Sajal Kumar

Head of Customer Experience & Inside Sales - India & International business

ZEE5 · Full-time

Promoted to take on international business alongside domestic CX and Inside Sales - three bets I made with that expanded mandate, and what happened. Deployed real-time sentiment analysis across 12+ international markets to surface frustration before it became a ticket. Built a feedback-to-product pipeline that routed recurring complaint patterns directly into sprint planning. International NPS rose 40%+. Detractors became advocates - not through appeasement, but because we gave them something worth defending. Post MIT Sloan AI Leadership certification, I mapped our entire tier-1 taxonomy and automated 35% of case volume using agentic AI - routing every emotionally complex or ambiguous case to a human with full context, never cold. Sentiment scores on AI-resolved cases matched human scores within 90 days. Freed capacity became a proactive outreach programme for high-value customers. Rebuilt inside sales from an undifferentiated calling operation into an intelligence-led function: AI-powered lead scoring on behavioral signals, localized up-sell playbooks across markets, micro-squads aligned by segment. Conversion rates increased 64%. Efficiency improved 42% across 1,400+ advisors. The vertical now generates ₹10 cr+ annually - fueled by the same customer data that runs our CX operation.

Director Customer Experience - India

ZEE5 · Full-time

Headed the India CX and Inside Sales business end-to-end, owning the full customer life cycle from acquisition through retention, and rebuilding the operation from the ground up. The results here earned the expanded mandate to lead international. Moved NPS from Critical to Excellent in 12 months - not by improving response times, but by embedding customer intelligence into product, marketing, and service simultaneously. Conducted 50+ user research studies that shaped product interfaces, drove 15% higher feature adoption, and built an early-warning system that resolved issues before they reached the complaint stage. Rebuilt the operational architecture around an AI-human balance: launched a self-service portal and NLP chatbot that achieved 40%+ self-help adoption, deployed RPA based ticket routing that cut manual effort by 35%, and re engineered workflows that eliminated redundancy and empowered front line teams with real decision-making authority. Net result: 30% operational cost reduction and a 25% productivity surge - without sacrificing the human touch on high-value interactions. Designed and orchestrated CX for live sports streaming events serving 10M+ concurrent users - maintaining 99.9% uptime and boosting retention by 20% during peak load. Built cross-functional support protocols with Product, Tech, and Marketing that delivered 30% faster response times and 25% higher resolution rates. Crisis-readiness became a competitive advantage, not a contingency plan.

General Manager - Customer Service & Inside Sales

Tata ClassEdge · Full-time

B2C sales in EdTech is one of the hardest sells there is - you're asking families to trust an unfamiliar product with their children's education, often against budget pressures and deep skepticism. I walked into Tata CLassEdge with a mandate to build the customer service and inside sales function largely from scratch. No inherited playbook. No established pipeline. Just a category that demanded we earn trust before we could earn revenue. I built the team, the process, and the sales philosophy simultaneously - anchoring everything on one belief: in EdTech, customer satisfaction and sales performance are not in tension, they are the same metric. A family that trusts you buys more, stays longer, and refers others. That conviction drove a 95% customer satisfaction rating, 30% year-over-year sales growth, and an inside sales programme that generated ₹630M in revenue - from a standing start. What I'm most proud of from this chapter isn't the revenue number. It's that the vertical was recognised as the Best Vertical in B2C business - an award that reflects not just results, but how a team operates under sustained pressure. I led the function through a period of significant growth and change, and the culture we built - one where every advisor understood they were part of both a sales and a trust-building operation - became the competitive edge. Tata CLassEdge taught me something I've carried into every role since: the hardest customer to convert is also the most loyal one if you get it right. That insight - that friction in the sales process is often a signal about trust, not price - became the foundation of everything I built in the India business and beyond.

