customers who were able to know now we were not able to we don’t. Remediation is not what we are in. We are in. We don’t optimize it, but we we are proactively, again, testing and monitoring. So we are providing it to you. So we were able to and it was so heartening to receive those kudos from our customers. Now with AI, I think we are going to be able to do that a lot better in that area. And last lastly, I would say between the spectrum of deterministic versus genetic comes in, hybrid businesses that I’m seeing are moving south to lower cases, areas where you know you want to just get lessons.
We’re talking financial institutions. You just want to get your account. You want to get a basic transaction and etc. or you want to change an address or change in phone number that could be taken care of by the voice bots and chatbots driven by AI agents, the more complex ones will still need to follow the the human agents piece. So in a spectrum of deterministic versus AI agents, there’s a hybrid model. How do you actually get that done effectively and still be able to make sure that it’s omnichannel and you can still get the the business transaction done in the fastest possible manner?
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 18:17
I’m curious, Rishi implementation. I mean, you’re dealing with huge companies. You have a lot of testing and things you have to kind of deploy when someone comes on with you. And again, they may I don’t know if they get everything. You’re like, okay, you need all the, you know, the contact center, the chatbot, or maybe they’re like, we just want to start with the contact center testing. Are typically people doing one of them or do they kind of release them across all channels?
Rishi Rana: 18:51
Usually it is 1 or 2 channels.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 18:55
1 or 2 channels. Okay. I’m curious implementation wise how long like, okay, we need to do chatbot testing across the whole, you know, all the platforms that we or the, the, the site. Right. What’s the range of implementation? I would think it would take a while based on the volume and everything that they do.
Rishi Rana: 19:18
Yeah. So for our for us it is actually quite fast. Our implementation cycle for end to end is actually three weeks. And let me explain that. Why. Because we sit on top of the so there’s a contact center. And then you might have a bot, in this case a voice bot or chat bot. We encapsulate that bot and we create those things. So for us we come with already in baked 5758 NLP which is natural language programming objects and machine learning objects. So we by the time we’re there, we actually know exactly what it is.
So our connectors can plug in, we can extract what is the business process flow. We know that. And then we can help generate those test cases. Or we can help in generating. Today you also have a test case designer like I mentioned which you can drag and drop. And it’s very easy. One can create that. So for us it’s a it’s relatively speaking a lot easier. It used to be a couple of months of exercise in the past, but we have been able to cut it down. In fact, we do a 330% ROI confirmation for the money that you spent with us in six months. So in six months, in fact, you get your money’s returned. Plus more.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 20:41
How is the I’m curious, in the enterprise level, how long is the sales cycle typically from, you know, again, we’re talking I’m sure it takes a long time for someone at Blue Cross Blue Shield California to make a decision on these things. Even if it’s well, listen, you’re like, hey, it’ll be a three week implementation. We we overlay on top of it and it’ll probably still go through lots of meetings. What’s the kind of the range of sales cycle that we’re looking at with these enterprise clients?
Rishi Rana: 21:13
Yeah, I think we are doing relatively well. Our average is is between 115 to 130 that range. We sometimes go to, you know, 190 as well. But I think roughly speaking three months and that’s an average Now why is that an average? We last quarter we did actually 87 I, I maniacally measure that piece because it’s very important for our productivity and our our numbers. So but these days I also say that enterprise buyers are much savvier. And again all these LMS that we have it, whether it’s the open AI piece or Lama or Gemini or others, get a lot of information out there. So the customer is much more informed and is already coming with preconceived set of notions, which can be dangerous, but is also coming in with preconceived set of questions that I just want my ten questions answered.
And if you check box on all ten, I’m good with it. Don’t talk to me about the remainder. 90 things that you have, because I only care about these ten things. So having the buyer more savvy actually helps. The three months to four months that we spend now is convincing that that those ten things can be done by us, or no, or we realizing it frankly, by the way, that, hey, I don’t think this is something we can do. We can do eight out of ten, we can’t do ten out of ten. But I want to let you know that this is this is the value you will get. So it’s that journey I believe. And but the like we we all buyers are much more savvier than how I dealt with ten years ago.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 23:03
I’m curious what your tech stack like. Obviously you rattle those off like no problem. Like like 87 days, one hour and two minutes is our, you know. So I’m curious what what do you use from a tech stack from like a CRM, PM tool, communication tool with the team. Talk about your favorite, your tech stack.
Rishi Rana: 23:22
Well tech stack we will. I mean, I firmly believe we are in a SaaS business. Our entire product stack is on on AWS. AWS is a partner, AWS as a customer as well. They use our products as well to to test their own things. From a retail perspective is what I’m talking about. I mean, so is Walmart a customer of ours? But internally speaking, our we have absolutely gone through a complete overhaul in the last two years of I’m not just using the technology, I’m using technology for me to get better.
