Exclusive interview with the CEO of SmartTask

Paul Ridden, CEO, SmartTask discusses customer relationships and the benefits of integrating AI and machine learning technologies.

SmartTask is celebrating 25 years in business. How do long-standing customer relationships influence your approach?

September 2024 marks 25 years of being in business, and we continue to thrive because we use the level of service, support and quality of our software to craft long term customer relationships, some now approaching 20 years.

This model creates happy customers, who say great things about us and also helps generate a stable revenue stream.

Our focus on continual improvement of the product and quality of service, coupled with a listening ear, is the foundation of the SmartTask model.

Customers often come back to us because, having tried alternative vendors, they realise the value of the services that we wrap around our products.

How does customer feedback influence product features and innovation?

Building strong relationships with our customers is all about listening. Understanding the industry and turning that into a great product.

Our design ethos is “we don’t know best, the security industry practitioners do”.

We now have close to 200 organisations using our software and they are a great resource for us when it comes to developing new features for the product.

For example, our latest product update included 23 enhancements that were requested/suggested by eight different clients. 

A case in point was integrating with WhatsApp so that occasional or seasonal workers, often those that work in event security, can be offered shifts.

Moving into a familiar environment (people are used to WhatsApp) engages workers more readily, resulting in faster responses.

When they reply, the system automatically feeds the response into SmartTask, so that they can be scheduled into the system.

This saves time for the worker, also ensuring that they never miss an opportunity to work if they want to, and for the scheduler, while providing oversight to the business.

Acting positively on feedback is so important for building trust and longevity with our clients.

What are the benefits of integrating AI and machine learning technologies into your software?

We are keen to harness the very latest in technology, so long as it provides usable solutions that make our clients lives easier and their businesses run more smoothly, adding value to their business.

A prime example that we are currently working on is using AI machine learning to automate the process of manually scheduling staff, for instance, when someone falls ill and unable to work at short notice.

AI allows us to speed up the process of getting cover for shifts without relying on individual schedulers, because that’s not scalable.

Additionally, if a key individual leaves, their knowledge is kept in the system and within the business.

It’s not about removing people; it’s about freeing people up for more interesting, more proactive and more valuable tasks, understanding what is going on within the business and ensuring the quality of the services being delivered.

This results in happy customers, more profitable contracts for them (and us!) and engaged and productive staff.