It’s a tremendously exciting time for 8x8, and I’m thrilled to welcome yet another superb addition to our leadership team—Lisa Martin, our Chief Revenue Officer (CRO).

Lisa is a proven sales executive with more than 15 years in the contact center and communications sector, and has successfully led teams in achieving double-digit, year-over year-growth through existing customer, new logo, and geographic expansion strategies. Most recently, she was Vice President of Flex North America Go-to-Market at Twilio and, prior to that, she served as Twilio’s Vice President of Sales and spent six years as a sales executive at Genesys. Here at 8x8, she will be responsible for driving and maximizing revenue growth, overseeing sales strategies, and managing the global sales organization. Her impeccable track record as a sales leader, experience with contact center innovation, and enthusiasm for the cloud communications industry—along with 8x8’s XCaaS platform differentiation and opportunity—is going to propel 8x8 forward in significant ways.

I am excited to partner with Lisa as we execute our strategy and provide customer-obsessed communications experiences to the market. I asked her eight questions so that our customers, partners, employees and supporters can get to know her better.

1. How did you get involved in the contact center/CX space?

Lisa Martin (LM): My first professional role after college was as a network engineer at an assisted living company. One day my manager approached me with an opportunity to help with the contact center applications. I jumped at the chance to learn something new. Most of the work I had done up until that point was really behind the scenes. If I did my job well, no one outside of IT needed to interact with me. This was the first time I was really able to get involved with not just the network engineering aspect, but the business itself. That’s where I first saw that communications and contact center solutions were the lifeblood of the business, and when those systems weren’t working or optimized, it got the company’s immediate attention. The other thing that struck me was the cross-functional reliance on the contact center. Everyone in the company cared about what was happening there and the service and experience being provided for the customers.

So this was my earliest exposure to the contact center, and I enjoyed it immensely—the collaborative nature, the technology and the impact you could have on a company’s business and revenue by delivering exceptional customer experiences. I continued on in technical roles focused on contact center solutions at a few financial services companies for more than a decade, and then decided to make my move into sales, channeling that same passion for contact center and customer experience technology and success— just applied differently.

2. Over your career, you’ve done a lot of work around emerging technologies in the contact center. What excites you most about the future of the contact center and the related innovation? LM: In this evolutionary phase we're in right now, everything is hyper-accelerated. Contact centers have been operating for several decades with basically the same type of technology. Over the past ten years, the focus has really been about moving to the cloud and executing on omnichannel. But now we're at an exciting point where it's not just about digital transformation, but the impact generative AI can have on a company’s ability to deliver personalized customer experiences. With machine learning and large language models that are being introduced into the equation for customer engagement, it presents a huge opportunity to help brands deliver highly personalized experiences that drive loyalty and revenue in a meaningful way.

It goes back to my earlier comment about contact centers being the lifeblood of the business. When you're relevant and can help a company improve revenue or customer retention, you become a critical necessity to them—you're at the heart of what the organization needs to be successful. The contact center is hugely relevant now when it comes to competitive differentiation and advantage, and that relevancy aligns with the innovation opportunity that we have here. Contact center solutions truly span and drive impact from the front office to the back office. The contact center touches sales, marketing, service—the entire business lifecycle. So contact center innovation is no longer a nice to have. It is a must do, and you must do it really well. That excites me.

3. What do you think are the greatest needs for contact center leaders/buyers today? LM: We remain in an economic period where contact center leaders have a lot of constraints. Budget wise, companies have tightened their spending. Companies have had to reduce staff in a number of industries. But that doesn’t change the fact that these businesses still need to grow revenue and uniquely differentiate their brand. To that end, creating personalized experiences are more important than ever to attract and retain customers. With headcount and spending reductions, organizations may not have the staff to support the level of customization work they did in the past. So in a technology provider, they’re looking for a proven expert with a solution that is easy to use and deploy, but also a solution that can be easily customized to deliver those unique customer experiences at scale.

This has also intensified the focus on agent experience and retention. Ensuring that agents can easily access the information they need to engage with a customer in a way that is efficient and effective allows them to deliver a consistent, personalized experience. Improving agent experience improves productivity, job satisfaction and ultimately reduces staff turnover. All things that are critical to contact center leaders.

Lastly I would say that customer experience leaders want an innovative partner that also serves as a trusted advisor. They want someone who is evolving and improving their products, and that provides transparency in the direction they are going and why. These leaders want to do business with someone who takes the time to understand their business and how their solutions help solve the business problems they have.

4. What are your thoughts around 8x8’s XCaaS, single platform offering for unified communications and contact center?

LM: This is part of why I was attracted to 8x8. To date, there hasn’t been a distinct leader that does both contact center and cloud communications exceptionally well. You’ll typically find most companies do one or the other well. And to me, that is the unique opportunity for companies —to find a strong provider that can marry communications with contact center and deliver a unified platform to all employees and customers. Companies today are facing a huge need to accelerate their digital transformation. They want quick time to value. They want to be able to have something that they can turn on—and up—really quickly, but still customize. And most importantly, they want something that can unify both the back office, enterprise worker, and the folks that are interfacing with customers. It's a unique opportunity to emerge as the company that does all of this well.

5. With customer experience becoming the responsibility of more and more employees, how do you define a customer-obsessed organization? LM: Customer obsession is having the customer at the center of everything that you do, from the products you design and build to the services you deliver in supporting those products. Customer-obsessed organizations are always thinking about how they can delight their customers. If you think about some of the brands that you interact with in your personal life, customer-obsessed companies do their best to create wow moments and make interacting with them frictionless. Those are the brands customers want to continue to do business with.

6. What excites you about/what are you looking forward to in this new role at 8x8, and what are your first 30-day plans? LM: What excites me about this role, and really any role that I've taken in leadership, is the people. The heart of every company is its people.

In my first 30 days, I’ll focus on getting to meet the team and understanding across the organization what's working well and what's not. I’m also going to be focused on getting out and having conversations with our customers and partners to gain their insights and perspectives. That will help inform how I build a strategy for the go-to-market organization going forward.

7. What are you passionate about professionally and personally? LM: Professionally, my biggest passion is mentoring people. I have been fortunate in my career to have some really amazing mentors that have helped me grow and progress in my career, and so I'm very intentional about trying to be that for the people that I mentor. This also applies to organizations, where I've offered early stage businesses my best advice, guidance, and perspective based on what I’ve learned over my career.

I encourage being or seeking out a mentor whenever you can. It's so important to be able to receive guidance and have someone that you can sound board with early in your career and as you move through different stages in your career. Being a mentor is your opportunity to pay it forward. It is the greatest reward when you can have a positive impact on someone's career and life. Personally, my kids are front and center. I’m passionate about exposing them to a lot of different life experiences, as well as nurturing a sense of social responsibility. I also love to run and am into fitness. If I’m not running early in the morning, I love going to Orangetheory Fitness. It’s not just about staying healthy, but I’ve found that it’s so beneficial to have that physical outlet that clears your head and renews your energy.

8. Everyone at 8x8 knows I’m big on business books, so I have to ask, what’s your favorite business book? LM: That's a tough one to answer. I love Simon Sinek’s books. My favorite would have to be Leaders Eat Last. It exemplifies that the best leaders put their people first and that empathy is fundamental at all levels. There are so many more key takeaways. Read it if you haven’t already. It’s definitely worth your time!

Want to learn more about Lisa Martin, her experience, and her leadership role at 8x8? Check out this interview between Lisa and Constellation Research VP Liz Miller.