And in order for me to get better, I use Salesforce as my CRM product. I use NetSuite as my project management, also my revenue management aspects of it. So work with Oracle, work with Salesforce. There are customers, there are partner like I buy from them as well. In order for me to run a very effective business and so does Microsoft from a Copilot and all of that. So so we are. Absolutely have to be tools. My mantra that I’ve been telling my team and everybody else in the company is, if you can automate it, you should.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 24:37
You come in when you come in. As CEO, what are some of the first things that you you do?
Rishi Rana: 24:45
First thing as CEO. Look, I think taking over a transition from founders is never easy. So if anybody thinks that is, it never is. The second thing is, I remind myself and I remind the team just because it was done that way does not mean it is correct, and does not mean it will take us to the next level. There’s a lot of folks who will remind you to say, this is how it was done this way. Well, yes, that’s what got us here, but not take us to the next level. So that’s sort of underlying foundational aspects of it or rules of engagement to the third piece is I do believe firmly in different places , different times, different results. What I mean by that is I’m here now. It is a different place. It’s a different time and it will produce different results.
NFL season is on. One person goes from one team to the other and performs better because it’s a different place, different time and different results. And you go and you don’t perform. It’s again the same reason behind it. So we have to be cognizant of those areas before you take the baton over from somebody else and say, now I’m going to run that race, but understand where that person is coming from is very critical. Understand that, but be firm in taking a decision very quick and making sure that you’re going to continue to do so. Don’t blame yourself if you fail, because I go back to those three underlying principles.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 26:24
I’m curious the some of the learnings of, you know, going from CEO, working with founders and kind of transitioning into that CEO leadership role because people listening, they could be founders and they’re like, yeah, we definitely want to bring in that professional CEO to take the company to the next level. And CEOs listening be like, okay, they may be transitioning to a company and working with founders. What are some of the learnings you had in that role that will help others make that transition easier for them?
Rishi Rana: 26:57
Yeah. Look, I think the first part is that founder or not, I think you need to have a very good understanding of what the company does and what’s your what’s the what’s the company does, what’s the investment thesis. And then the third piece that comes in is what is your own vision to take it to the next level. And that needs to be centered even prior to coming in. So then comes in after that comes in the mission piece of it to say that, hey, okay, is the organization going to be delivering the aspects that we were talking about? We all work for money. We work for title, but we also work for impact that we create.
And if we are not able to, to have any of those 3 or 4 dials in our life is where we say, okay, my purpose is not being met or my people aspect is not being met, or my intellectual capacity is not being met, and I need to go find another role, another place. I also remind myself, and I remind the team that I hire, until you’re on planet Earth, you will never be happy. You can always be in pursuit of happiness. And that’s what is there in our Constitution. So remember that we are pursuing it will never be happy. So so it’s a it’s a it’s a it’s a very balanced area of saying understanding before I’m taking on the role as to what. Again, going back to my investment thesis, etc.. Comments. But then moving it forward people is a very, very critical part of it and pace and energy. Then after that.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 28:39
What was thanks for that. What was a lesson in memorable story from your time at Microsoft?
Rishi Rana: 28:47
Aplenty. Look, I owe my career to that company. I graduated from. Texas A&M was my second job in life when I moved all the way to Seattle after being in Dallas. And I can recount all my years and how I grew. But I think my most famous or famous and famous for me is being on the same stage with Bill Gates and doing the presentation. It was a daunting three month experience to get to that level of precision and making sure that my talk track, my presentation are coinciding. But look, I think I got the opportunity, I grabbed it with both hands and I would not let go of it. Given a chance again, I would do it again. But it taught me a lot. It taught me about being precise. It taught me about being accurate, and it taught me about what matters. When you deliver that message out to the public and why it is so critical.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 29:50
What was the presentation?
Rishi Rana: 29:53
So we were launching what is an Office XP edition a long time ago, Developer Edition, and my claim to fame was portion that we had added in the product. I was supposed to demo the product as a product leader, and Bill was going through his own presentation, but he would pause and he would bring multiple product leaders to present their innovations. I was one of them.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 30:21
That’s great. Who are some of your mentors? Business or leadership mentors throughout your career? It could be colleagues, too.
Rishi Rana: 30:31
Yeah, yeah. I mean, hey, plenty. Plenty in the space for sure. I can never thank enough. I ping a lot of them depending upon what problem I’m facing as well. So I’ve mentors who are in the private equity space who can tell me. Because if the businesses are owned by private equity that I’m running, I do need to lean on them to understand, hey, this is the trouble. This is what it is. How would you go about approaching that problem? How would you go about. So I take advice, whether it’s a ten minute advice or whether it’s a 45 minute advice, it depends on the problem.
