00:12:11 · Guillaume Moubeche, Reggie Marable
[00:12:11] S1: Love it. And what... What's changing versus, like, software when it comes to the business model? Usually, people per per... Pay per seat. So here, it's... How exactly does it change? [00:12:22] S0: We have this beautiful business model called outcome based pricing. And essentially what that means is we only get paid when our agents successfully resolve cases or deliver on the use cases that we sign up for. So you're hiring Sierra to do a job, and if we don't do our job, we don't get paid. This is a completely new model. Customers love it because they're paying for results. We have mutual aligned business interests. Our job is to take on more of your traffic at a much lower cost, and you as a customer, you're going to send us more traffic because you're paying less. It's a more consistent experience. So we don't charge implementation fees. We don't charge for any professional services work. We only get paid when our agents successfully resolve cases on their own without human intervention. That's what we deliver to customers. And people no longer wanna pay for seats or consumption or the right to use software. They wanna pay for results, and that's what Sierra delivers for our customers. [00:13:21] S1: And from a It's [00:13:22] S0: fun to sell it's fun to sell this two That...
00:13:22 · Reggie Marable, Guillaume Moubeche
[00:13:22] S0: fun to sell it's fun to sell this two That... [00:13:24] S1: That's what I was gonna ask, you know, like from a from a sales perspective, like on your side and with your team, how do you feel like... How do people react, you know, when they hear, like, they're not gonna pay per seat and they're gonna have to pay per outcome? People get excited because once again, they're paying for results. And [00:13:45] S0: we're able, like, to build a... Like, the ROI is, right there. If we're gonna be able to handle your customer interactions at a lower cost, we're going to do it more consistently, and we're going to do it better than it's being done today, why wouldn't you want to experience a business model like that? So it's fun to sell. It's a clear return on investment. It's a clear return on business value. Once again, our values are aligned to our clients' values, is to improve the overall customer experience at a much lower cost and be able to interact with all of your customers and build more intimate relationships. People buy more from you, they tell their friends about you, and they're really happy interacting with your brand. [00:14:26] S1: Nice. And can you walk us through maybe, like, the the sales process? Like, how have you organized your team, and what's kind of, like, the the sales process?
00:14:36 · Reggie Marable
[00:14:36] S0: Yeah. So we are... This is a brand new category of software, so it's a different sales process than what you traditionally see in SaaS. So with the way we're set up is we are industry focused. So we wanna be in the industries where people live, work, and play when they need to interact with the brand. So that's financial services, healthcare, telecom, retail, media, travel, tourism, hospitality, technology. So that's, and when you're aligned to industries, you understand what's happening in those industries, you understand the trends, you understand the use cases, you can speak the language and add tremendous value. So that's how we're set up. Our selling motion, it's a proof of concept generated selling motion, which means it's AI, it's new, So we wanna prove our value and make this a low risk engagement for our customers. So we do a paid proof of concept where we build a production ready agent, do all the back end system integration work, put the agent into live production so the client can see the value that this agent is driving, the incredible resolution rates, the high CSAT scores, our ability to handle complex use cases. They also get to see what it's like to partner with Sierra. So our, we have very sophisticated technical sellers. And then for every engagement, we have a dedicated agent strategist, which is like a project manager, very technical resource, and an agent engineer. We become integrated with our clients' technology teams or business teams or operations teams. So we show up and we can move really, really fast. So our selling motion is POC, put the agent in live production, you get a chance to see how powerful the technology is, what it's like to work with us. It's a very low risk way to evaluate Sierra. And do you, like, prepare all the agents before actually, like, the POC? Or do... Like, do you use it as, you know, like, I don't know, a way to attract leads if you do outbound, for example? No. So we... Each agent that we build is customized to the client that we're working with. Okay. So what we'll do is with the client and the proof of concept, we'll pick three use cases, one high volume, one easy one, and one really complex and early use case, and then we'll build the agent with the client. Okay.
