Contact Center Integration with Talkdesk’s Rei Kesai
The Bridgecast with Scott Kinka
Release Date: 07/22/2024
Giving Back Through Tech: The Mission of Tech4Change
The Bridgecast with Scott Kinka
In this episode of the Bridgecast, host Scott Kinka sits down with Jasmina Mueller and Brad Dupree to discuss the charitable organization Tech4Change. This organization brings together technology leaders to raise funds for various grassroots charities. During their discussion, they explore the mission behind Tech4Change and the fundraising strategies used, sharing impactful stories from their events. The conversation emphasizes the importance of community engagement and the potential for technology professionals to make a difference through charitable work. is a 501(c)(3)...
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The Future of Communication with Dialpad’s Mike Kane
The Bridgecast with Scott Kinka
Can AI make business communication smarter and sales more human? Scott Kinka and Mike Kane from Dialpad break down the future of AI-driven conversations, tech partnerships, and the power of emotional intelligence in sales. They cover Dialpad’s AI-driven growth, the role of emotional intelligence in sales, and how AI is reshaping customer interactions, security, and global tech partnerships. Tune in for insights on leveraging AI for smarter, more effective communication. is the leading AI-Powered Customer Intelligence Platform that completely transforms how the world works with one...
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2024 Year End Recap - Part Two
The Bridgecast with Scott Kinka
Sometimes, we think that new tech can solve old problems. For instance, can AI help employees be better at processes that don't exist? This is just one of the questions we tackle on this episode of The Bridgecast. In this conclusion to The Bridgecast’s 2024 Year-End series, Scott and Gene discuss key industry trends, reflections on the past year, and predictions for the future. The conversation highlights AI adoption challenges, the importance of human oversight in AI-driven processes, and the evolving nature of IT strategy. Topics discussed in this episode: • How IT budgets are...
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2024 Year End Recap - Part One
The Bridgecast with Scott Kinka
According to Sun Tzu, energy without strategy is chaos. This sentiment has never been more appropriate today, particularly concerning IT strategy and discussions around AI. In this year-end episode of The Bridgecast, Scott reflects on a monumental year for Bridgepointe Technologies and the broader IT industry. The conversation explores key themes that dominated the year, including AI governance and its impact on business strategy, the evolving role of IT leaders, and lessons from C-suite executives featured on the podcast. Topics discussed in this episode: ...
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ESPN’s CX Transformation: Using AI to Enhance Fan Support with Doug Kramon
The Bridgecast with Scott Kinka
Sports are a profoundly human experience—emotional, visceral, and passionately followed. While AI won’t replace athletes anytime soon, it’s increasingly shaping how fans engage with their favorite teams. In this episode of The Bridgecast, Scott Kinka sits down with Doug Kramon, Head of Customer Care and Fan Support at ESPN, to explore the evolving role of AI in sports customer experience. They discuss how generative AI plays a role in CX transformation and fan support, the power of emotional connections in customer care, and the challenges of balancing automation with human-centric...
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Refining Your 2025 AI Strategy with RapidScale’s Duane Barnes
The Bridgecast with Scott Kinka
A new year often means resolutions and plans for your business. And for 2025, one of those plans is likely focused on literally and figuratively getting your arms around your AI strategy. Making effective use of AI in 2025 means rewinding one whole hype cycle to the early 2020s to big data. That's the last big story we were all talking about. Organization, accuracy, availability, and, of course, security of your data are the essential building blocks for you to build a language model that is serviceable and accurate for your business. It's the core of your AI strategy. In this...
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The Bridgecast Live: Reimagining the Customer and Employee Relationship - Part Two
The Bridgecast with Scott Kinka
How is AI transforming IT leadership? AI solves no problems by itself. But with the proper workflows and systems around it, it drives real-world ROI. Rather than replacing humans, it can enable the next level of cross-functional collaboration. The panel explored AI's role in transforming business processes and IT leadership in part two of the 2024 Bridgepoint Tech Summit episode of The Bridgecast. The discussion focuses on AI’s potential to enhance human performance, streamline workflows, and enable cross-functional collaboration within organizations. The panel emphasizes...
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The Bridgecast Live: Reimagining the Customer and Employee Relationship (Part One)
The Bridgecast with Scott Kinka
Is your business experiencing AI fatigue? Right now, AI is all anyone is talking about…but too many conversations are about tech and innovation when they should be about getting measurable outcomes. In this live episode of The Bridgecast, recorded at the Bridgepointe Tech Summit 2024, we sat down with thought leaders from Dialpad, Observe AI, Talkdesk, and Vonage so they could share some timely insights on how companies are cutting through the AI hype and making it work. We talk about how AI is transforming customer and employee experiences with some real-life success stories, practical...
