Nothing artificial about Rienzi Ramirez
The business process outsourcing (BPO) sector has been a key component of the Philippine economy, maintaining a steady flow of investments with an estimated revenue of $23 billion in 2017.
One of the main drivers of growth in the Philippine BPO sector is the United States, which is one of the largest investors in the industry that has generated millions of jobs for Filipinos. A concern, however, is the perception of protectionism emerging from the US in light of President Donald
Trump’s “America First” pronouncements. But for [24]7.ai president and country manager for the Philippines Jose Rienzi Ramirez, such a reaction is natural. What would really count are the fundamentals offered by BPOs such as cost competitiveness and superior quality of service. The real issue, he says, is when a company is not competitive in pricing, if it is not delivering a certain level of service or when the quality of the people it employs is questionable. “If these clients can get better-educated agents from other countries with better voice quality, then your model is in question,” Ramirez explains, adding that regardless of who the US President is or what he says or tweets, it is really good service and cost effectiveness that will make the difference.
The 41-year-old executive certainly knows whereof he speaks, having been in the BPO sector for 17 years, at a time when it was just starting with a few thousand people working in Ortigas and Eastwood. Having obtained a degree in Quantitative Economics (cum laude) from the University of Asia and the Pacific and a masters in Business Management from the Asian Institute of Management, Rienzi did not really see himself going the business process management (BPM) route.
“It did not seem like something I would be staying in and pursuing for a long period of time,” he admits. But the attraction was when the young man realized that he was building up a career and contributing to the growth of an organization, which gave him a great sense of accomplishment.
When Rienzi started out [24]7 Philippines in 2006, they were only five key people sharing a small boardroom. Today, the company has since grown with 5,000 people in the Philippines. The ability to scale up and grow and really see people’s lives getting better, generating meaningful work certainly gives one a feeling of success, he avers.
Globally headquartered in Silicon Valley in California, [24]7 is an intent-driven customer experience company offering software and services that make it easy for large companies to interact with consumers. Over the years, it has earned recognition and accolade, such as one of the Top 5 Players in the Offshore Outsourcing World by Business Week, Top 3 Contact Centers worldwide by Neo-IT, one of the Top 5 most respected BPOs by Business-World, among others.
Recently, the company underwent a name change from [24]7 Inc. to [24]7.ai to reflect its leadership in leveraging artificial intelligence to improve customer experience.
“I think 2018 is exciting for us because as we move into artificial intelligence or AI, [24]7 will be the first organization that will actually put machine learning and heuristic technology into customer service,” Rienzi remarks. By processing large amounts of consumer data (for example, by gathering the digital imprint of transactions), [24]7.ai will be able to anticipate or predict a customer’s intents (or needs) and resolve a problem more effortlessly.
For instance, when a person calls a bank because of a problem — like an ATM card captured by the machine — chances are, the other person handling the call does not know what the call is all about and will ask several questions before getting to the heart of the problem. [24]7.ai resolves this by gathering data in order to predict what the problem is, so by the time the customer calls, the other person on the line would anticipate (or predict) that the call would be about the captured card and hence, the feedback would be immediate and he would be able to tell the customer what to do, making the process faster.
“The demand for service that is AI is escalating in a big way,” observes Rienzi, explaining that people now want interactions to be predictive and of course very quick and easy. “At [24]7.ai, we both have people and technology, and our design and direction is to actually make these two things play together — where people powered by technology generate the best interactions,” the young executive explains.
Asked what is in store for the company, he says, “As we ended 2017, we opened up our flagship site, Cyber Sigma (in Bonifacio Global City). We’re expanding very quickly.” He adds that the company will be hiring almost 1,500 people in the facility.
Judging from this interaction with Rienzi Ramirez, it certainly looks like 2018 will be another great year for the industry.