November 4, 2025 • 21 mins
Cut The Tie Podcast with Nathan Strum
What if artificial intelligence didn’t replace people—but helped them grow? In this episode of Cut The Tie, Thomas Helfrich sits down with Nathan Strum, CEO of Abby Connect, to talk about how a twenty-year-old live receptionist company is redefining success by blending human connection with AI innovation.
From cutting the tie to “doing everything for everyone” to leading his team through one of the biggest technological shifts in business, Nathan shares how focus, courage, and empathy drive sustainable growth. His approach proves that AI doesn’t have to eliminate jobs—it can elevate people into new, higher-value roles.
About Nathan Strum
Nathan Strum is the CEO of Abby Connect, a Las Vegas–based company helping small businesses capture every opportunity through a hybrid of live and AI receptionists. Under Nathan’s leadership, Abby Connect has become one of the most trusted names in client communication, known for balancing technology with a people-first philosophy. He’s passionate about building cultures where employees rise, clients feel heard, and innovation serves humans—not the other way around.
In this episode, Thomas and Nathan discuss:
- Why AI isn’t taking jobs—it’s transforming them
Nathan explains how new technology is upskilling employees and opening career paths that didn’t exist before. - Cutting the tie to “doing everything for everyone”
How Abby Connect learned to focus on its best customers and say no to distractions that dilute value. - Listening to clients the right way
The difference between gathering feedback and asking the questions that actually drive business growth. - Turning a service company into a product company
The challenge of shifting from live services to software while staying true to the company’s human DNA. - The tie he’s still cutting: building less to build better
Why focus and simplicity matter most when developing new AI tools and customer solutions.
Key Takeaways
- AI creates more jobs than it replaces
The future belongs to businesses that use technology to empower people, not eliminate them. - Success is when your people feel successful
Leadership is measured by how much you elevate others. - You can’t please everyone
Focus on the customers who align with your strengths and values. - Fail fast, fail forward
Every mistake is a data point for growth. - Stop listening to influencers—start trusting yourself
Your best business instincts come from experience, not noise.
Connect with Nathan Strum
🌐 Website: https://www.abby.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanstrum
Connect with Thomas Helfrich
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/thelfrich
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cutthetie
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomashelfich
🌐 Website: https://www.cutthetie.com
📧 Email: t@instantlyrelevant.com
🚀 https://www.instantlyrelevant.com
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to the Cut the Tie Podcast.
(00:01):
Hello, I am your host, ThomasHelfrick, on a mission to help
you cut the tie to whatever isholding you back from success.
And as I always say, you have todefine that success yourself,
otherwise you're chasing someoneelse's dream.
Today I'm joined by NathanStrum.
Or is it Strum?
Which is the right way to saythat?
Strum.
unknown (00:18):
Strum.
SPEAKER_00 (00:18):
It's a good marketing technique to repeat
your name, Nathan Strum.
And then they know how to spellit.
SPEAKER_02 (00:24):
I should change my name to Abby.
SPEAKER_00 (00:27):
Abby.
You can do that.
You can you can in this youcould be whoever you want.
Abby Strum.
Take a moment, uh Nathan,introduce yourself, uh, where
you're from, and uh what it isyou do.
SPEAKER_02 (00:37):
Sure.
Well, I'm Nathan Strum.
I'm the CEO of Abby Connect, andwe help small businesses who are
missing phone calls, uh, missingopportunities by providing a
human receptionist and an AIreceptionist.
And we've been known for uh 20years now as uh one of the
leaders in the live receptionistspace.
(01:00):
And about two years ago, wedecided to develop an AI
receptionist to add to our mixof products.
And uh we are in Las Vegas andthat's us.
SPEAKER_00 (01:12):
I get the original one, right?
The receptionist pick up thephone anywhere, uh, which is
great if you've never, you know,if you if you're a phone-based,
having someone pick up the phoneis so important to getting
business because if you don'tpick up, they just call the next
person on the list.
It's over.
Uh uh, what was the biggestdriver on the AI side?
I'm curious just to dive in onthat because that can be hit or
miss.
I guess it's a risk for thecompany to try it, but but what
(01:34):
was your guys' you know, usecase driver?
SPEAKER_02 (01:36):
Sure.
Yeah.
So we started this as kind of aresearch project a couple years
ago.
Um, you know, I went to the devteam and I said, hey, you know,
the technology is blown up.
Uh the ChatGPT, obviously, andand Gemini and all the big ones.
Let's see if we can do this.
Let's see if we can createsomething that is as good as our
(01:57):
human receptionist service.
If not, that's fine.
We're not going to go to marketwith something that's subpar.
You know, we've got our namemade for us in this industry.
We do not want to jeopardizethat.
Um and what they came up withcompletely shocked me.
And uh, I was really excited tobring it to a beta test and hear
(02:18):
all the feedback from theclients that tried it for three
or four months.
And we've gone to market uh asof June 1st, and we're seeing
some great results.
But our message is not to doaway from with the humans.
Um, you know, don't take all thehuman chops.
We still have our live humanreception service, and we see
(02:39):
this as a hybrid solution.
And we have clients using it inmultitude of different ways.
SPEAKER_00 (02:45):
I I believe in AI solution when it's combined with
automation technologies or uh,you know context.
What I like about it, it cancreate some contextual.
Are you asking me thiseffectively?
Yes.
Yeah, okay, cool.
Like if it can do that withoutactually asking you, it can say,
hey, it sounds like you're doingthis.
Here'd be my reply.
