Highlights:
- Akshay Srivastava began his new role as RingCentral’s Chief Customer Officer 90 days ago.
- For Customer Service Week (October 2-6), we checked in to learn more about how he is improving RingCentral’s customer experience.
After spending nearly four years at RingCentral in Finance and Operations roles, Akshay Srivastava took on the new role of Chief Customer Officer, overseeing customer support, customer success management, voice of the customer and community functions. He brings with him more than two decades of tech industry experience.. Akshay sat down with us to share how he is improving RingCentral’s customer experience through data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and that irreplaceable element, the human touch.
Ensuring a great customer experience is paramount.
Akshay’s primary focus is improving customer experience through added attention, expertise, and insights. He strives to strike a balance between customers who want to interact with RingCentral digitally and those who want that personal connection. Through the integration of emerging AI technologies, customers who choose to interact digitally receive tailored attention with exceptionally short turnaround times. In addition, customers have access to RingCentral’s highly responsive customer success and support teams who are dedicated to meeting and exceeding customer expectations and offer the human connection. Akshay spends time daily meeting customers face-to-face or using RingCentral video. “Our customers love our products and technology,” says Akshay, “pair those with human connection and we have a winning combination.”
Using AI and data analytics to gauge sentiment.
By measuring customer satisfaction using AI tools and metrics, Akshay’s teams can gauge customer sentiment after every interaction. This allows customer success teams to address current needs and anticipate future ones. Whether it’s a product feature a customer wants to add to their existing portfolio or an innovative idea, Akshay and his teams are acting on customer sentiment insights to make those improvements. “They care enough to tell us and we care just as much to listen and respond,” Akshay says.
Building customer relationships.
Akshay believes in building strong relationships by speaking with customers on a daily basis and traveling to customer sites. He focuses on getting to know them and what the world looks like from their perspective. This helps identify opportunities for growth, service, and support. Given such a positive response to this personal attention, RingCentral is rolling out a new executive relationship program, which pairs senior leaders with customers. By speaking to customers on a regular basis, the CCO organization can be certain they are doing everything to make customers successful. “It’s important customers see the depth and breadth of the RingCentral brand. We’re a global corporation. Seeing that level of leadership at the table gives our customers a lot of assurance,” Akshay says.
RingCentral also has a customer advisory board that provides another avenue to customers to provide feedback, which RingCentral uses to understand each customer’s unique journey, and enhance its product, service and support offerings.
As I work with the team, I can feel the passion they have for our customers, our products, our services. And I love how they all show up as ambassadors of RingCentral to their customers. I’m deeply thankful for the great culture of “customer first” the teams have built over the years, and I look forward to helping them scale and build on that culture to take us to even greater heights.
Achieving success through adaptation.
As a diplomat’s son, Akshay grew up in six different countries. “We would move every three years, so change and adaptation is a very big part of who I am.” He later attended Louisiana State University, where he met his wife. Akshay loves to spend time with his family, including their teenage daughter and puppy. He never misses an LSU football game.
Originally published Oct 02, 2023
