Avaya, a leading provider of contact center and communication solutions, is doubling down on putting customers first. In this VMblog Q&A, Avaya CTO Soren Abildgaard discusses how the company is transforming to raise the bar on customer experience.

Abildgaard explains Avaya's "Innovation Without Disruption" philosophy, which allows businesses to adopt new technologies like AI, analytics and automation at their own pace - whether full cloud, hybrid or on-premises. This flexible approach ensures companies can evolve while preserving existing infrastructure investments. You'll also learn how the company closely listens to customer feedback, especially from large enterprises, to drive product innovation aligned with real business needs. And Abildgaard also spotlights the role of AI in elevating customer experiences by enabling smarter self-service, agent augmentation and actionable insights from analyzing customer interactions. As AI proliferates in the contact center, data orchestration becomes critical - an area where Avaya aims to lead.

Read on for Abildgaard's full insights on Avaya's customer-centric, transformative vision for delivering immersive, personalized engagement that maximizes business results. 

VMblog: To kick things off, give VMblog readers a quick overview of the company.

Soren Abildgaard:  Avaya is a trusted provider of innovative solutions for organizations around the world, giving them the best capabilities available to engage their customers and employees in ways that maximize business results. Avaya contact center and communications solutions serve the largest companies in the world, powering immersive, personalized, and unparalleled customer experiences that drive business growth.

We are in the best position to offer businesses and organizations the freedom to choose their journey using on-premises, hybrid, or full cloud solutions - there is no limit to the experiences Avaya customers can create. Businesses are built by the experiences they provide, and everyday millions of those experiences are delivered by Avaya. As an established leader in the contact center market - supporting over 6.1 million contact center seats globally - Avaya plays a significant role in shaping customer engagement strategies worldwide.

VMblog: What has struck you the most about Avaya as you've settled into your role as CTO?

Abildgaard:  What stands out to me most is the philosophy behind Avaya's approach to customers: to give them the ability to choose the path to the cloud that fits their organization and specific needs, whether in the public cloud, private, on-prem - or through a hybrid cloud approach. This is pivotal as organizations pursue their customer experience (CX) strategies during a time of massive transformation and incredible opportunity.

We are big believers in cloud innovation. But while many IT suppliers mandate customers shift to the cloud by ripping and replacing their existing systems, Avaya advocates a different approach. We let businesses consume innovation at their pace, aligning with the rhythm of their business rather than a timeline dictated by vendors. Whether customers choose to remain on-prem or gradually transition to the cloud, we support them by delivering innovations ranging from AI to analytics to automation.

By enabling businesses to preserve their core infrastructure investments while embracing innovation, Avaya helps customers chart a path forward that marries progress with stability. This ensures that companies can evolve without sacrificing the foundation upon which their success is built, and that resonates with my belief in advancing innovation strategies that meet customers on their terms.

VMblog: Can you tell us how Avaya listens to its customers in order to innovate? How does customer feedback help to inform product development and innovation?

Abildgaard:  We listen closely to our customers, which include some of the largest enterprises in the world. These are complex organizations, many with industry-specific needs and regulatory needs to address. Companies are telling us: we need to advance our CX solutions to the next level - by embracing the next generation of digital services - but in a way that does not disrupt our organization and makes business sense. This is where our ‘Innovation Without Disruption' strategy resonates strongly, and we recently enhanced our Avaya Experience Platform to align to this approach. Avaya makes it easier for enterprise customers to innovate at their pace, and in many cases, this is where the hybrid cloud approach is most effective. Organizations can evolve by retaining existing investments made in voice, while layering on new capabilities that leverage public cloud innovation - the AI, analytics, customer journey, and other digital services - that today's organizations need to compete.

VMblog: What about internal workflows and processes. How do you optimize your own internal procedures and how does that interact with the solutions you provide for your customers?

Abildgaard:  We are in an unprecedented time in technology innovation, as opportunities abound through the advent of AI, analytics, and other advanced capabilities. Transformation is a real necessity for many enterprises, and we ourselves have embraced change to optimize our own internal processes and customers better.

Our engineering team is guided by three principles that are transforming Avaya for the next era of innovation. First, it all starts with a laser-like focus on the customer. What are their challenges, their needs, and how are we addressing them? Second is empowering teams by maximizing opportunities for self-ownership of projects and more effective collaboration. For instance, to drive innovation around Avaya Experience Portal, we have set up Innovation Hubs that bring together our product and engineering teams, which increases collaboration amongst teams.

And lastly, I see benefits in building solutions incrementally to accelerate innovation and customer value. This means collaborating early with customers as we test solutions, obtaining their feedback, and improving in increments. With this approach, we can better understand which solutions are resonating, and where we should spend our time and energy.

VMblog: Getting back to customer feedback, what are some examples of how you take this into account to optimize experiences for your customers?

Abildgaard:  Feedback is key to improving customer experience-it's the best way to know what your customers really want. Customers are looking for options that are easy to use and flexible, which is why Avaya has updated its offerings to provide a single, streamlined platform. Avaya's focus on a singular, streamlined solution means faster improvements and easier ways for businesses to give their customers and employees outstanding experiences.

Examples of what we are doing right include something I call ‘feature flex.' As we innovate, we can bring out a feature to just to a single customer, and work closely with them to get their input and understand what works best. Then we can quickly scale up to a few customers, user groups, and all the way up to a whole platform, enabled by our expertise in delivering highly-scalable solutions to large organizations.

Additionally, based on the feedback customers have given us, we understand that organizations don't just want innovation, but also want backwards compatibility, so that interfaces from earlier versions of a system work with newer systems. Our analytics solution is one example, as is our innovation in bringing omnichannel reporting together. Natural language queries can be introduced, but in a way that is compatible with prior CMS reports.

This brings the capabilities an organization loves into the new world, representing just a few ways we listen to our customers. Avaya makes it easier for businesses to upgrade and add new features without major overhauls, supporting uninterrupted business growth across both in-house and cloud-based setups. This helps businesses stay up-to-date easily, without the hassle of replacing their entire system.

VMblog: How has AI helped impacted these solutions in their ability to analyze feedback and uplevel customer experiences?

Abildgaard:  AI has transformed how customer feedback is understood and acted upon in the contact center. We leverage AI capabilities, such as real-time call monitoring, to provide agents with instant insights, and that allows for more effective responses to customer needs. This reduces the necessity for manual notetaking, enabling agents to focus on each interaction and ensure customer engagement. Furthermore, our strategy of a unified AI-powered platform facilitates the smooth adoption of new features, enabling businesses to progress without disruption. This approach not only elevates customer and employee experiences but also promotes business growth.

I'm excited for the future of AI in the contact center. It is going to transform CX, improving everything from agent well-being through smarter use of automation to decision-making using faster analytics. But AI generates a lot of data in the contact center, much of it which can get lost in silos if not handled properly. That is where the need for orchestration comes in - and Avaya has vast experience in orchestrating AI-generated data. We are solving the data dilemma, and backed by a large ecosystem of AI partners, a strong AXP foundation, and our recent Edify acquisition, Avaya plans to help our customers tap into the full potential of AI and the information it generates.

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