It basically replaces India.
(03:06):
Yeah, take what you do and triesto align up the top meeting
message based on what you'reasking.
And A and I can do thatinstantly.
And they don't do the just don'tdo the pretend clicking sounds.
That's horrible.
Just can you get that off?
If you have that, don't do it.
But I I think it's actually areally valid use case where
people come in with like a notan IVR, but just an AI, you
know, with a much higher level.
So I can get you to the rightperson and let's do it as fast
(03:27):
as possible.
I think it's a really good usecase.
I don't know how you how are youor actually how are you using it
from yours?
Is it kind of like that or orshock me?
How did you how'd you do it?
SPEAKER_01 (03:36):
We have the clicking noise.
SPEAKER_00 (03:39):
And this interview's over.
Uh guys, think for anothermoment.
Uh make it an option.
Do you want to hear the clickingrule?
SPEAKER_02 (03:46):
It was it is an option.
Um, and the reason why we addedit during beta was because the
people were speaking over thethe receptionist.
So as the technology improvesand that delay shrinks, which
it's it's gotten very good, uhthe the need for it will go
away.
But it is an option, and I ambeing uh I guess I didn't
understand.
SPEAKER_00 (04:06):
I I'm one who doesn't jump on over the thing.
I can see people just likeignoring it.
I usually start cussing, and Ithink that's usually when I get
a personal rule with how are youdoing today, sir?
I'm like, you don't pull an askthat question.
SPEAKER_02 (04:18):
You would be surprised at what we've heard
what we hear.
SPEAKER_00 (04:21):
Um, I'm I'm one of them.
I guarantee it.
I I cannot stand it anyway.
I'm sure your guys' stuff isgreat.
All right.
So, but what was the use case?
Do you do it to get to a humanfaster?
Is that the or do you try to dolike a one-touch solve with that
AI?
SPEAKER_02 (04:35):
Good question.
Great question.
There's mo many different usecases.
Um, so we have a lot of clientswho are trying to cut cost, and
so they're migrating away fromthe human receptionist and using
this as their full-timesolution.
We have some clients that wantthe human during the day and
want the AI receptionist for fornighttime answering.
(04:55):
But we're seeing a lot of peoplethat want our human
receptionists to do somethingthat we can't do.
And one of the ties that we cutuh very early on in our journey
was trying to do everything foreverybody.
And this was, you know, one ofthe big lessons we learned, I
would say 15 years ago, was wewere doing scheduling for
(05:17):
everybody.
And some of the clients we hadto log into their remote desktop
computer and use this oldantiquated scheduling system
that really took weeks to trainon, and our clients are paying
us a couple hundred dollars amonth.
So the ROI for us isn't there,the ROI for them isn't there.
(05:38):
There's a lot of mistakes beingmade.
We couldn't be experts at it,and so we cut that tie.
SPEAKER_00 (05:44):
Well, now what scheduling too, right?
It's like just use the link.
Like no, no human needs to do itfor the most part now, right?
Like it can just be like justpick time to work for you.
SPEAKER_02 (05:55):
You'd be surprised.
I I love using the link.
I I would much rather do that,but you'd be surprised there's
still a lot of people that wantto call in um and speak to a
human or speak to an AIreceptionist.
SPEAKER_00 (06:08):
Well, I let's start with you.
How do you how do you definesuccess?
SPEAKER_02 (06:12):
I define success based off of the people that
work at Abbey feelingsuccessful.
So early on in my career, Ialways knew I wanted to be an
entrepreneur.
And uh I was very focused onproducts.
I was very focused on thesystems that made the company
profitable.
And what I realized at somepoint was what makes me feel
(06:34):
very good and very inspired isseeing other people succeed.
Part of the DNA of Abby is 99%of the people that started here
started as a receptionist.
And so we've seen people go fromreceptionist to supervisor to
manager to customer servicemanager to our VP of operations,
(06:56):
for example.
Um, and it's been veryinspirational to see that.
SPEAKER_00 (07:00):
I like it, it's like a selfless uh definition up.
So talk about your journey togetting getting there and what
you know the metaphoric tie wasthat you had to do or your
company had to do, or you had todo for your company to achieve
that success.
SPEAKER_02 (07:13):
Sure.
Well, we've cut many ties andlearned many lessons throughout
the years.
And I think one of them that Iwas discussing uh in the last
question is trying to doeverything for everybody and um,
you know, trying to capture allmarkets and all customers.
And uh we had to cut that out.
(07:33):
We had to focus in on what we'regood at and the customers that
we most please and startlistening to the clo customers
that are happy and start notlistening to the customers that
aren't happy and focusing ourarea there.
So that was one tie that we keptthat was uh very important to
us.
SPEAKER_00 (07:51):
How did you go about doing that?
Because I think the how is whereit meets you know, rubber meets
the road kind of thing, right?
So how how did you go aboutdiscovering that and then uh I
don't say webonizing it, butmaybe you know implementing that
I like that term.
Um well, webonize includes war,but like sometimes, well, you
gotta it's a war to get it done.
SPEAKER_02 (08:09):
So yeah.
I would say listening to ourclients.
So that's really been ourshortcut to success, our weapon
is speaking to our clients asmuch as possible at every medium
possible, whether it's over thephone and onboarding, at, you
know, when they cancel with usat trade shows, emails, surveys,
(08:34):
every opportunity we get, wewant to c talk to a customer.
SPEAKER_00 (08:39):
I I think I mean it's but is it also asking them
the right questions?