Senior Manager - Customer Service & Lead fulfillment

Pidilite Industries Limited · Full-time

My first CX leadership role, and the most formative. No playbook, no inherited model, no established process. What I had was a B2C customer base of homeowners who trusted Pidilite products but had no reliable way to trust the people applying them. That gap, between a great product and a great end experience, became the problem I spent this chapter solving. What I built from scratch was a digital-to-retail lead generation and execution engine. We captured homeowner demand digitally, routed leads through retail touch points, and fulfilled them through a newly created cohort of company-certified applicators, professionals who met Pidilite quality standards and carried out work backed by a company guarantee. A homeowner could go from discovering a product online to having it applied by someone accountable to the brand, with a guarantee on the outcome. Not a campaign. A new go-to-market system connecting marketing, sales, channel execution, and service quality into one accountable loop. The outcomes moved across every CX dimension simultaneously. Customer satisfaction improved 30%. On boarding time reduced 25%, retention improved 32%. A referral program drove new purchases and contributed to 37% revenue growth without spending a dime. A social media care strategy grew positive brand mentions by 40%. Cross-functional work improved first contact resolution by 20% and reduced complaints by 45%. This work was recognized with a company-sponsored trip to Russia for outstanding CX initiatives. Early in my career, what it confirmed mattered more than the award: CX done well is not a support function. It is a growth engine. That conviction, earned here at the start, became the foundation of everything I built in every role that followed.

Digital Project Manager

Idea Cellular Ltd · Full-time

An early chapter that shaped how I think about digital CX to this day. I was handed the My Idea App when it was a basic utility with limited functionality. The brief was straightforward: improve it. What I chose to build instead was a full self-service and payments platform, one that could absorb the majority of customer interactions that were then being handled by support teams over the phone. I led the architecture of the service and payment infrastructure on the platform, integrating real-time data usage tracking, personalized offers, and seamless payment journeys into a single connected experience. Working across product, tech, and marketing teams, I built a customer feedback loop directly into the app so that every user interaction generated intelligence that fed the next sprint. The goal was not just a better app. It was a platform that made reactive support unnecessary by resolving needs before they became requests. The outcomes validated the approach across every metric. Support calls dropped by 30% as customers resolved issues independently. App downloads grew 25% and active users increased 35%, reflecting genuine engagement rather than passive installs. Customer feedback submissions rose 20%, giving the product team a continuous signal for improvement. Churn decreased by 24% and customer lifetime value improved as the platform became a daily utility rather than a last resort. This was recognized directly by the CDO and MD of the organisation for its impact on cost reduction and revenue enhancement. What this chapter taught me was the principle I have applied in every role since: a digital product built around the customer's actual journey does not just improve satisfaction scores. It replaces an entire layer of reactive operations with something far more valuable: a system that prevents the problem in the first place.

Assistant Manager - Customer Support

Idea Cellular Ltd · Full-time

- Successfully managed a team of customer service representatives, ensuring high-quality customer interactions and achieving service level targets consistently. - Implemented process improvements that resulted in a 20% reduction in average call handling time, improving overall efficiency and customer satisfaction. - Developed and delivered comprehensive training programs for customer service representatives, enhancing their product knowledge, communication skills, and problem-solving abilities. - Played a key role in the successful integration of new customer service software, improving response times and streamlining ticket management processes. - Led a customer satisfaction survey initiative, gathering feedback from customers and implementing targeted improvements based on the results, resulting in a 25% increase in customer satisfaction ratings. - Proactively identified and resolved complex customer issues, effectively managing escalations and ensuring timely resolution to maintain customer loyalty. - Implemented a customer feedback tracking system, analyzing trends and customer sentiment to identify areas for improvement in service delivery. - Led cross-functional collaboration initiatives to enhance communication and coordination between customer service and other departments, resulting in improved issue resolution and customer experience. - Received recognition for outstanding customer service, including being awarded the "Customer Service Excellence Award" for exceeding customer expectations and achieving exceptional service metrics by our CCO

Senior Executive - Outsourced partner management

Aircel · Full-time

- Successfully managed the Central Region for Aircel, overseeing customer service operations, performance, and customer satisfaction across multiple states, control span of 2500+ resources. - Led a team of customer service managers and representatives, ensuring high-quality service delivery and adherence to service level agreements. - Achieved and maintained excellent customer satisfaction ratings, consistently exceeding targets and benchmarks for the Central Region. - Developed and executed regional customer service strategies, aligning them with organizational goals and ensuring consistency with national service standards. - Collaborated with cross-functional teams to address network and service-related issues, minimizing customer impact and enhancing service reliability in the Central Region. - Successfully managed customer escalations, effectively resolving complex issues and maintaining strong relationships with key customers and stakeholders. - Led the implementation of new customer service technologies and systems, aimed towards improving efficiency. - Continuously monitored industry trends, competitor activities, and customer feedback to identify opportunities for service improvement and deliver a competitive advantage in the telecom market. - Actively participated in TRAI forums representing Aircel and contributing to industry-wide discussions on customer service excellence and best practices.