Nilay Sule

  The Role of a CX Leader in Building Annual Operating Plans When most people think about an Annual Operating Plan (AOP) , they picture finance teams huddled over spreadsheets, debating revenue targets and cost lines. But for organizations with large customer-facing operations, Customer Experience (CX) leaders play an equally critical role —and not just as a supporting act. In my two decades leading CX and operations across sectors like FinTech, food delivery, and early-stage startups , I’ve learned that a CX leader’s input can be the difference between an AOP that looks good on paper and one that actually works in the real world. 1. Turning Customer Journeys into Budget Line Items A CX leader doesn’t just represent “support” in the budget—they represent the customer’s voice. When building an AOP, the first task is mapping operational realities to financial planning : Anticipating contact volumes across channels (voice, chat, email, social) based on marketing plans, produc...

  Choosing the Right CRM Isn’t About Features — It’s About Fit When companies shop for a new CRM, the conversation often starts — and ends — with a checklist of features. Does it have AI-powered insights? Automated workflows? Social media integration? The demo dazzles, the sales pitch convinces, and yet, six months later, the tool sits underused or resented by the very teams it was meant to empower. After two decades leading customer experience, operations, and technology integration across sectors like fintech, food delivery, and early-stage startups, I’ve seen this pattern repeat itself. The truth is simple: the best CRM isn’t the one with the longest feature list — it’s the one that fits your business like a well-tailored suit. Fit Outweighs Flash A CRM’s role is to enable your teams to work smarter, not to impress in a demo. In my time setting up CRM systems for operations — from migrating Zendesk to Freshdesk at scale, to helping product teams design custom CRM modules — ...

  Everyone’s rushing to implement AI. The real winners are designing CX frameworks where AI has a defined role. 1. The Use-Case Rule: Don't Start with the Tool A lot of teams start with “let’s get a chatbot.” That’s backward. Start with a business case: what’s broken, what’s expensive, what’s repetitive? Then figure out the best-fit tool. 2. AI as an Amplifier, Not a Replacement At Simpl, we deployed a voice audit tool (Convin) that reviewed 100% of collection calls. It didn’t replace QA staff — it made their reviews smarter, faster, and more consistent. Result: +12% in collection efficiency. 3. Automation Maturity: Where Are You Really? We often overestimate what our agents or customers are ready for. We created an automation maturity model to assess which parts of CX could be automated without harming outcomes. 4. What AI Can't Do (Yet) AI can’t show empathy, handle context-switching well, or make judgment calls on high-value customers. Those cases still need skilled humans. ...

In an age where everyone is racing toward specialization, I’ve spent my career building range — across sectors, technologies, and teams — while staying rooted in one consistent goal: Delivering exceptional customer experiences that scale with purpose. My name is Nilay Sule , and I’m a transformation-focused CX and operations leader with over 20 years of experience spanning FinTech, FoodTech, EdTech, and BPO. I’m not just passionate about customer experience — I’ve helped build, redesign, and automate it for millions. 🏗️ From the Ground Up: Scaling at Swiggy At Swiggy, I had the privilege of leading support operations during a period of exponential growth — from 9,000 to 1.8 million orders per day . I oversaw a team of over 1,100 FTEs and 17 vendor partners, implementing systems for partner experience, fulfillment, and instant gratification that reduced costs by 33% . We didn’t just build processes — we built resilience. The customer experience team wasn’t just a function. It...

In my 20+ years of leading operations, customer experience, and transformation across FinTech, FoodTech, and EdTech sectors, I’ve seen how technology has consistently shifted the frontier of what’s possible — from scaling support teams to automating collections and redesigning customer journeys. But in the past few years, one shift became undeniable: AI isn’t just a tool. It’s becoming the operating system for tomorrow’s business models. That’s why I decided to pursue the Leadership in AI program from the Indian School of Business (ISB). Here’s what drove that decision — and how it’s reshaping how I lead. 1. The World Was Changing Faster Than My Playbook At Simpl and Swiggy, I had built and scaled operations, implemented AI tools like voice audit platforms and chatbots, and driven measurable impact. But I knew I was often deploying AI as a user — not shaping it as a strategic designer. To lead in the next decade, I needed to deeply understand: Where AI truly delivers value What quest...

In most companies, the contact center is still viewed as a cost center. But in FinTech and digital-first businesses, that mindset is outdated — and dangerous. In my 20+ years leading customer operations across FinTech, FoodTech, and EdTech sectors, I’ve witnessed a shift: when businesses treat customer support as a strategic function (not a reactive one), the results go far beyond CSAT and NPS — they unlock real revenue, retention, and risk reduction. 1. CX as a Growth Lever, Not Just a Support Channel At Simpl, we turned our customer experience function into a core business enabler. How? We built a chatbot that cut contact rate by 33% and boosted self-service. We introduced a machine-learning-powered collection model that improved same-day recovery by 13%. And we created a merchant onboarding framework that scaled to $15K MRR in under five months. Each of these “CX projects” directly drove business outcomes. Lesson: When you align CX design with business goals (growth...