I mean, did you have to come upwith like a normalized way to do
that?
Hey, if you're in person, yougot to capture these three
things and making sure yourteams knew that because I what I
find is you can give you lots ofgreat conversations, but no
valuable feedback if you don'tdo it systematically.
Did you experience somethingsimilar?
Did you plan for that?
SPEAKER_02 (08:58):
We experienced it and we are are still
experiencing it.
And I just had this conversationthis morning where we want to
realign some of the questionsthat we ask uh when clients
cancel services to get differentanswers and get more effective
answers that can help us andinsights that lead to actual
changes in the company that leadto growth.
(09:20):
So I I think that's a very goodpoint that you're making, not
just to ask the question, butask the right question and to
keep changing the questions youask based off of where you are
in your business.
SPEAKER_00 (09:30):
Yeah, that's super critical, right?
Because otherwise you're gettingdata you don't really, it's it's
not useful.
Uh then you then you have tolike you know operationalize
that through your yourorganization and stuff too.
So uh lots to do is you know,there's a lot of people and
management skills.
And but uh what's been theeffect since doing you know,
cutting back, focusing on atighter group?
Uh did that, you know, AI reallyI'm gonna leave the question
(09:52):
here.
AI works much better on narrownew use cases and less so on
general uh at this point, andthey'll probably be for the you
know, us Gen Xers, our ourcareer, it'll still be that way.
But uh, you know.
Did it help that?
Did it help initiate the courageto take on the AI with it?
Just maybe talk about the impactwith yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_02 (10:11):
Yeah, it we it did take courage to take it on,
especially in this industry, youknow, that's very human-based
and very service-based.
But I I think for me, the ahamoment came when I realized, as
you're alluding to, AI is not amagic solution.
It's not gonna do everything.
And my big aha moment is it'snot gonna take all of our jobs.
(10:31):
And that's my message right nowthat I'm I'm speaking about is
that AI is not gonna steal allof our jobs.
What it's gonna do is it's gonnaprovide new jobs for us, and
it's gonna be a very goodopportunity to upskill your
employees.
Um, so you know, getting back tothe to the question,
implementing implementing AIshould be like any ROI
(10:55):
conversation in your business.
You know, find a use case,implement it, measure it,
iterate on it, and then drop itif there's no ROI, or continue
if there is.
That's the way we look at thistool.
SPEAKER_00 (11:10):
It's uh, you know, I black people know this, but I
consulted in the intelligentautomation AI space 10 years
prior to becoming anentrepreneur.
So let's go back like 14 years.
Uh and I will say for a longtime, I've been hearing the
robots are coming.
It was really obvious to me thatthese are these are tools to
enable humans to go faster.
And in every case in history,technology has always done an
(11:31):
initial disruption and a hundredX job creation after.
Yep.
And it'll be the same thinghere.
You know, like the the simpleexample is horses went away.
All the people who service tohorses and go like, what do I
do?
Well, you go build cars now,right?
And and so, you know, now horsesare very expensive, and they're,
you know, so there'll be a wholething with that too.
So it'll happen again.
(11:51):
Uh, and you're right, like, youknow, it's how you use the
technology uh as well.
And I I I cannot stress that topeople enough.
My GPT almost never hallucinatesbecause I can I know my space
for building growth, right?
It just it because you if you doit right, it doesn't
hallucinate.
And same thing if you can builda system for you know customer
service related and you know thespace, it's gonna be pretty good
(12:13):
around that.
SPEAKER_02 (12:14):
Yeah, that's true.
I don't know if you saw SamAltman on his brother's podcast
or heard this anywhere, but hesaid something that I thought
was pretty insightful and timelyfor for the medium he was
speaking.
And he said, you know, 30, 40,whatever years ago, there was no
such thing as a podcaster.
And and and now the technologyhas enabled and created a new
(12:35):
job.
And that's exactly what we'regonna see with AI.
And that's that is what we areseeing at Abby.
And that's one of the thingsthat's really exciting for us is
an entry-level receptionistcoming in at one level and then
learning these these skills,these technology skills, and
being promoted into a technologyrole and making more money
(12:57):
because of it.
And so we're providing a lot ofcareer pathing right now for
that.
SPEAKER_00 (13:01):
I I think it'll be a big piece too with companies
that as they realize the profitsand from productivity of these
technologies combined with sayautomation.
And you know, a lot of them willtake it as profit and shares and
as they should.
But the ones who invest backinto their good people will, I
think, help multiplier becausethen they'll have the innovation
front and the creative front andthen the front line of the human
(13:24):
element that still exists.
Because you're not selling tomachine, you're ultimately
selling to another human.
Those are the ones I think thatreally take the next level.
Let's say it that well for thenext generation.
So uh sounds like you do.
SPEAKER_02 (13:35):
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (13:36):
Sideways compliment, I think.
If you could go back anywhere inyour timeline, uh, you know,
when would you go back and whatwould you do differently?
SPEAKER_02 (13:46):
I knew that question was coming and I thought about
it, and I don't think I would goback.
I really I really don't becauseand I know this is probably not
a unique answer, but it is myanswer.
It's made me who I am today.
And there's been hard lessons,and I don't think that we would
be where we're at withoutlearning those lessons.
(14:07):
And I also love the phrase failforward and fail as fast as
possible and as many times aspossible.
And that's how I learned there.
I didn't go to an entrepreneurschool, I went to a family
business, and that's where Ilearned learned everything that
I know.
SPEAKER_00 (14:25):
Yeah.
