Highlights:
- Jackie Kobbe, AVP of Professional Services Delivery discusses how her team adds value to RingCentral’s customer experience.
- We sat down with her to learn what her team offers—exactly how their expertise smooths customer transitions, and hear more about their expansion plans.
RingCentral’s AVP of Professional Services Delivery Jackie Kobbe leads a team dedicated to smoothing transitions for our customers. We sat down with her to learn more about her team’s customer service role, their latest offering, and why the future’s so bright for our Professional Services team.
Delivering results.
Kobbe started with RingCentral Professional Services about five years ago working with the team in developing a fast-growing organization. She’s currently the AVP of Professional Services Delivery overseeing project management and revenue. Her team is expanding, especially in the managed services area, due to the overwhelming success customers are seeing with our new Managed Services offering. According to our own customer survey, RingCentral customers have reported a time to implement of 3 months, with a time to payback of 9 months. Other benefits customers are seeing include a 43% improvement in speed of workflow deployment and 42% faster integrations with RingCentral MVP.
White-glove transitions.
For those who may not be familiar with her team, Kobbe explains their primary offering: “Professional Services offers a white-glove service delivering and implementing all RingCentral products using best practices and new technologies to improve a customer’s experience.” Professional Services guides customers through the process, maximizing efficiency from start to finish. Kobbe’s team sits down with customers, assesses how they are currently using RingCentral’s offerings, then provides a consulting role suggesting the ideal products and best practices to meet their specific needs and goals.
Exciting developments.
Last year her team rolled out their latest addition, Managed Services. This is a group of dedicated service delivery managers providing a one-stop shop for customers to make changes within their product, address issues, and receive training. Managed services is a high-demand service that Kobbe is excited about since it’s one of the key offers that goes beyond implementation to nurture a thriving partnership with the customer.
Being able to make changes quickly and meet customers’ needs on a daily basis adds tremendous value versus simply implementing and then moving them into support. Managed Services improves our customers’ product knowledge and helps us know our customers better.
Checkpoints keep projects on track.
Project success is monitored throughout the process in three key ways. First, through working conversations with the customer several times a week, RingCentral project managers and engineers check in with the customer to make sure that we’re meeting and accommodating their needs. Second, halfway through the project, they do a midpoint survey. That’s been really effective in identifying disconnects between what the customers purchased and what they think they’re getting and addressing concerns with project implementation. Kobbe says these are critical, “Those midpoint survey customers have excellent engagement and we turn almost all of those projects around to a successful launch. We also use what we’ve learned in those surveys to build on our processes and the training of our employees.”
Taking it to the finish line.
Several weeks after the end of each project, the team does a final survey of the entire project lifecycle. This is the third key checkpoint. They also call any customer who doesn’t rate their experience a nine or 10. “These follow-up conversations ensure customers that we have heard them, understand them, and are prepared to make it better.” Having these three checkpoints—the project team meeting with the customer and then the two surveys—has been the key to Managed Services’ successful launch.
Growing and seeking new talent.
All of that success is spurring a season of growth. We asked Kobbe what Professional Services looks for in new talent. She wants to bring in new people who are customer-focused energetic leaders, ideally with a technical background. “Our biggest challenge is our greatest gift, our growth! It’s a challenge because we have to become innovative and keep up with demand, but our growth has brought some amazing people and a lot of amazing work to us.”
Kids, the Caribbean, and music.
Outside of RingCentral, Kobbe is a mom of three—a junior in high school and two college students. They enjoy traveling together to warm tropical locations, “anywhere with a beach,” like the Caribbean. Kobbe also enjoys individual trips with them, like a recent one to Paris with her oldest daughter. If Kobbe was trapped on a desert island, she told us she would want her kids, her five best friends, and a radio so they could all listen to music.
Originally published Jan 24, 2024, updated Jan 31, 2024
