It’s strange to think we’re publishing this on the two-year anniversary of the day we shut our office doors and started working from home (like most of us, we thought it’d be a couple weeks…). The times have been nothing short of unprecedented, so first and foremost, I want to say how proud I am of the Observe.AI team for their resilience and adaptability, and thank you to our customers, new and old.
The digital transformation, rapid shift to hybrid and remote work, and newfound focus on customer experience brought about by the pandemic created new tailwinds for Observe.AI. 2021 was a record year of growth for us, not just for our growth in ARR and new customers, but also in our platform’s capabilities. When you put together strategic customer acquisitions and industry-leading product innovation, you get our 2021 (and a bright future ahead).
Let’s dive in and look at our past year.
We drove huge financial growth (and new, exciting customers)
Last year, we brought on new customers across nearly every industry. We increased our enterprise customer base by 40% through companies like Concentrix, Assurance IQ, Sunpro and Pearson.
That progress fueled 150% in ARR growth, including a record 4th quarter. With big, new customers comes the need for scale, and we nailed it. Volume of customer interactions analyzed by our AI increased 3x since 2020, and despite the rapid growth, our platform scaled with ease.
Expanding our platform use cases
The expanse of use cases we power - revenue generation, customer experience, operational efficiency, and compliance management - served as the launch pad for our continued growth. Our goal is to make our platform as multi-dimensional as possible across contact center use cases, and the new customers we’ve brought on this year proves that.
And we are particularly proud of the expansion of our platform to accelerate high-volume sales for B2C organizations, driving an average 40% increase in revenue post-implementation.
Taking a step back, these outcomes are a testament to our ability to meet the overwhelming demand from customers looking to elevate their contact centers through AI, and distill game-changing intelligence from every customer interaction.
We continued to innovate our platform
In 2021, we reintroduced ourselves as the Observe.AI Intelligent Workforce Platform. Our goal is to usher in a new AI-enabled era for contact centers - one where customer needs are understood, agent experience is prioritized, and business results are exceeded. To achieve that goal, we focused on product innovation including:
- Expanding into omnichannel conversation intelligence, starting with our acquisition of Scope.AI.
- Launching Agent Performance & Coaching to help our customers gain a holistic line of sight into team productivity and support agents with targeted and contextual coaching.
- A whole slew of machine learning and automation capabilities to improve our platform accuracy and efficiency.
We were recognized as an industry leader
In my opinion, to be deemed an “industry-leader,” you need to look at how both major business publications and those actually using your product feel about you. We couldn’t be more excited to see the positive reception in both groups.
For the second consecutive year, Observe.AI was named in the Forbes AI 50 as one of North America’s top 50 privately held companies using artificial intelligence. Forrester also recognized Observe.AI in its Now Tech: Conversation Intelligence industry report.
So what about you all, our users?
We become a favorite CCaaS provider among enterprise users, named a leader by G2. 99% of users awarded Observe.AI a 4- or 5-star ratings and an exceptional customer satisfaction score (NPS) of 82.
We expanded our partner ecosystem and leadership team
Observe.AI expanded its presence in the channel ecosystem this year by signing new major partners – including Avant, Telarus, PlanetOne, Intelisys, InFlowCX, Bridgepointe, CX Effect, and Sandler Partners – as well as by strengthening existing partnerships with Talkdesk, Ujet, and Genesys.
The company also expanded its channel team with key hires:
- John Heaps, VP of Channel: seasoned channel leader with 20+ years of experience in moving contact centers to the cloud and accelerating businesses like Talkdesk, and NICE InContact
- Heather Riley, Head of Channel Marketing: former Director of Channel Marketing at Talkdesk, previously at Integra and Nice inContact
- Scott Eastman, Director of Channel Sales, US West: former Regional Channel Manager at Talkdesk, previously at Momentum, Integra, and Advoda
- Tony Burns, Director of Channel Sales, US Central: former Channel Account Manager at Mit
We made key executive hires and expanded our team
We’ve made significant progress towards building out our team to continue executing on our ambitious roadmap and delivering a best-in-class experience to you, our customers.
We made key executive hires in finance, marketing, and sales:
- Sendhil Jayachandran, CMO
- Kyle DiPentima, Senior Vice President of Sales
- Hila Segal, Vice President of Product Marketing
- Subhash Tibrewal, Vice President Finance
Lastly, we grew our organization across sales and marketing, engineering, machine learning, and product, and built an incredible remote-first culture while we were at it. Of course, that hiring isn’t slowing down, so take a look at our careers page for openings.
What’s next?
While the last year was historical for us, we’re only scratching the surface of what’s to come. Last year was all about laying the foundation of critical areas of our business to blossom across on the product, and the customer side.
We’ll continue to stretch the boundaries of what's possible with purpose-built intelligence and automation tailored specifically for contact centers.
And most importantly, we'll collaborate with the world's leading brands to reimagine the contact center. Agents sit at the front line of customer interactions, and it's time to prioritize these critical touchpoints appropriately.
Onwards and upwards!
Swapnil Jain
CEO