00:16:52 · Reggie Marable
Once again, we'll we'll build a production ready agent, and then we'll put the agent into live production, and we'll ramp the traffic up so they get a chance to see what it's like to work with us, and they can see the power of the technology in the wild. We can move really, really fast. If I look at some of our really complex engagements like with Cigna, which is a highly regulated insurance company, we were able to get their agent up and running in less than two months. Next, which is a large European retailer, hopefully you're a customer of Next, We were able to get their agent up and running in once again in less than two months across 83 countries and 48 different languages. Singtel, one of the largest telecoms in Asia Pac, got their agent up and running in sixty days. So if we're bringing all these incredible powerful resources to bear and we're doing the heavy lifting, it's really, really low risk for customers to partner with Sierra. And what's like the the average deal size that you are closing? Depends on the size of the the client, how much volume they want us to handle, the complexity of what we're gonna work on. But long term, these are gonna be, you know, pretty large transactions because we're primarily working with the global Fortune 1,000, and many of our customers are in the Fortune 100. And these are really large complex businesses that receive a lot of inbound and outbound customer contacts. So if we're doing our job, our agents are performing, we're showing up the right way, we're delivering for our clients, then they're going to want to give us more business. And these... Obviously, these engagements can get pretty sizable. Only if, once again, our agents are delivering value and solving problems. So if we're not if we're not driving any value, no one's going to want to partner with us. But hopefully, that gives you a sense of the different types of deal sizes that we work.
00:18:48 · Guillaume Moubeche, Reggie Marable
[00:18:48] S1: Yeah. Definitely. And when it comes to, like, the the price per outcome, is it something that varies depending on the industry and the company, or is it like something that's, like, [00:18:59] S0: one one fits all? No. It's it's gonna be based upon, like, how much volume that you want us to handle. Okay. What's the what's the use case that we're gonna handle? Is it voice? Is it chat? Is it email? You know, which modality are we gonna have the agent handle? There's So a variety of different factors, but at the end of the day, it's pretty clear. Did our agent handle its business? Did it resolve an issue, or did it close a sale? Depends on the use case. And if it did, we get paid. If our agent doesn't handle its business, doesn't resolve that use case, then we don't get paid. And when I say, handle the use case on their own autonomously with no human intervention. If we have to transfer it to a human, then it's free of charge. And oh, by the way, Gene, when we transfer it, we're going tell you why we couldn't resolve that issue, and here's potentially what that human agent should do to resolve that case on the first interaction. Nice. Really cool stuff, man. It's a lot of fun to sell this.
00:18:59 · Reggie Marable, Guillaume Moubeche
[00:18:59] S0: one one fits all? No. It's it's gonna be based upon, like, how much volume that you want us to handle. Okay. What's the what's the use case that we're gonna handle? Is it voice? Is it chat? Is it email? You know, which modality are we gonna have the agent handle? There's So a variety of different factors, but at the end of the day, it's pretty clear. Did our agent handle its business? Did it resolve an issue, or did it close a sale? Depends on the use case. And if it did, we get paid. If our agent doesn't handle its business, doesn't resolve that use case, then we don't get paid. And when I say, handle the use case on their own autonomously with no human intervention. If we have to transfer it to a human, then it's free of charge. And oh, by the way, Gene, when we transfer it, we're going tell you why we couldn't resolve that issue, and here's potentially what that human agent should do to resolve that case on the first interaction. Nice. Really cool stuff, man. It's a lot of fun to sell this. [00:19:58] S1: Yeah. It's... It must be, like, super fun, especially, like, coming from from more traditional, like, software. I think it's it's a lot easier, but you're you're saying that you were focusing on Fortune one thousand. So with with this kind of deals, like, from 500 to multimillion dollars, usually, like, the the sales cycle can be, like, quite long. So can you maybe, like, walk us through how do you find, like, those leads? How do you like close deals? Like, is it mainly outbound, inbound? Like, how exactly the the whole sales machine works? Yeah.