Hey everyone, and thank you for joining me for another episode of In the Cloud w/2600Hz! I'm your host, Clint Mohs. And this month I'll be talking with two members of the team at Xarios Technologies. Xarios's flagship offering, Dimensions, is a powerful cloud-based call analytics platform. In March of 2020, we at 2600Hz began a strategic partnership with Xarios, which focused specifically on strengthening our Call Center Pro application with the Reporting and Analytics might of Dimensions. Joining me today from Xarios are Jimmy Lim, and Carlie Adams. Jimmy is the vice president of cloud products at Xarios and specializes in business development, product management, and go to market execution. Hey, Jimmy, thanks for joining me today.
Jimmy Lim
Hi, Clint. Thanks for having me.
Clint Mohs
We're also joined by Carlie Adams who is the head of Channel Sales at Xarios. From call recording to IVR to CRM integration. Carlie is a one stop shop for info on Xarios's Dimensions platform. Hi, Carlie. Welcome to the pod.
Carlie Adams
Thanks, Clint. Thanks for having us.
Clint Mohs
All right. Before we get too far into the conversation, why don't we take a minute for introductions? Could you both Introduce yourself? And tell us a little bit about what you're up to at Xarios?,
Jimmy Lim
Yes, Clint. Hi. Thanks for having me. Again. I'm really happy to be here. Yes, I'm Jimmy, a lot of folks out in the community probably know me, but just like to reintroduce myself. So I'm responsible for North American called products at Xarios. I'm responsible for the business side, the product side, and for the sales support side. So I'm a jack of all trades, if you say if you will, just to ensure that our customer service that we offer to our to the partners is is the highest we can offer.
Carlie Adams
Hi Clint, Carlie Adams, so I'm based over in the UK. And for the last seven and a half years, I've been supporting our UK based resellers take our products to market the call recording IVR and analytics, stuff that particularly we were doing with an on premise. More recently, I've picked up some support of the marketing efforts here at Xarios, so I'm kind of covering the marketing efforts cross continent, supporting Jimmy with any marketing requirements he needs for the dimensions product, and then providing that same support out to other customers across the globe.
Clint Mohs
Great. Well, that sounds that sounds awesome. And I think you both will have, you know, some really interesting perspectives from the same company to kind of inform our conversation here. So, um, with intros out of the way, let's just hop into our chat. For some of our listeners that are either new to the KAZOO ecosystem, or perhaps need a bit of a refresher on our previous episode with you. Could you kind of fill us in? What is this partnership with Xarios Dimensions bring to our KAZOO platform? And maybe more importantly, is this is kind of an update episode. Has any new functionality been added as part of the partnership since that initial rollout and 2020?
Jimmy Lim
I'll start it off. Yeah, it has been a really successful partnership we had what 2600Hz, our dimensions core analytic solution is really complementary to the KAZOO platform. So it's been a really synergistic, if I may use that word, partnership, where we each bring our strengths to the table. So our solution brings to our customers great insight that they've never had before. You can you can see how detail in detail how our calls, how the calls are being handled, how they're how they use their telecom resources, whether it's fully utilized or underutilized, how their personnel are performing so that they can identify star performers. So overall, it gives you metrics on just how well the business operations are doing. And lets you identify areas for improvement.
