Hi, and welcome to The Bridge. I'm your host, Scott Kinka. On this episode, we meet PPT Solutions, Dennis Weikle, who's the CEO, and Scott Casson, the Senior Vice President of Delivery. So, why PPT Solutions? Well, in full disclosure, Bridgepointe Technologies, as you know, the sponsor of this podcast, recently acquired PPT, which stands for People, Process and Technology considers themselves a CX as a service provider. That doesn't mean they're a technology service provider or a SaaS provider. In fact, it sort of means the opposite. They are a services firm that operates in and around those software as a service and platform as a service providers. They deliver consulting, implementation, and managed services around CX. Importantly, they're also a BPO or Business Process Outsourcing Broker. We'll get to what that means in a minute. Everyone is talking CX these days, like it was just invented. Acronym of the year.
We spent some time talking about what CX is, what it isn't. We debated it. We talked about the differences between CX and CCaaS. Without spilling the beans here: CCaaS, really technology platform. CX, a business strategy. Why now? Why is it all about CX today? Is it the pandemic, the changing expectations of consumers? Is it finally now the year of the consumer? Isn’t every year? Why are we constantly reinventing what we call the technologies and platforms that support our engagement with clients? I've said this several times in the pod in the past year, and I'll continue to say it, contact center and CX implementations don't go bad because of broken tech. They go bad because of poor strategy or implementation or unclear objectives, and that's really the gap that PPT Solutions, now Bridgepointe, is filling for businesses. And they give a few really good examples of that on the pod. We talked a bunch about outsourcing agents, getting back to that. What has come to be known as BPO and, and how in some business lines it was taboo before the pandemic. You know, you don't want to call and get somebody overseas. But once everyone went home, businesses realized that they needed more flexibility in staffing and costs, businesses are questioning not only whether they need full-time staff in their contact center, but they're also looking at how technology, or in this case, the broader CX portfolio, can actually serve customers without agents, right? How do we eliminate calls coming into the contact center?
Of course, we ended with our predictions section. We got some great predictions about the Bengals winning the Super Bowl. We talked about Dennis's dream of being a member of an eighties hair band. Don't miss that part. Either way, this was a great conversation and one that I hope you find as thought provoking as I did. So let's get to. Here we are with this episode of The Bridge.
About Dennis Weikle
Founder and Managing Director
Dennis Weikle is a JD Power award winning executive with over 20 years of experience leading small to large contact center organizations, outsourcing engagements, and customer lifecycle transformations. He brings diverse and thoughtful expertise to each client engagement helping create solutions that solve real business problems. Most recently, Dennis was Chief Operating Officer for Direct Energy Residential and prior to that served as Vice President of Prepaid Care and Consumer Account Services at Sprint where he led the organization to three JD Power Awards. He has a track record of success having developed high performing teams, strategic partnerships, and innovative technology solutions.
About Scott Casson
Senior Vice President, Delivery
Scott is a 25-year veteran of the Contact Center/Customer Service industry and had held every possible position within the contact center from starting on the phone as an agent up to, and including Senior Vice President. Throughout the past 15-years, he has focused all his efforts on helping corporations, both large and small, on-shore and off-shore, improving their contact centers by delivering engagements that significantly enhanced productivity, reduced expenses, and improved their overall Customer Satisfaction. While Scott is considered a contact center generalist, he has become a Subject Matter Expert in the areas of productivity improvement through Outlier Management, Workforce Management, IVR and ACD redesign, Outbound Dialing, and Knowledge Management.
Contact Dennis & Scott
PPT: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ppt-solutions/
Dennis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennisweikle/
Scott: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottcasson/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/pptsolutions1