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Building Your Personal Brand in the Era of Virtual Meetings with Zoom’s Patrick Kelley
The Bridgecast with Scott Kinka
There are five generations in the workforce today, and every one speaks, communicates, and collaborates differently. You have to meet them all where they are—generally in their homes behind screens. While your personal brand used to be based on how you interacted with people in the real world, now, what happens on screen is your brand, and you need to invest in it. In this episode of The Bridgecast, Scott interviews Patrick Kelley, Distinguished Architect at Zoom, who shares insights on optimizing online meetings and video conferencing. Patrick — also known as — discusses...
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Mentorship Matters: Lessons from a CTO with Performive’s Ryan DiRocco
The Bridgecast with Scott Kinka
Have you ever noticed that being an entrepreneur and an IT leader require nearly the same skills? On this episode of the Bridgecast, Scott sits down with Ryan DiRocco, CTO of . We explore that intersection and how experience and mentorship play critical roles in both realms. We discuss why mentorship is essential—not just when you lack specific skills but even when you think you’ve covered them. It's a lot like using an MSP to deliver a product. Sure, you could go it alone, but sometimes it's worth paying more to avoid costly mistakes. Like an MSP, mentorship can save you time,...
info_outlineYou’ve heard the old adage that everyone in business is in customer service or customer experience. Yet, legacy contact center software has been designed for one primary
workflow — the customer service agent. This results in our approach to CX and customer expectations being out of alignment, meaning we need to focus more on contact center integration.
On this episode of The Bridgecast, I talk to Rei Kesai, Senior Vice President of Product at Talkdesk. We discuss Rei’s background, his journey in the CX space, and how Talkdesk has evolved into a full-blown CCaaS platform.
We also explore the convergence of communications, customer data management, analytics, and automation and how Talkdesk focuses on creating industry-specific workflows and applications. We chat about the challenges of integration, the importance of simplifying the customer experience and the changing expectations of customers.
Talkdesk® is a global cloud contact center leader for enterprises of all sizes. Talkdesk CX Cloud and Industry Experience Clouds help enterprises deliver modern customer service their way. Their trusted, flexible, and innovative contact center platform leverages AI and automation to drive exceptional customer outcomes and improve the bottom line.
Topics covered in this episode:
● How Talkdesk has evolved from a telephony capability for CRM platforms to a full-blown CCaaS platform and an AI platform for customer experience.
● How Talkdesk focuses on creating industry-specific workflows and applications to enable customer experiences and solve high-value use cases.
● Why is simplifying integration with standard back-office systems of record a crucial focus for Talkdesk?
● How the expectations of customers and businesses have changed, with a demand for multimodal and connected communications.
● Why Talkdesk aims to provide a seamless and personalized customer experience by enabling choice and integrating different communication modalities.
● Why Talkdesk believes that everyone in the company, not just a specific department, should be involved in delivering great customer service.
● How AI is being used to drive workflows and integrate with business applications, enhancing customer experiences.
● Why Talkdesk has developed a platform incorporating advanced technologies like AI and NLP to automate and analyze customer interactions.
How Talkdesk’s product, Navigator, replaces the traditional IVR system and provides more personalized and efficient customer service
Other Talkdesk Episodes
The Intersection of Business Communication and Technology with Talkdesk’s Bill Welch
ABOUT REI KESAI
I am a strategic product and engineering executive and my specialty is building scalable businesses, teams, and products. I have had the fortunate opportunity of experiencing what it takes to build start-ups into market leaders multiple times and have operated at all stages of growth from early-stage start-ups to mature global tech companies.
My 25+ Years of experience includes:
• GenAI, CRM/CX, Enterprise App Platforms, Analytics, Mobile, IoT, Mar-tech, SFA, Customer Service, Field Service, and Contact Center
• Hiring, managing, and leading small VC-backed start-up teams to large global development organizations
• Defining strategy, delivering roadmap, and nurturing customer relationships to secure market leadership
• Managing hyper-growth as a company being acquired as well as being the acquirer
• Transforming cultures from sales and engineering-led companies to a product-led one
• Building and launching new disruptive products from ground up
• Leadership roles in strategy, product, and engineering and GTM roles in pre-sales and product marketing
CONTACT REI
LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/reikasai/