I listen, that's a great answerbecause it it it it truly is
things that happened for me,even though when they feel like
they're happening to you.
And if you navigate through it,you've done what you needed to
do to get there.
So I uh it's a beautiful answer.
Uh is there a book you thinkthough?
Uh let's maybe target the bookspecifically, maybe towards if
you're if you're a customer thatyou can service that they don't
(14:46):
know.
So like an ideal customer, likemaybe describe who they are, but
uh and not from like a shamelessplug thing, but like what book
should they read before they godown the path?
Or what you know materialsshould they be looking at before
they go down the path of callcenter or customer service base
or even AI interactive?
Yeah.
I don't know.
You can say go to our website,read our blog.
(15:08):
I'm fine with that answer too.
That'd be a good one.
SPEAKER_02 (15:11):
Uh no, I'm I'm I'm being coy.
One of the lessons I've learnedin my my career is not to be uh
shy by saying I don't know.
Um, you know, I there's a lot ofdifferent books that I love and
that I take inspiration from.
One of them is The Why by uhSimon uh Sunak.
I think that that's a veryinspirational book to me.
(15:33):
But as far as your question ofum an ideal customer and what
they could read, I I like tolearn as much as I can about AI
right now and how to use that inyour business and how to take
bite-sized pieces.
So I'm reading a lot of youknow, a lot of the news blogs
and whatnot, and uh that's whereI get my inspiration.
SPEAKER_00 (15:55):
Yeah, it's it's uh it's not like eating an elephant
bite by bite, it's a you knowherd of elephants.
Yeah.
So you gotta tell you gotta eata little piece from one at a
time, not get trampled by therest.
Uh for sure.
Uh there was maybe a question Ishould have asked you today
though, and I didn't.
SPEAKER_02 (16:10):
What would that question have been uh is is this
the creative question?
Have I made it that far?
SPEAKER_01 (16:20):
Yeah, it could be creative.
SPEAKER_02 (16:23):
Um the question that you have not asked me so far.
You didn't ask me what advice Ihave for um your listeners.
And if you were to ask me thatquestion, I would have answered
it by saying to stop listeningto people like me.
(16:46):
To what?
Stop listening to people likeme.
SPEAKER_00 (16:50):
Really you gotta give me a why on that one.
SPEAKER_02 (16:53):
Sure, sure.
Listen, I I think sometimes welisten too much to who we think
are the influencers.
And I would just really uh honein on your internal voice, what
speaks to you, what makes youtick, and let that become the
best version of yourself.
And that's that would be myadvice.
SPEAKER_00 (17:15):
I think they could still listen to you.
I think they could probably graba thing or two from you.
I'm gonna give you more creditsthan that.
Very, very nicely sound spoken.
The guy who doesn't speak, youshould listen to.
I found that like when you're inmeetings and business, the one
who's not talking in the roombut's at the table, yeah, the
one that you were like, hey,what do you think?
The introspective, it's not theADHD or blowing it all out.
(17:36):
Um I I do have a questionthough, for in your curry
business though, do you have uha tie, so to speak, that you're
struggling to cut right now?
Like a you're you're you'retrying to get over.
It's just like I cannot seem toget my head around this or want
to do this.
SPEAKER_02 (17:53):
Yeah, I do.
We're transitioning into aproduct-led company right now.
So we're very good at theservice side of our business,
and now we're focused on theproduct side of our business,
the AI receptionist, and howthat fits into the entire
ecosystem of you know ourclients' business.
We want to we want to buildeverything.
(18:14):
Everything.
There's so many great things tobuild.
And I could take, you know,Nvidia type of money and invest
into this business and build allkinds of great tools, but we
can't do that.
And we have to cut the tie of oftrying to do everything in our
product and trying to buildeverything and prioritize
(18:35):
everything and just focus on onething at a time by listening to
the client, what is the mostimportant to them, implement it,
iterate over it, and then moveto the next.
SPEAKER_00 (18:47):
Yeah, it well, in in is going to a product is a
different beast.
And you know, the advice I'veheard over and over and over is
just build what people want andnothing more.
Like that's how you knowInstagram was a bunch of stuff,
and the only thing people careabout was the photo sharing.
And the CEO is like, well, youknow what?
Let's go and just do that andonly that and make that cool.
(19:08):
So that move became you know abillion-dollar exit, right?
Uh, and I and I think that comesback to not falling in love with
your idea, yeah.
What you think it should be, andjust mean what is the feature
you need that we can solve?
And then what's the next one andtest it?
So I agree with you that themethodical approach of less is
more works.
Uh, because you know one of mycomplaints of like a HubSpot or
(19:29):
something, it's just it's toomuch now.
Can you just just do CRM and benothing more?
And like simple to keep it Idon't have all the other shit
going.
SPEAKER_02 (19:38):
HubSpot is a partner, great company, love
them.
Can't say anything bad aboutthem.
SPEAKER_00 (19:44):
I I I would say that I'm not saying bad, I think they
built too big of a platform ifthey took on investment.
Say it that way.
SPEAKER_02 (19:50):
I agree.
It's it's for some uh uh people,but not everybody.
unknown (19:55):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (19:56):
I guess my point of that is when you when you have a
company that you're building aproduct, and depending on how
much money you've raised to hitthe valuations, you will get
very uh wide in what yourofferings are to justify them,
as opposed to when you're abusiness like yours that's
trying to solve for a verypointed thing.
I believe the product is easierto build because you don't have
to you're servicing your clientand not an industrial.
SPEAKER_02 (20:19):
That's a great point.
