Welcome to another engaging session of ExtraMile by YourTechDiet, where we get insights from visionary leaders shaping the future of technology.
Today, we are pleased to have Edwin Miller, the CEO of Marchex. For over two decades, Marchex has been quietly revolutionizing how businesses understand their customers, not through clicks or forms, but through the most human channel of all that is, ‘conversation’.
Edwin is a seasoned leader with an incredible track record of scaling tech companies. He is here to pull back the curtain on how listening to customer calls can reveal powerful stories of missed opportunities and incredible comebacks. He shares his vision for Marchex and tells us why he believes the simple phone call is one of the most untapped resources in businesses today.
Join us as we explore how Marchex helps companies hear what their customers are really saying.
Hello Edwin, a huge welcome to you!
1. Marchex is dedicated to building powerful AI-solutions for conversation intelligence to drive business growth. Can you share a story of how the company’s technology helped a business turn things around?
Edwin. Indeed, one of the clearest examples of how our technology creates immediate business impact involves a company in the national home services space. It operates in a highly competitive market where converting inbound calls to booked appointments is critical. When its leaders came to us, they were experiencing leakage in their funnel. Customers were calling in ready to buy, but for various reasons (missed cues, unclear next steps, or just lack of follow-through), those calls weren’t converting.
We implemented our solution that automatically reviewed and scored all of their phone calls. The Marchex technology “listens” not just for keywords but for emotional cues, buying signals, tone shifts, and hesitation. It doesn’t just tell you whether a call was good or bad, but it tells the business leader why a caller didn’t buy, what was said, the customer’s emotions, and who missed the signal. Within the first 30 days, we flagged more than 250 high-intent calls that didn’t result in bookings.
Here’s where it gets interesting: we watched this team follow up on those missed opportunities with context-rich callbacks. The result? More than $50,000 in recaptured revenue in one month, with an ROI of more than 3,000%. And that’s not a theoretical value. That’s real, logged, and booked revenue that would have otherwise been lost. The leadership team informed us that it was the most cost-effective and actionable customer acquisition initiative implemented over the previous five years.
Technology, when designed correctly, doesn’t replace the human element but elevates it. Frontline staff still made the callbacks, but they did so with insight, confidence, and timeliness provided by the Marchex solutions. We provided the business a flashlight to shine light into the dim corners of their customers’ journeys. Once they could see what they were missing, they closed business at an unprecedented level.
2. You have led companies in cloud, technology, and SaaS platforms for years. What drew you to Marchex, and what excites you most about the company’s future?
Edwin. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to lead and grow companies at the intersection of technology, data, and scalable platforms. However, Marchex hit differently for me, and here’s why: it sat on a vast, and one of the most underutilized data sets in modern business—the customer conversation.
When I first started looking at the company, I wasn’t just interested in the technology. I was asking: Is the market ready for real-world, actionable insights gleaned from customer conversations? Does this platform have the infrastructure to scale in a way that isn’t just about chasing AI hype but about solving real problems in high-value industries? Can this one-time unicorn be re-established as a market leader in conversation intelligence?
I kept coming back to the same insight: conversations—whether voice calls, texts, or chats—are where customer intent is expressed most directly. It’s about what people say, how they say it, what they ask twice, and what they hesitate on. Marchex already had the infrastructure to turn unstructured omnichannel data into clarity. It processed billions of consumer-to-business calls, with integrations into CRM systems, ad platforms, and scheduling software. It wasn’t a prototype. It was a battle-tested engine waiting for expansion.
What excites me about our future is that while we’re focused on customer acquisition, we are also committed to delivering quality, operational consistency, and maximizing customer lifetime value. We’re building solutions that enable businesses to act in real-time, not in retrospectives. We’re helping our customers make decisions easier, faster, and wiser.
We are leading the next wave of AI by moving to prescriptive and predictive guidance, that’s where Marchex continues to cut new ground. Because we’re not trying to layer AI on top of generic data, we’re building it into the DNA of the conversation itself.
3. Marchex has won some big awards, like the AI Breakthrough Award. How do these wins show the impact of your team’s hard work?
Edwin. Awards like the AI Breakthrough Award are a great moment of recognition—but what they highlight is the deep, sustained effort our team puts in every day to solve real problems for our customers.
Take our work across home services, auto, and healthcare. We’ve built solutions that not only understand industry-specific conversations but surface the right insights, and in time-sensitive use cases, fast enough for teams to act on them in the moment. Whether it’s identifying a missed high-value lead, flagging a frustrated customer before a review goes awry, or recognizing revenue opportunities that would have otherwise slipped through the cracks, we’re enabling our customers to operate smarter and move faster.
That level of precision doesn’t happen by accident. It requires disciplined training, constant iteration, and teams that care about outcomes. We are not chasing awards, but we are pursuing progress and avenues to deliver the greatest impact for our customers.
When a recognition comes through, such as the one for the AI Breakthrough Award, it’s not just a nod to the product but validation that we’re moving the needle where it counts: delivering measurable value. That’s what makes it worth celebrating.
