Bright Pattern welcomed Brian Hays to the company’s executive team as the Senior VP of Global Sales. A long time industry vet with 18 years’ experience at Genesys, Brian has a wealth of industry knowledge that we thought we would bring to you in this exclusive Q&A.
Q1: Could you tell us a little about yourself, both professionally and personally.
First of all, I am very excited to be part of the executive leadership team at Bright Pattern. While exploring this opportunity and being in this industry for a long time, I was extremely impressed with the cloud-based contact center solution that Konstantin [Kishinsky] and his team have developed over the past seven years.
I started my career in the mid 80s with Electronic Data Systems, helping to design and implement the world’s largest privately owned computer and telephony network for General Motors. This was my first exposure to what would become a career in Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) in the contact center industry.
While at Genesys, my first position was as Account Executive. After a few successful years as an individual contributor, I was asked to join the Sales Leadership team managing a sub region within the United States. After consistently exceeding sales targets, I was promoted to Vice President of Sales with responsibility for over 35% of the company’s software license, professional service, and Genesys University revenue. During my 18 years at Genesys, I managed through significant changes with major company growth from $76M to over $1.4B in total annual revenue.
I am married to my wife, Michelle, and have a step-daughter, Rachel, in a doctoral program for chiropractic and a step-son, Michael, in college majoring in finance. As an active U.S. Merchant Marine Officer, I enjoy boating, fishing, diving, and traveling.
Q2: As a veteran of this industry, what do you like about the contact center space and why have you stuck with it for over 18 years?
In working with both computers and telephony systems early in my career, I became very interested in the integration of these technologies, which led me to the contact center industry. Engaging with many companies over the years, the focus on customer experience has become a critical factor in growing and retaining their customer base. It wasn’t until the onset of the Internet, and later, the smartphone that companies were compelled to transform customer experience as they became a “click” away from losing customers to their competition.
Innovation over the past 20 years moved from transacting business with customers through calls, letters, and faxes to a multichannel customer experience. By knowing your customer, routing an interaction to the right person the first time is not only expected, but makes the interaction more effective and efficient. In addition, waiting for customers to contact them is not always the best practice. Companies need solutions and practices to personalize and proactively communicate with their customers in the right form at the right time.
Being a consumer myself, I’ve experienced both good and bad interactions with companies. We tend to remember the bad experiences more than the good. For the past 18 years, I’ve been passionate about helping companies provide the best contact center solutions and best practices in serving their customers.
Q3: What drew you to Bright Pattern?
In researching the company, I realized that some of the people at Bright Pattern worked at Genesys when I started there in 1998. The knowledge of the engineering team in building a cloud-based customer experience platform is unmatched by any other startup company in this industry. In addition, Michael McCloskey was President of Genesys when I joined, and I have tremendous respect for his leadership as CEO of the company.
During my first meeting with Bright Pattern, I quickly realized what a bright future this company has.
Innovation is the key to success in the contact center industry. I was impressed with not only the vision but the modern architecture inherent in the solution. The software was written as a cloud solution from the beginning and additional capabilities could be added quickly to the solution. Coming from selling a very complex solution, it was extremely refreshing to see how a well-developed solution could be implemented in a very short period of time. This architecture also provides a strong platform for innovation in developing Artificial Intelligence (AI), chatbots, social media, and other technologies to improve customer experience and provide operational efficiencies.
When you add up the people and highly flexible, scalable solution with the growth in cloud-based solutions expecting to reach over 30% of the installed base by 2020, Bright Pattern is well positioned to become the global industry leader in the customer experience space.
I am very excited about being part of this market transition and the upcoming opportunities for Bright Pattern.