Absolutely.
I love the way you youarticulate her.
SPEAKER_00 (20:24):
Yeah, and I think you'll be successful because of
it, as Marvel lean to becauseyou know, certain services that
can be repeated, that can beapplied to technology are a very
good candidate for automationand context.
So very nicely done.
Uh shameless plug time for youthough, who should get a hold of
you?
Where do you want them to do it?
SPEAKER_02 (20:39):
Well, anybody that uses phones in their business.
And if you go to abbey.com, weoffer a free trial on our AI
receptionist.
Um, and if you'd love to talk tous about how to blend and how to
use a hybrid solution, pick upthe phone and call us.
Our web, our phone numbers areon our website, abbey.com.
unknown (20:57):
Cool.
SPEAKER_00 (20:57):
Nathan, thanks so much for coming on today.
Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02 (20:59):
Yeah, thank you.
Great conversation.
SPEAKER_00 (21:01):
Listen, everybody who's uh got to this point in
the show, thank you forlistening.
Get out there, go cut a tie towhatever it is holding you back.
And uh but cut your cut yourtie, but do it on your own terms
of success, not on somebodyelse's.
Thanks for listening.
Welcome to the Cut the Tie Podcast.
(00:01):
Hello, I am your host, ThomasHelfrick, on a mission to help
you cut the tie to whatever isholding you back from success.
And as I always say, you have todefine that success yourself,
otherwise you're chasing someoneelse's dream.
Today I'm joined by NathanStrum.
Or is it Strum?
Which is the right way to saythat?
Strum.
unknown (00:18):
Strum.
SPEAKER_00 (00:18):
It's a good marketing technique to repeat
your name, Nathan Strum.
And then they know how to spellit.
SPEAKER_02 (00:24):
I should change my name to Abby.
SPEAKER_00 (00:27):
Abby.
You can do that.
You can you can in this youcould be whoever you want.
Abby Strum.
Take a moment, uh Nathan,introduce yourself, uh, where
you're from, and uh what it isyou do.
SPEAKER_02 (00:37):
Sure.
Well, I'm Nathan Strum.
I'm the CEO of Abby Connect, andwe help small businesses who are
missing phone calls, uh, missingopportunities by providing a
human receptionist and an AIreceptionist.
And we've been known for uh 20years now as uh one of the
leaders in the live receptionistspace.
(01:00):
And about two years ago, wedecided to develop an AI
receptionist to add to our mixof products.
And uh we are in Las Vegas andthat's us.
SPEAKER_00 (01:12):
I get the original one, right?
The receptionist pick up thephone anywhere, uh, which is
great if you've never, you know,if you if you're a phone-based,
having someone pick up the phoneis so important to getting
business because if you don'tpick up, they just call the next
person on the list.
It's over.
Uh uh, what was the biggestdriver on the AI side?
I'm curious just to dive in onthat because that can be hit or
miss.
I guess it's a risk for thecompany to try it, but but what
(01:34):
was your guys' you know, usecase driver?
SPEAKER_02 (01:36):
Sure.
Yeah.
So we started this as kind of aresearch project a couple years
ago.
Um, you know, I went to the devteam and I said, hey, you know,
the technology is blown up.
Uh the ChatGPT, obviously, andand Gemini and all the big ones.
Let's see if we can do this.
Let's see if we can createsomething that is as good as our
(01:57):
human receptionist service.
If not, that's fine.
We're not going to go to marketwith something that's subpar.
You know, we've got our namemade for us in this industry.
We do not want to jeopardizethat.
Um and what they came up withcompletely shocked me.
And uh, I was really excited tobring it to a beta test and hear
(02:18):
all the feedback from theclients that tried it for three
or four months.
And we've gone to market uh asof June 1st, and we're seeing
some great results.
But our message is not to doaway from with the humans.
Um, you know, don't take all thehuman chops.
We still have our live humanreception service, and we see
(02:39):
this as a hybrid solution.
And we have clients using it inmultitude of different ways.
SPEAKER_00 (02:45):
I I believe in AI solution when it's combined with
automation technologies or uh,you know context.
What I like about it, it cancreate some contextual.
Are you asking me thiseffectively?
Yes.
Yeah, okay, cool.
Like if it can do that withoutactually asking you, it can say,
hey, it sounds like you're doingthis.
Here'd be my reply.
It basically replaces India.
(03:06):
Yeah, take what you do and triesto align up the top meeting
message based on what you'reasking.
And A and I can do thatinstantly.
And they don't do the just don'tdo the pretend clicking sounds.
That's horrible.
Just can you get that off?
If you have that, don't do it.
But I I think it's actually areally valid use case where
people come in with like a notan IVR, but just an AI, you
know, with a much higher level.
So I can get you to the rightperson and let's do it as fast
(03:27):
as possible.
I think it's a really good usecase.
I don't know how you how are youor actually how are you using it
from yours?
Is it kind of like that or orshock me?
How did you how'd you do it?
SPEAKER_01 (03:36):
We have the clicking noise.
SPEAKER_00 (03:39):
And this interview's over.
Uh guys, think for anothermoment.
Uh make it an option.
Do you want to hear the clickingrule?
SPEAKER_02 (03:46):
It was it is an option.
Um, and the reason why we addedit during beta was because the
people were speaking over thethe receptionist.
So as the technology improvesand that delay shrinks, which
it's it's gotten very good, uhthe the need for it will go
away.
But it is an option, and I ambeing uh I guess I didn't
understand.