Carlie Adams
And I'll take the second piece if that's okay. So in terms of new functionality, since the partnership began in 2020, there's been a ton of new features added into Dimensions, I'll run through just a few of them. But obviously, with Xarios being a software development company. It's an ever changing, ever evolving offering that's available to customers. So we've got a connect desktop application, which gives status and availability it gives group availability so agents can log in and log out. We've also added in the most recent update something called presence profiles. So users or resellers might be aware of a find me follow me type feature that has been around for many years, many years, and it has been available on the kazoo platform. But it's not necessarily been that easy for an end user to access feature wise so presence profiles gives the user really nice way of being able to control where their calls are delivered, they can have different profiles if they're on the road or working at home. And they can tell the system where to deliver their calls and which devices really simply, we've added in a soft phone, in the desktop as well, this headset support busy lamp field support. And that's just in the one area of the Connect desktop app, there's contact directory support been added, as well. So we can have customer information loaded into KAZOO which can then be presented in in the Connect desktop app playback of call recordings. So is it because your platform handles the physical recording of the call, but what we've done with Dimensions is given a nice wrap around to being able to play back and permissions as to who can and can't access various calls within the organization. So we can look at individual users listening to their own calls, department managers listening to groups, of course, are then you know, full admin rights where they have access to everything. And we've we've put some more enhanced report options in as well. So route path reports have been really popular. I know you, Jimmy has been particularly excited about the introduction of the route path reports for customers. So it gives full visibility to users of the route that the calls come in. So it does give true cradle to grave reporting from the second that arrived at the system with an auto attendant all the way through to the quarter use to loads of changes and additions to to the dimensions offering was because
Jimmy Lim
if I may just interject we we actually had posted recent articles on our website, those most recent three articles is the top the features or benefits that that we offer with Dimensions. Another article is our top most popular car reports that are available with Dimensions. And as Carlie has mentioned, our call recording complementary solution to the kazoo platform where we offer playback and downloading on our control basis. So we actually have multiple articles that we recently posted describing these recent enhancements on the arm the solution.
Clint Mohs
Yeah, that sounds great. I'll make sure to link out to those resources in the show notes of this, as I'm sure a lot of our partners would be really interested in reading a little bit more on that. And, you know, going through, you know, reflecting back on the introduction, right, we we sort of rolled out this integration as initially focused on backing our call center solution. But it seems both Carlie the new features that you pointed out as well as Jimmy, sort of what you were talking to about, you know, how we've become, you know, we have we're working with really complementary solutions, and the partnership has been really synergistic. I wondering if both of you can maybe speak to how, because your users are engaging with the, with the Xarios integration today. Right. So if it started, initially as a call center solution, are is that held up? Are people using using this Arios integration primarily for to support their call center? Or is this are you seeing applications by KAZOO users kind of expanding?
Carlie Adams
We still continue to have a heavy focus on the Call Center Pro. But what we're seeing is a much higher percentage of users using Dimensions outside of the contact center arena. So you know, analytics with the desktop client and more boards, which don't necessarily sit within a what we would say a standard call center environment. And but this is not just North America that we've seen this, we've also seen this across you. And like the far eastern countries as well. So it's not unique to North America, it does seem to be a more global thing where the use of analytics outside of contact center is being adopted more and more.
Jimmy Lim
That is true. That is true, because our initial introduction into the marketplace was geared primarily at the contact center, especially lining up with the Call Center Pro offering about I guess it's been two years now. So it's been, it's been quite interesting and quite exciting, in fact, but as we were getting ourselves introduced into marketplace, we found requests or interests outside of contact centers. So we actually see our implementation, our solution being deployed in various non contact centers, where, let's say, or ad hoc contact centers, we actually have customers who are to using our solution for just simple ring groups in the workgroups where, where the users are not agents are actually configured within ring groups. And customers like this. Customers like it to say that first ones, the incoming call rings are all users and the first one to answer is gets the call. So this is more of an informal contact center and using our solution with the tools that we provide, within contact center environments or outside of it. It seems very compelling. We have wallboards that would actually list it up. So like I was saying we actually are our environment is very conducive for for environments, there may not necessarily be be a formal Contact Center, as well.
Carlie Adams
It's also making sure that potential receptors have because the platform and Dimensions option as well don't look at it and go, Oh, it's only contact center. That's not us, we don't fit into that bracket. So this wouldn't be something that we would look at. Because actually, that's not the case that you can have very small customers with quite low usage would still benefit from looking at analytics and reports for their business and how the calls are being handled when they're coming in.
