CNME Editor Mark Forker secured an exclusive interview with Ahmad Sidawi, Country Manager – KSA & Bahrain at Genesys during GITEX 2024, in an effort to learn more about how the global enterprise CX leader is leveraging technologies to empower customer and employee experiences in the contact centre marketplace.
Sidawi has enjoyed a decorated and distinguished career to date in the IT industry across the Middle East, and has worked for Motorola, Nokia Siemens and STC, prior to joining Genesys as a Principal Consultant in 2018.
In a candid discussion with tahawultech.com on Day 4 of GITEX, Sidawi articulated how the only currency that Genesys trades in is that of employee and customers experiences.
“Genesys is the leading customer experience platform that empowers both the employee experience and customer experience. In terms of workforce engagement, we have made huge investments, and will continue to do so. Ultimately, we need to leverage technology to ensure our product portfolio delivers unrivalled and seamless customer and employee experiences. We have invested significantly into the employee engagement space, and our objectives are built all around empowerment,” said Sidawi.
Sidawi highlighted how the turnover of employees in the contact centre space is the highest out of any job vertical globally, with many employees opting out of what is traditionally a very stressful environment.
“We want to empower contact agents by providing them with access to the right information promptly, in order for them to do their job and perform their tasks more effectively and efficiently. Fundamentally, in order to deliver the customer experiences you want, you need to empower the employee and make them happy, it’s a two-way street. If you look at the turnover of employees in the contact centre space, it is exceptionally high, and it’s evident there’s something not right. The contact centre space is a stressful environment, you’re dealing with frustrated customers, so it is imperative that you equip the agent with the right sets of tools and solutions to be able to do their job better, faster and more efficiently, and at Genesys, this is what we do,” said Sidawi.
At GITEX Global 2024, it’s pretty impossible the avoid the subject of AI, and Sidawi stressed that undeniably the technology has already changed the world.
However, he did say acknowledge that for many enterprises it remains somewhat of a buzzword, and said ultimately, that Gen AI needs to yield outcomes for businesses that adopt the technology into their operations and systems.
“Everyone is talking about AI, and at GITEX, the theme of the conference is building an AI economy for the future. However, it’s Open AI and Gen AI that everyone is really talking about and investing in. There’s no doubt that Gen AI has changed the world, and it’s impact over time is only going to get greater, but in terms of harnessing Gen AI to get the outcomes your business wants can be quite complex, and is not as straightforward as it sounds,” said Sidawi.
Sidawi highlighted how the company was demonstrating the unique capabilities of its Genesys Agent CoPilot product at this year’s GITEX, which again, like the company’s mission statement, is ultimately designed to empower agents in the contact centre space.
“As you know we’re a software company, and we already use AI in a lot of our products. At this year’s GITEX 2024, we are talking about how can we properly utilise Gen AI, because for me it is still somewhat of a buzzword to be quite frank. We’re trying to utilise Gen AI that really adds value for businesses in terms of use-cases. At this year’s GITEX, we showcased our Genesys Agent CoPilot product, it is completely powered by Gen AI technology, and we want it to serve as a ‘best friend’ of the agent. That agent that is under huge stress and pressure, we want to alleviate that stress from their job by giving them our Agent CoPilot product to empower them in their day-to-day tasks. The Genesys Agent CoPilot empowers agents with knowledge, and proactive information about who is calling them, and what their problem might be. Our mission at Genesys is to empower our employees because we know if we can do that, then it will lead to better customer experiences,” concluded Sidawi.