SPEAKER_00 (04:06):
I I'm one who doesn't jump on over the thing.
I can see people just likeignoring it.
I usually start cussing, and Ithink that's usually when I get
a personal rule with how are youdoing today, sir?
I'm like, you don't pull an askthat question.
SPEAKER_02 (04:18):
You would be surprised at what we've heard
what we hear.
SPEAKER_00 (04:21):
Um, I'm I'm one of them.
I guarantee it.
I I cannot stand it anyway.
I'm sure your guys' stuff isgreat.
All right.
So, but what was the use case?
Do you do it to get to a humanfaster?
Is that the or do you try to dolike a one-touch solve with that
AI?
SPEAKER_02 (04:35):
Good question.
Great question.
There's mo many different usecases.
Um, so we have a lot of clientswho are trying to cut cost, and
so they're migrating away fromthe human receptionist and using
this as their full-timesolution.
We have some clients that wantthe human during the day and
want the AI receptionist for fornighttime answering.
(04:55):
But we're seeing a lot of peoplethat want our human
receptionists to do somethingthat we can't do.
And one of the ties that we cutuh very early on in our journey
was trying to do everything foreverybody.
And this was, you know, one ofthe big lessons we learned, I
would say 15 years ago, was wewere doing scheduling for
(05:17):
everybody.
And some of the clients we hadto log into their remote desktop
computer and use this oldantiquated scheduling system
that really took weeks to trainon, and our clients are paying
us a couple hundred dollars amonth.
So the ROI for us isn't there,the ROI for them isn't there.
(05:38):
There's a lot of mistakes beingmade.
We couldn't be experts at it,and so we cut that tie.
SPEAKER_00 (05:44):
Well, now what scheduling too, right?
It's like just use the link.
Like no, no human needs to do itfor the most part now, right?
Like it can just be like justpick time to work for you.
SPEAKER_02 (05:55):
You'd be surprised.
I I love using the link.
I I would much rather do that,but you'd be surprised there's
still a lot of people that wantto call in um and speak to a
human or speak to an AIreceptionist.
SPEAKER_00 (06:08):
Well, I let's start with you.
How do you how do you definesuccess?
SPEAKER_02 (06:12):
I define success based off of the people that
work at Abbey feelingsuccessful.
So early on in my career, Ialways knew I wanted to be an
entrepreneur.
And uh I was very focused onproducts.
I was very focused on thesystems that made the company
profitable.
And what I realized at somepoint was what makes me feel
(06:34):
very good and very inspired isseeing other people succeed.
Part of the DNA of Abby is 99%of the people that started here
started as a receptionist.
And so we've seen people go fromreceptionist to supervisor to
manager to customer servicemanager to our VP of operations,
(06:56):
for example.
Um, and it's been veryinspirational to see that.
SPEAKER_00 (07:00):
I like it, it's like a selfless uh definition up.
So talk about your journey togetting getting there and what
you know the metaphoric tie wasthat you had to do or your
company had to do, or you had todo for your company to achieve
that success.
SPEAKER_02 (07:13):
Sure.
Well, we've cut many ties andlearned many lessons throughout
the years.
And I think one of them that Iwas discussing uh in the last
question is trying to doeverything for everybody and um,
you know, trying to capture allmarkets and all customers.
And uh we had to cut that out.
(07:33):
We had to focus in on what we'regood at and the customers that
we most please and startlistening to the clo customers
that are happy and start notlistening to the customers that
aren't happy and focusing ourarea there.
So that was one tie that we keptthat was uh very important to
us.
SPEAKER_00 (07:51):
How did you go about doing that?
Because I think the how is whereit meets you know, rubber meets
the road kind of thing, right?
So how how did you go aboutdiscovering that and then uh I
don't say webonizing it, butmaybe you know implementing that
I like that term.
Um well, webonize includes war,but like sometimes, well, you
gotta it's a war to get it done.
SPEAKER_02 (08:09):
So yeah.
I would say listening to ourclients.
So that's really been ourshortcut to success, our weapon
is speaking to our clients asmuch as possible at every medium
possible, whether it's over thephone and onboarding, at, you
know, when they cancel with usat trade shows, emails, surveys,
(08:34):
every opportunity we get, wewant to c talk to a customer.
SPEAKER_00 (08:39):
I I think I mean it's but is it also asking them
the right questions?
I mean, did you have to come upwith like a normalized way to do
that?
Hey, if you're in person, yougot to capture these three
things and making sure yourteams knew that because I what I
find is you can give you lots ofgreat conversations, but no
valuable feedback if you don'tdo it systematically.
Did you experience somethingsimilar?
Did you plan for that?
SPEAKER_02 (08:58):
We experienced it and we are are still
experiencing it.
And I just had this conversationthis morning where we want to
realign some of the questionsthat we ask uh when clients
cancel services to get differentanswers and get more effective
answers that can help us andinsights that lead to actual
changes in the company that leadto growth.
(09:20):
So I I think that's a very goodpoint that you're making, not
just to ask the question, butask the right question and to
keep changing the questions youask based off of where you are
in your business.
SPEAKER_00 (09:30):
Yeah, that's super critical, right?
Because otherwise you're gettingdata you don't really, it's it's
not useful.
Uh then you then you have tolike you know operationalize
that through your yourorganization and stuff too.
So uh lots to do is you know,there's a lot of people and
management skills.
And but uh what's been theeffect since doing you know,
cutting back, focusing on atighter group?
Uh did that, you know, AI reallyI'm gonna leave the question
(09:52):
here.