So I have categorized people from and then I have some really good people, leaders that I’ve met in my life, my peers, actually, even people who reported to me and I have put them in that bucket. So I have a people category bucket, I have a technology category bucket. And then I have a private equity category bucket and and then some large public company bucket as well. The folks that I know, I ping them depending on their time and depending on the problem, who can help me traverse through what I’m going through.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 31:47
What are some of the resources? It could be books. It could be podcasts that you’ve turned to throughout the years that would be good for people to check out.
Rishi Rana: 31:59
Well, certainly Rise25.com So hey, everybody should go there. So that said, look, I think the Y Combinator series is very insightful. I’m getting older in my journey, but it’s so exciting to hear the new kids on the block, should I say, who are actually trying to solve the problem that has not been solved before? And how do they go about it? So? So that’s pretty exciting. I think. I certainly take time, I go for my runs and I listen to that while I’m running.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 32:34
Are you a podcast person? More of like an audible book person?
Rishi Rana: 32:39
I, I’m, I’m actually a book reader, but I’m a podcast because I get that energy while I’m running. I think it gives me different ideas. Brain opens up more. So that’s what I use while I’m running, either listening to a good music or a podcast. But when it comes to book reading, I don’t like the audible piece. I like to read it and flip pages.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 33:02
What are your favorite books of all time?
Rishi Rana: 33:06
Favorite book of all times? I mean, there are plenty I can. I mean, The Alchemist comes to my mind since you’re asking that question, I think you know.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 33:17
I love that book. Yeah.
Rishi Rana: 33:19
I’ve read it twice. And every time you read it, you like every time. As in, sometimes I go back to a chapter and you get different perspectives of the same sentence in different ways. So.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 33:31
I want to just pull up your site for a second and have you talk about this. You know, you have Transform, Monitor, Optimized, Connect. Talk about this for a second.
Rishi Rana: 33:45
Yeah. Look, I think we have tried to segregate our products into what they perform. So we are again contact. We are a. QA provider and insurance provider. And on top of contact center. So Transform does the following. We do functional testing regression testing performance testing. So you have already have a business process. How would you go about it. Now comes the monitoring piece. You have to monitor that piece. So there’s monitoring from a telecom perspective, like I was talking about the number of countries and carriers, you have to deep dive into ivrs, which you have to understand. You have to understand the agent environment, which is to the precision. The agent could be in Philippines, in Manila, or could be in Mexico, or it could be in any other country.
How do you get that? And then there’s that caller ID assurance that we provide. Optimize is more about getting to as the world is moving towards generative AI and that that voice bots and chat bots. So one is the traditional set of channels, but one is like, I just need to get into that or we provide solutions. And last but not the least, comes in after that. That purple category, which is more about the RTC WebRTC technology. So if you’re using most, most organization Chrome as an operating system from Google is based on that. And that’s what we integrate with. So you would absolutely need that in probing in understanding the networking aspects of it, whether you have the right like we are on zoom right now, zoom is our customer, zoom is our partner. So we are testing its entirety through all of these technologies and products that we just mentioned.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 35:34
Where do you spend most of your time as CEO, or how do you segment the different things that you’re working on?
Rishi Rana: 35:42
Yeah, I think look, I think the week and the months are divided depending upon the priorities and how the quarter is flowing. But that said A my more more is about the, the creating from a the most of the time good 50 to 60% is crafting the vision and the strategy and making sure that we are being focused on it, but a nimble footed enough to change as we continue to learn more from the customers. So number one is that. But that comes in tons and tons of customer meetings. I love talking to customers. I love learning from them because if I’m not learning, then I’m I’ve stopped myself from growing. So till date, as an example, I keep a log of all my customer meetings I’ve done now till date, about 234 customer meetings and I keep a log of it. What have I learned out of that meeting?
Because that gives me the understanding and then comes back to the internal facing aspects of it from a product perspective, from an R&D perspective. And so that’s what I look at it from a 20%. And the last piece goes in is all about growth for me. So growth both from a renewals perspective, growth from a just getting into the new logos, I think I’m happy to say that, hey, we’re growing at good about 36, 37% of our business last year. And this year is coming from new logos. So it takes effort to continue to talk to other CEOs of other companies. I’m talking in the mid market space or the executives across and explaining why you need us, why we are the best solution for you and and going to win that race. So it’s exciting. But that’s where the time goes.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 37:35
This is great. Rishi I just want to thank you. Everyone can check out Cyara.com if you’ve watched the video it’s Cyara.com. To learn more check out more episodes of the podcast and we’ll see you next time. Rishi, this was great. Thank you so much.
Rishi Rana: 37:49
Thank you so much.
