Last week, I had the pleasure of welcoming Bright Pattern’s new Senior Vice President of Marketing, Ted Hunting, aboard our team. Ted is well-known in the contact center space as a thought leader and speaker at many top industry events. His breadth of experience spans start-ups and large enterprise technology companies across a wide range of industries, including business intelligence, large-scale computing systems, and telecommunications.
With such great knowledge coming to the marketing team, I thought I’d sit down with Ted to get the inside scoop from an industry expert and learn more about his move from Genesys to Bright Pattern.
Q1: Welcome to the Bright Pattern Team! After spending 14 years at Genesys, what made you want to join Bright Pattern and lead the marketing team?
It started with the people. I was hooked when I first met Michael [McCloskey, CEO of Bright Pattern] and later Konstantin [Kishinsky, Founder and CTO of Bright Pattern]. These are super-smart, passionate people who also demonstrate leadership styles and openness that I personally value. But it was the combination of great people, with the best customer service technology on the planet that made the move easy. I have been very fortunate to work with great people and companies over the years, most recently at Genesys, but the opportunity to be part of a company that will revolutionize customer service was honestly something I could not refuse.
Q2: Based on your vast industry experience, what makes Bright Pattern different from other newly emerging cloud-based contact center solutions?
Companies today realize that digital disruption is everywhere and companies need to engage digitally. One of my favorite industry pics on my iPhone is of Gartner’s CEO, Gene Hall, standing in front of a background that said, “Digital Business is Upon Us.” To paraphrase him, he said, “If you think you are not a digital business, you will be out of business.”
What really caught my attention, though, is his comment that to be the disruptor you must engage in the moment with your customers. That is why Bright Pattern is truly brighter than the other vendors. Our ability to offer true omnichannel and engage in the moment with a single unified conversation across all channels is only possible with two vendors today—and we’re one of them! But what makes us different is that we are the only cloud-first omnichannel platform that can do this. Other cloud offerings are not omnichannel, have limited channels, or just don’t scale. We do all of these things to make customer service easier and faster, and we do it on all cloud infrastructure platforms.
Q3: You are the third new executive hire at Bright Pattern in the last six months, which indicates some exciting changes. Can you share some insight on what’s happening “behind closed doors” and what the contact center industry should expect from Bright Pattern in the next six months?
I’m still learning from our amazing engineering team what is next. At a high level, our focus will be on creating the best cloud-first contact center technology on the market and building it based on what companies need for their customers. It’s amazing that despite being in the “future world” of AI, bots, and high tech most companies are still dealing with legacy systems that lack nimbleness and can’t handle new emerging channels. At a strategic level, companies using these systems are unable to act in the moment, and they are leaving themselves open to disruption. Part of our mission is to help revolutionize customer service so companies can be the disruptor, not the disrupted. Check out our newest whitepaper on cloud benefits and how to transition from on-prem to the cloud!
Q4: What are some hobbies you enjoy in your free time?
My favorite hobby most days of the week is to cook at the end of a fun day and relax and unwind with my family. I also enjoy running. When time permits, I love to windsurf, go backpacking, ski, or scuba dive.
Bright Pattern couldn’t be more excited to add another industry expert to its executive team! Click to view Ted Hunting’s press announcement.