Jimmy Lim
Yeah, I was just about to say that's true, right? Because it's customers who are who just simply want to know how how their token resources are being used, how their trunks are being utilized, or underutilized. We have customers that actually implemented our solution, just to just observe how their trucking resources are being used. And sometimes they actually see that some trunks some DIDs are underutilized, right. They're used less often. So they said, Wow, this is really interesting that we didn't, we didn't know that, how else would they have known that some of their token resources are being used, underutilized, and they weren't being fully, they weren't being optimized that say, so this was really great insight that we provided to those customers,
Clint Mohs
Both of you have set me up for a perfect segue into the next topic, which is, you know, I kind of wanted to take a little bit of a step back here. And, um, you know, outside the specifics of our partnership, and chat a little bit more about the industry, in general. And I think you both have spoken directly to the idea, right, that call analytics as totally something that you need, if you have a contact center, if you have a call center is sort of the thing of the past, right? Like people are wanting to have, as you put it, Jimmy, insight into how their telecom resources are being used and able to make, you know, fine tune adjustments as needed to, you know, improve efficiencies to cut down on costs to keep an eye on operational costs, all those great things. So as I mentioned, our partnership launched sort of right before lockdown started in March of 2020. We're obviously in a very different place these days. While there certainly will be large holdouts and major exceptions, it really appears that we've settled into this model of hybrid work and remote works, as you know, just here to stay. So I'd love to hear either both of you talk about how you think call analytics could benefit either a hybrid or a fully remote work model. Do you see analytics as kind of a key tool to having a successful hybrid or remote workforce?
Jimmy Lim
Yeah, yeah, the reality is today, it is going to be a hybrid workplace. Right? There's no doubt about it. Right? So employees want the flexibility to work from home when they need to. Right. And I, we were actually seeing this before the pandemic arrived back prior to March 2021 20. I think around there. Yeah. So we were seeing this, it's just accelerated. So we are seeing a lot more remote workers work from home workers that are working from home. So when when this does occur, what are what's the what's available to you? What are the tools available for you to manage your team, who are so dispersed, who are who are who are located different, all in different places remotely. And we're seeing that more and more, and we have seen it even now. So we wanted, we saw that there was a need, our customers wanted to have reports wanted to see even in real time, how their teams are doing, they won't be able to see and they're not all in the office. So they needed tools and solutions that will actually allow them to monitor team, both historically as well as in real time. And that's why we're seeing our dimensions. solution. So apropos for this, and that's why we're seeing so much demand for this type of reporting, especially in today's world with with with remote workers, if not COVID. We know that COVID coming to an end, we just simply know that workers have gotten used to be working away from the office, and you need tools to report on it.
Clint Mohs
Great, yeah. And I would say, you know, all of that sounds amazing. And you know, it's exactly what you both hit on, right, like Analytics doesn't have to be, you know, real time what's going on in the call center? Well, that is a great feature and function that you can get through this partnership. It can also just be you know, where's my team at when are they logging in? What's their call handling volume? If you know, salesperson A is just, you know, you pull his numbers and just stacks back to back to back. How can you reallocate resources to support him or her where you know what other salespeople are on the phone less so that you can kind of divvy up the workload that way, I think is a great is a really great use case.
Carlie Adams
Potentially use it as a leverage as such. But you know, we can offer them, they can offer flexible working for staff, perhaps the movie because they can use the statistics that are available to them to check performance and measure this. But they can use that with their employee sentiment, you know, we can offer you this great flexibility. But what we need to see is that there's the trade off isn't that we will give you the flexibility that we need to see that performance doesn't suffer as a result. And this will absolutely get you that.
Clint Mohs
Yeah, that's a great point, I would say another sort of major thing that we've all been thinking, right if it's not, the pandemic, moving everybody remote, and then returned office plans, hybrid plans, remote plans, whatever thing is doing. Um, another major issue that businesses are facing, and that we've been thinking a lot about here, especially stateside has been what's been dubbed the Great Resignation. And the strains it has been putting on businesses are trying to retain customers with an outstanding CX, while also having to deal with high employee turnover and a difficult time finding resources and assets on the labor market. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on how call analytics could help businesses in 2022 dealing with these issues? How could an integrated tool like Dimensions help a KAZOO user maintain and possibly improve efficiency in their business processes?
Jimmy Lim
Well, yeah, so I think taking a step back in terms of the Great Resignation, there is happening, it is real, because there is a shortage of labor. And whether that's whether that's workers getting used to knowing that they can work from home because they seen it, it's real, it is possible to work from home, I think that's what we realized what this what this what the pandemic has shown us, we knew this was happening, right? It's just, it was just accelerated, we were always supporting remote workers. So we had the tools in terms of can we get communications to support these remote workers or work from home, or work from home, excuse me. So now we know that's been celebrated. We need the tools in order to monitor allow these work remote workers, or allow these workers three to work remotely. But we still need to ensure we're getting the most out of these employees. And that's why our management tools, our call reporting tools, or analytic tools, allows that to monitor our team as if they were in the same building. I think that's what's happening. Employers, businesses need to provide the flexibility for those workers who who do have a say in how and where they work, how they work, because that's this, that's just the reality of what we have today. So companies, businesses, need to need to keep up with that in terms of this new work into this new workforce.