AI works much better on narrownew use cases and less so on
general uh at this point, andthey'll probably be for the you
know, us Gen Xers, our ourcareer, it'll still be that way.
But uh, you know.
Did it help that?
Did it help initiate the courageto take on the AI with it?
Just maybe talk about the impactwith yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_02 (10:11):
Yeah, it we it did take courage to take it on,
especially in this industry, youknow, that's very human-based
and very service-based.
But I I think for me, the ahamoment came when I realized, as
you're alluding to, AI is not amagic solution.
It's not gonna do everything.
And my big aha moment is it'snot gonna take all of our jobs.
(10:31):
And that's my message right nowthat I'm I'm speaking about is
that AI is not gonna steal allof our jobs.
What it's gonna do is it's gonnaprovide new jobs for us, and
it's gonna be a very goodopportunity to upskill your
employees.
Um, so you know, getting back tothe to the question,
implementing implementing AIshould be like any ROI
(10:55):
conversation in your business.
You know, find a use case,implement it, measure it,
iterate on it, and then drop itif there's no ROI, or continue
if there is.
That's the way we look at thistool.
SPEAKER_00 (11:10):
It's uh, you know, I black people know this, but I
consulted in the intelligentautomation AI space 10 years
prior to becoming anentrepreneur.
So let's go back like 14 years.
Uh and I will say for a longtime, I've been hearing the
robots are coming.
It was really obvious to me thatthese are these are tools to
enable humans to go faster.
And in every case in history,technology has always done an
(11:31):
initial disruption and a hundredX job creation after.
Yep.
And it'll be the same thinghere.
You know, like the the simpleexample is horses went away.
All the people who service tohorses and go like, what do I
do?
Well, you go build cars now,right?
And and so, you know, now horsesare very expensive, and they're,
you know, so there'll be a wholething with that too.
So it'll happen again.
(11:51):
Uh, and you're right, like, youknow, it's how you use the
technology uh as well.
And I I I cannot stress that topeople enough.
My GPT almost never hallucinatesbecause I can I know my space
for building growth, right?
It just it because you if you doit right, it doesn't
hallucinate.
And same thing if you can builda system for you know customer
service related and you know thespace, it's gonna be pretty good
(12:13):
around that.
SPEAKER_02 (12:14):
Yeah, that's true.
I don't know if you saw SamAltman on his brother's podcast
or heard this anywhere, but hesaid something that I thought
was pretty insightful and timelyfor for the medium he was
speaking.
And he said, you know, 30, 40,whatever years ago, there was no
such thing as a podcaster.
And and and now the technologyhas enabled and created a new
(12:35):
job.
And that's exactly what we'regonna see with AI.
And that's that is what we areseeing at Abby.
And that's one of the thingsthat's really exciting for us is
an entry-level receptionistcoming in at one level and then
learning these these skills,these technology skills, and
being promoted into a technologyrole and making more money
(12:57):
because of it.
And so we're providing a lot ofcareer pathing right now for
that.
SPEAKER_00 (13:01):
I I think it'll be a big piece too with companies
that as they realize the profitsand from productivity of these
technologies combined with sayautomation.
And you know, a lot of them willtake it as profit and shares and
as they should.
But the ones who invest backinto their good people will, I
think, help multiplier becausethen they'll have the innovation
front and the creative front andthen the front line of the human
(13:24):
element that still exists.
Because you're not selling tomachine, you're ultimately
selling to another human.
Those are the ones I think thatreally take the next level.
Let's say it that well for thenext generation.
So uh sounds like you do.
SPEAKER_02 (13:35):
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (13:36):
Sideways compliment, I think.
If you could go back anywhere inyour timeline, uh, you know,
when would you go back and whatwould you do differently?
SPEAKER_02 (13:46):
I knew that question was coming and I thought about
it, and I don't think I would goback.
I really I really don't becauseand I know this is probably not
a unique answer, but it is myanswer.
It's made me who I am today.
And there's been hard lessons,and I don't think that we would
be where we're at withoutlearning those lessons.
(14:07):
And I also love the phrase failforward and fail as fast as
possible and as many times aspossible.
And that's how I learned there.
I didn't go to an entrepreneurschool, I went to a family
business, and that's where Ilearned learned everything that
I know.
SPEAKER_00 (14:25):
Yeah.
I listen, that's a great answerbecause it it it it truly is
things that happened for me,even though when they feel like
they're happening to you.
And if you navigate through it,you've done what you needed to
do to get there.
So I uh it's a beautiful answer.
Uh is there a book you thinkthough?
Uh let's maybe target the bookspecifically, maybe towards if
you're if you're a customer thatyou can service that they don't
(14:46):
know.
So like an ideal customer, likemaybe describe who they are, but
uh and not from like a shamelessplug thing, but like what book
should they read before they godown the path?
Or what you know materialsshould they be looking at before
they go down the path of callcenter or customer service base
or even AI interactive?
Yeah.
I don't know.
You can say go to our website,read our blog.
(15:08):
I'm fine with that answer too.
That'd be a good one.
SPEAKER_02 (15:11):
Uh no, I'm I'm I'm being coy.
One of the lessons I've learnedin my my career is not to be uh
shy by saying I don't know.
Um, you know, I there's a lot ofdifferent books that I love and
that I take inspiration from.
One of them is The Why by uhSimon uh Sunak.
I think that that's a veryinspirational book to me.
(15:33):
But as far as your question ofum an ideal customer and what
they could read, I I like tolearn as much as I can about AI
right now and how to use that inyour business and how to take
bite-sized pieces.
