#285: Leveraging AI to Transform Customer Service and Beyond with Kris Sandor, USNA ‘01

Service Academy Business Mastermind

"For me, it's been rewarding to be helping the businesses that we help, because these are businesses that instead of spending money on customer support, they're spending that on marketing, they're spending that on developing a new product, which from a macro economic perspective is much better for our economy.” -Kris Sandor

Kris Sandor is the Co-Founder and CEO of Readyly, a company that automates manual customer support workflows through Generative AI technology. Kris's career includes roles as a Navy nuclear submarine officer, consultant at McKinsey, business development lead at Palantir, and CEO of Citi Bike, which he successfully exited to Lyft in 2018. Passionate about helping entrepreneurs scale and improving conditions for front-line workers, Kris also has expertise in bioterrorism defense. He holds an MBA from Stanford, an MA in International Security Studies from Georgetown, and a BS in Political Science from the Naval Academy. Kris speaks fluent Hungarian and English and enjoys reading, traveling, and mentoring.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Kris' background in automation from his Navy career inspired him to found Readily to automate tier one customer support labor
• How Readyly's AI platform can automate up to 80% of customer contacts through web chat, email and internal tools like response drafting
• How the platform generates personalized knowledge bases by analyzing historical customer data and identifies gaps to improve support
• Kris’ most important goals like platform enhancements and integrating new technologies like voice

Kris Sandor's early career exposed him to the power of automation, from operating nuclear submarines to deploying technologies at Palantir and Citi Bike. This inspired his current venture, Readily, which aims to automate tier one customer support labor through conversational AI.

In a podcast with fellow alum Scott Mackes, Kris discussed his pathway into entrepreneurship after the Navy. He founded Readyly to address the massive need for more efficient customer support, especially as interactions moved online during the pandemic.Thank you, Kris!

Connect with Kris:

• LinkedIn
• Readyly

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Special thanks to Kris for joining me this week. Until next time!

-Scott Mackes, USNA ’01