Zoom CEO Eric Yuan “Tripling Down” on Contact Center

Zoom executives delivered a host of positive figures, teasers and promises as part of its FY24 full-year earnings call in February. Here, Call Centre Helper recaps ahead of its next financial report.

AI Companion “Far from Done” Following Productive Start

Zoom AI Companion saw over half a million accounts enabled within five months of launch. The generative AI assistant, released in September 2023, generated some 7.2 million meeting summaries in that window.

“Zoom AI Companion empowers customers and employees with enhanced productivity, team effectiveness, and skills,” said Chief Executive Officer Eric Yuan. “Since its launch, we expanded AI Companion to six Zoom products, all included at no additional cost to licensed users.”

The aforementioned meeting summaries are designed to aid users catch up on missed information, offering intelligent features such as chapters and highlights.

The AI Companion is also capable of answering direct questions regarding the meeting based on transcripts, as well as drafting messages, emails and notes.

Kelly Steckelberg, Zoom Chief Financial Officer, said the company is “excited about the strong growth across these new products and the benefits they drive for our customers.”

Yuan was keen to underline that Zoom is “far from done” developing its AI Companion. “Our future roadmap for AI is 100% guided by driving customer value,” he added. “We are hard at work developing new AI capabilities to help customers achieve their unique business objectives.”

In the coming quarters, it appears likely we will witness digital channel, WEM and compliance innovations being added to the service. The executives pointed to the early successes of its AI investments as being key drivers of its total revenue growth, rising 2.6% year-on-year for Q4.

Zoom “Tripling Down” on Contact Center

One of the headline figures in Zoom’s last earning call was the reporting of an almost 300% increase in Zoom Contact Center licences, which CFO Steckelberg said was down to “not only adding a significant number of new customers, but also expanded average deal size”.

As evidence of this, Yuan pointed to agreements with large enterprises such as global infrastructure tech leader Broadcom, full-service financial cooperative Community Financial Credit Union, and leading global beverage company, Diageo.

“Our expanding Contact Center suite is a unified, AI-first solution that offers tremendous value to companies of all sizes seeking to strengthen customer relationships and deliver better outcomes.

The base product includes AI Companion and our newly launched tiered pricing allows customers to add specialised CX capabilities such as AI Expert Assist, workforce management, quality management, virtual agent, and omnichannel support.

Bolstered by its expanding features, our Contact Center suite is beginning to win in head-to-head competition with legacy incumbents.” CEO Eric Yuan on Zoom Contact Center

Yuan pointed to Zoom’s updated Contact Center pricing structure as one of the key reasons behind the surge in CCaaS contracts, stating that customers “have confidence in our three tiers of pricing”.

“Based on customer demand, we offer different tiers,” he said. “We might introduce more in the future. We do not know, but again, we look at everything from a customer perspective. With demand coming from every segment, from SMB customers to lots of enterprise customers… it’s very healthy.”

The CEO joked that he had “a new job title” at Zoom, with the go-to-marketing team and sales marketing team now reporting to him directly. “I became the Contact Center General Manager of the Product Management Team of Engineers,” he said.

“The customer feedback is very, very positive, and we’re doing extremely well every quarter. In Q4, the number is amazing. A huge opportunity is ahead of us.

“We are going to be doubling down, tripling down on our Contact Center offering because that’s a modern solution, AI-empowered, video-first… we’ve built a full suite.”

Further Wins Across Phone, Team Chat and Workwivo

Another success for the communications software provider was further growth for Zoom Phone, with a 27% growth year-on-year in customers with 10,000 seats or more.

Yuan said that all Zoom Phone specialists will be trained to become Zoom Contact Center specialists, “furthering our internal net sales capacity”.

Steckelberg conceded that Zoom’s financials may slow in Q2 FY25, “but then start to reaccelerate after that”.

“This is the culmination of what we’ve been talking about for a while,” she said, “which is the growth being driven by Zoom Phone, by Zoom Contact Center, which we’ve seen continue to mature by the effect that AI and adoption of Team Chat are having on the overall retention metrics of the company.”

Yuan flagged 2023’s Workvivo acquisition as another win for FY24. “[Workvivo’s] integration into the Zoom interface has strengthened its market position.

In Q4, we upsold a Fortune 10 company and longstanding Zoom customer on Workvivo, making it Workvivo’s biggest customer to date. And on the flipside, we also saw a global bank, who started as a Workvivo customer, adopt the broader Zoom platform.

As you can see, adding new products both organically and inorganically creates a virtuous cycle, allowing us to sell more products into a larger base.”

Yet another highlight was a 130% increase across Zoom Team Chat’s paid accounts, with Yuan adding that the company’s migration tool, designed to simplify the transition, had seen a quadruple increase in downloads in the last six months.

The CEO pointed to various companies being onboarded on Zoom Team Chat, including “a global supply chain leader who has migrated over 1,200 users”, “a major law firm who has migrated 1,500 users”, and “a financial payments leader who has moved over 2,000 users.

“Customers appreciate the improved user experiences and enhanced collaboration driven by our Zoom Team Chat product as well as the cost efficiencies realised by consolidating their communications and collaboration solutions onto Zoom,” claimed Yuan.

He concluded, “FY24 was a difficult year from a macro perspective and we faced those challenges head-on. “We became more disciplined and focused, while continuing to prioritise growth opportunities.

“As a result, we are much better positioned than we were one year ago. Our platform moat is deeper, our Contact Center offering is more robust, and our go-to-market teams are primed with defined goals and sharpened expertise to drive growth and empower our customers.”

What Does This Mean for Zoom-Powered Contact Centers?

The integration of AI will undoubtedly act as a productivity game-changer for contact centres.

Automations, from notetaking and follow-up tasks to catch-up summaries and sentiment analysis, will result in significant efficiency gains and improvements for operators and customers alike.

In “tripling down”, as Yuan put it, and offering expanded services for no additional charge, Zoom appears to have put itself well ahead of the curve.

Even the lowest cost Zoom Contact Center licences gain access to the AI Companion, democratising the functionality at a time where other providers are desperately attempting to cash in on this burgeoning trend.

Though Q1 earnings calls seldom present headline announcements, major launches and surprising figures, it will be interesting to hear whether Zoom begins this financial year the same way it finished the last.

Author: James Groves
Reviewed by: Xander Freeman