In the ever-evolving landscape of customer service and engagement, leveraging technology to drive growth and enhance customer experiences has become paramount for businesses striving to stay ahead.
One company that has exemplified this approach is Five9 (NASDAQ:FIVN). Amidst a rapidly changing market, Five9 managed to achieve a remarkable 20% year-over-year growth, a feat attributed to its strategic integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into its innovative solutions.
In an exclusive interview with the company’s CEO, he tells us what’s next for Five9, their plans for driving innovative CX solutions, and how they can further capitalize on artificial intelligence (AI).
Who are Five9 and Mike Burkland?
Five9 is a provider of cloud contact center software. Leveraging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, Five9 helps businesses streamline their customer interactions, enhance agent productivity, and drive operational efficiency.
At the helm of Five9 is CEO Mike Burkland, a seasoned industry veteran with a wealth of experience in the technology and software sectors.
Last week, Five9 announced its latest quarterly results, surpassing earnings and revenue expectations. In an exclusive interview with investing.com, Burkland highlighted the company's strong performance, with subscription revenue growing 20% year-over-year and total revenue exceeding the midpoint of its guidance by 3 percentage points.
“One thing that’s important to note is that our subscription revenue, which others in the industry refer to as ‘cloud revenue,’ accounts for 80% of our total revenue,” noted Burkland. “And unlike legacy contact center platforms, the 20% growth in subscription revenue does not include customers converting from on-premises to cloud since we do not have any on-premises business.”
He noted that Five9’s innovation and AI leadership have been a key reason why customers choose the company. Their focus on using AI to enhance the customer experience “paid off with AI & Automation ARR bookings growing 15x YoY in the first quarter.”
AI Product Innovation & The Future of Five9
Looking ahead, Burkland said going to continue to invest energy into AI product innovation, as well as supporting companies as they migrate to the cloud, and focusing on growth, both in marching up-market and expanding internationally.
“We have a lot of exciting things in the works that speak to each of these areas – all of which bubbles up to a greater goal: Transforming customer experiences across the entire customer journey – from first touch in marketing to commerce, to sales and service,” he declared.
He continued: “We’ve delivered solutions that have done a great job of positioning Five9 as a market leader. Our most recent product launch, GenAI Studio in March, allows organizations to take off-the-shelf generative AI models (like OpenAI) and customize them for the contact center in just a few clicks.”
Burkland says artificial intelligence will and continues to revolutionize the way brands enhance customer experience. More precisely, Five9’s AI strategy sees it combine the power of the industry's leading engines with contextual data unique to each of its customers.
“We have always believed it's optimal to leverage the best engines in the industry, and the arrival of generative AI has further validated that strategy. And it’s paying off: as I mentioned earlier, our AI and automation ARR bookings grew 15X year-over-year in the first quarter, a testament to Five9’s early leadership in AI within our space,” continued Burkland.
To implement and best capitalize on AI, Five9 is embracing the best engines and expanding them with contextual data to produce customer-specific AI models that the company feels is setting new standards in providing exceptional customer experience while protecting data privacy.
Burkland remarks: “While we have the technology lead, our ability to empower customers also hinges on Five9’s experts, who work together with our customers to gather the right data from the right sources to deliver these customer-specific models.”
“We’re going to continue innovating and investing in our own teams to deliver on our vision. What we have coming, in both the short and long term, is further evolving our space to redefine the customer experience, so stay tuned. We’re excited about what’s to come.”
The Future of CX
Meanwhile, when it comes to CX, the Five9 CEO highlighted the company’s strong collaborations with premier CX partners around the world, with the work they’re doing seen as significant, helping to anchor their up-market success and international expansion.
“We are seeing increased momentum from large service integrators (SIs), such as Deloitte, Accenture (NYSE:ACN) and IBM/Kendryl, and have an ongoing initiative that enables and certifies a select group of partners to take on implementation and support services,” Burkland states.
Specifically, the company’s Carrier relationships are “accelerating at a record pace,” with Burkland highlighting BT and Telus (NYSE:TU) International in particular.
“Second, our large global partnerships are taking hold and growing – notably with Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) as our long-standing partnership continues to gain momentum,” he says, adding that the company has “more integration news coming with Salesforce.”
Other Five9 strategic and channel partners include ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW), BT and Zendesk (NYSE:ZEN). The BT partnership is seen as instrumental to the company’s growth in the UK, Ireland and beyond.