Clint Mohs
I think that's a great perspective. You know, I think maybe people's brains, I'm certainly guilty of this are kind of hardwired to think about things of like this time period ends, and then this time period started. But I think it's a really good perspective to think about this. A lot of the issues the industry has been facing over the last three or so years aren't necessarily you know, there's a there's a firm chapter end, march 2020. And everything after that is but it's it's it's not a new era, it's a transition to or an acceleration of all of the trends we had been seeing for, as you as you mentioned, Jimmy, sort of like the the years building up to 2020.
Jimmy Lim
Yes, dare I say we use words like teleworker, teleworking, these were happening way before the pandemic, pandemic hit us. We just seen that, oh, this is gonna take another 5-10 years. And before it happens, know what the pandemic, it happens within less than two years. So people aren't, people are wanting to work from home. And if they don't get the ability or chance to do it, they're just going to go to somewhere else to find another job that will allow them to work from home. So this you can't stop in. But surely you could have the right tools in order to manage these new this new workforce. Right. And that's what we offer, right Case in point case in point. So we know that the KAZOO platform provides provides call recording, right? Inherently, it's working great, especially with its recent introduction of storage on Google and AWS. So everything was fine. And I seen on the forums, that this was really this was a great feature introduction. But then I saw subsequent requirements, asked about how can you limit control? Who gets access to any of those recordings? Can individual users gain access to these call recordings? Do they have access to their own to their group or didn't all call recordings so with Call Recording solutions, you really need to control access because that's just good business practice. And that's why we actually, within we actually introduced Call Recording playback and downloading both on an individual basis was a group or for for the entire business in its entirety. So we saw this need, and we complemented the KAZOO platforms, great call recording feature with the, with the specific ability to download and to playback and download those call recordings. And it's actually a standard feature in our solution, there's no way beyond beyond the storage costs associated with the call recording of the of the KAZOO platform, our playback and download and access is actually come standard with our solution.
Clint Mohs
That's great. I mean, talk about you know, you referred to your for the partnership is synergistic and super collaborative. I think that's just such a great case, use case in action, right, rolling out a feature on our end, seeing the response on the forums and working with us to kind of come up with a solution that Xarios can sort of own. So that's that's, I think that you know, the platonic ideal of like a really good strategic partnership.
Carlie Adams
It works very well that way as well. If we look at a lot of the enhanced additional reports that were added, or that have been added over the last sort of two years, this relationship, a lot of those have been requested by resellers and the customers Oh, it'd be really great. If we could have a report that did this, like a great, we can have a look. And that's added. So the product isn't rigid. If you like it, it's not that's how it is. And, and it will never change. We do take the feedback from from people who are selling the product. It would be great if we could have a feature that did X or you know, why is that? And we can look at that. And we can look at incorporating it into the software.
Clint Mohs
Yeah, that's, that's just so great. I know everybody over here has just been so happy with the partnership over the last few years that has been going on and we look forward to continuing to work with you all over there. Sadly, we are running out of time, but it was really great having you both on the podcast, Jimmy and Carly. Thanks again.
Carlie Adams
Thanks, Clint. It's been it's been a pleasure.
Jimmy Lim
Our pleasure, Clint, thank you for having us.
Clint Mohs
All right. If you'd like to learn more about sarios Be sure to check out their website and give them a follow on LinkedIn and Twitter to see what exciting updates they're making to the Dimensions platform. I'll be sure to drop a link to everything in the show notes, especially those resources that Jimmy mentioned earlier in the episode. For our listeners, thanks so much for tuning in. Be sure to like this episode and subscribe wherever you're listening. And while you're there, write us a review. It only takes a second and is a huge help to all of us here at Team 2600Hz. Until next time, thanks everyone.