So I'm reading a lot of youknow, a lot of the news blogs
and whatnot, and uh that's whereI get my inspiration.
SPEAKER_00 (15:55):
Yeah, it's it's uh it's not like eating an elephant
bite by bite, it's a you knowherd of elephants.
Yeah.
So you gotta tell you gotta eata little piece from one at a
time, not get trampled by therest.
Uh for sure.
Uh there was maybe a question Ishould have asked you today
though, and I didn't.
SPEAKER_02 (16:10):
What would that question have been uh is is this
the creative question?
Have I made it that far?
SPEAKER_01 (16:20):
Yeah, it could be creative.
SPEAKER_02 (16:23):
Um the question that you have not asked me so far.
You didn't ask me what advice Ihave for um your listeners.
And if you were to ask me thatquestion, I would have answered
it by saying to stop listeningto people like me.
(16:46):
To what?
Stop listening to people likeme.
SPEAKER_00 (16:50):
Really you gotta give me a why on that one.
SPEAKER_02 (16:53):
Sure, sure.
Listen, I I think sometimes welisten too much to who we think
are the influencers.
And I would just really uh honein on your internal voice, what
speaks to you, what makes youtick, and let that become the
best version of yourself.
And that's that would be myadvice.
SPEAKER_00 (17:15):
I think they could still listen to you.
I think they could probably graba thing or two from you.
I'm gonna give you more creditsthan that.
Very, very nicely sound spoken.
The guy who doesn't speak, youshould listen to.
I found that like when you're inmeetings and business, the one
who's not talking in the roombut's at the table, yeah, the
one that you were like, hey,what do you think?
The introspective, it's not theADHD or blowing it all out.
(17:36):
Um I I do have a questionthough, for in your curry
business though, do you have uha tie, so to speak, that you're
struggling to cut right now?
Like a you're you're you'retrying to get over.
It's just like I cannot seem toget my head around this or want
to do this.
SPEAKER_02 (17:53):
Yeah, I do.
We're transitioning into aproduct-led company right now.
So we're very good at theservice side of our business,
and now we're focused on theproduct side of our business,
the AI receptionist, and howthat fits into the entire
ecosystem of you know ourclients' business.
We want to we want to buildeverything.
(18:14):
Everything.
There's so many great things tobuild.
And I could take, you know,Nvidia type of money and invest
into this business and build allkinds of great tools, but we
can't do that.
And we have to cut the tie of oftrying to do everything in our
product and trying to buildeverything and prioritize
(18:35):
everything and just focus on onething at a time by listening to
the client, what is the mostimportant to them, implement it,
iterate over it, and then moveto the next.
SPEAKER_00 (18:47):
Yeah, it well, in in is going to a product is a
different beast.
And you know, the advice I'veheard over and over and over is
just build what people want andnothing more.
Like that's how you knowInstagram was a bunch of stuff,
and the only thing people careabout was the photo sharing.
And the CEO is like, well, youknow what?
Let's go and just do that andonly that and make that cool.
(19:08):
So that move became you know abillion-dollar exit, right?
Uh, and I and I think that comesback to not falling in love with
your idea, yeah.
What you think it should be, andjust mean what is the feature
you need that we can solve?
And then what's the next one andtest it?
So I agree with you that themethodical approach of less is
more works.
Uh, because you know one of mycomplaints of like a HubSpot or
(19:29):
something, it's just it's toomuch now.
Can you just just do CRM and benothing more?
And like simple to keep it Idon't have all the other shit
going.
SPEAKER_02 (19:38):
HubSpot is a partner, great company, love
them.
Can't say anything bad aboutthem.
SPEAKER_00 (19:44):
I I I would say that I'm not saying bad, I think they
built too big of a platform ifthey took on investment.
Say it that way.
SPEAKER_02 (19:50):
I agree.
It's it's for some uh uh people,but not everybody.
unknown (19:55):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (19:56):
I guess my point of that is when you when you have a
company that you're building aproduct, and depending on how
much money you've raised to hitthe valuations, you will get
very uh wide in what yourofferings are to justify them,
as opposed to when you're abusiness like yours that's
trying to solve for a verypointed thing.
I believe the product is easierto build because you don't have
to you're servicing your clientand not an industrial.
SPEAKER_02 (20:19):
That's a great point.
Absolutely.
I love the way you youarticulate her.
SPEAKER_00 (20:24):
Yeah, and I think you'll be successful because of
it, as Marvel lean to becauseyou know, certain services that
can be repeated, that can beapplied to technology are a very
good candidate for automationand context.
So very nicely done.
Uh shameless plug time for youthough, who should get a hold of
you?
Where do you want them to do it?
SPEAKER_02 (20:39):
Well, anybody that uses phones in their business.
And if you go to abbey.com, weoffer a free trial on our AI
receptionist.
Um, and if you'd love to talk tous about how to blend and how to
use a hybrid solution, pick upthe phone and call us.
Our web, our phone numbers areon our website, abbey.com.
unknown (20:57):
Cool.
SPEAKER_00 (20:57):
Nathan, thanks so much for coming on today.
Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02 (20:59):
Yeah, thank you.
Great conversation.
SPEAKER_00 (21:01):
Listen, everybody who's uh got to this point in
the show, thank you forlistening.
Get out there, go cut a tie towhatever it is holding you back.
And uh but cut your cut yourtie, but do it on your own terms
of success, not on somebodyelse's.
Thanks for listening.
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