4. You have raised companies like Astreya by nearly 4x in revenue—that’s 330%. What is your secret to scaling businesses so successfully, and how are you applying that at Marchex? What’s one big win or moment you are most proud of so far?
Edwin. Scaling a company isn’t just about pushing for aggressive growth metrics. It’s about putting the right frameworks in place that align people, purpose, and process. One of the central ideas I’ve put into practice throughout my career, and one I explore deeply in my book 9Lenses, is this: insight without action is wasted potential. You can’t scale anything until you understand your business from every lens — strategic, operational, customer-facing, and cultural — and then mobilize that insight into coordinated action.
At Astreya, when we grew the business by 4x, we didn’t rely on shortcuts or outsized bets. We relied on clarity. We built systems where insight could flow freely across teams and where accountability wasn’t something to fear. It was something to fuel progress. We ensured that everyone, from top leadership to new hires, understood not only the goals but also how their work aligned with the broader mission. It wasn’t about building velocity for the sake of speed. It was about creating velocity with purpose.
A big part of that came down to what I call “socialized insight.” Ensuring that data and learnings weren’t siloed at the top but were made available across the organization in real time. That’s how you build a culture of execution: not by handing down marching orders but by unlocking collective intelligence and aligning everyone around shared outcomes.
At Marchex, that mindset is embedded in everything we do. We’re taking a company with a robust technical foundation and applying discipline, alignment, and insight-to-action feedback loops at scale.
For example, voice data had historically been treated as unstructured and challenging to act on. We’re making that data actionable by turning missed calls and dropped leads into intelligence that sales teams can act on in real-time. One OEM client identified a scheduling gap across multiple dealerships where calls were consistently going to voicemail during open hours. They adjusted their staffing and, within weeks, saw a 15% increase in booked appointments. That kind of immediate impact is what operational intelligence is all about.
But the story doesn’t end with automotive. We’re applying the same infrastructure and insight-driven model to other high-stakes verticals, such as automotive, healthcare, home services, real estate, advertising, and media. These are industries where the customer journey often begins with a phone call, and yet those interactions have long been overlooked or underutilized. With our AI-driven solutions, we are capturing sentiment and identifying friction points, and we enable organizations to act on that information instantly, improving everything from scheduling efficiency to revenue conversion.
If there’s one lesson I’ve learned across every company I’ve scaled, it’s this: sustainable growth is a reflection of how well you’ve aligned your organization’s intent with its operational reality. In 9Lenses, I wrote about how businesses must diagnose their actual state before they can chart a successful path forward. That requires asking the right questions, gathering honest input, and then creating systems that turn those answers into real momentum.
At Marchex, we’re not just scaling for the sake of scaling. We’re scaling our ability to learn faster, adapt quicker, and deliver measurable outcomes for our customers. That’s where long-term value lives, in the disciplined application of insight across every corner of the organization. So, if you’re asking what the “secret” is, it’s that scale isn’t a finish line, but is a byproduct of clarity, consistency, and a relentless commitment to turning insight into action.
5. Marchex’s Sonar Business Text Messaging is a game-changer for customer engagement. How do you see AI making conversations between businesses and customers more meaningful?
Edwin. The biggest myth about AI and messaging is that more automation equals less humanity. What we’ve found is the opposite. When it’s done right, automation amplifies humanity. For example, one of our clients in the auto repair space sends out a simple message when a service is complete: “Your car is ready. Need a ride?” That’s easy. But when the customer texts back, “I’m stuck at work,” that’s where AI shines. It picks up the intent and urgency behind the reply, and instead of pushing a generic response, it offers a real solution: “Would you like us to send a shuttle?”
That level of nuance—knowing when to step in and when to stay out of the way—is everything. AI shouldn’t be about taking over the conversation. It should be about curating the right next step. What we’re seeing is a dramatic lift: five times more responses, higher customer satisfaction, and more efficient frontline teams who no longer waste time answering “What time do you close?” questions all day.
More importantly, it creates a conversational experience that feels like texting a brilliant friend. It’s immediate, it’s accurate, and it’s empathetic. That’s the bar now. The businesses that meet it will win.
6. Spotlight is a powerful tool for multi-location businesses. How does it help companies with hundreds of locations stay on the same page and perform better?
Edwin. Imagine managing a business with hundreds or even thousands of locations, each with its staff, schedules, leadership, and unique performance challenges. That’s the reality for many of our clients in industries like automotive and home services. The sheer complexity of keeping everyone aligned is staggering. That’s why we built Spotlight.
Spotlight doesn’t just report what happened. It shows you where to act, who needs help, and what excellence looks like. One large OEM we work with used Spotlight to uncover that several stores in Arizona were unintentionally routing calls to voicemail after 5 PM despite staying open until 7 PM. By making a simple adjustment, they recovered dozens of missed appointments in just one week.
But it goes beyond quick fixes. Spotlight provides benchmarking across your entire footprint. It tells you how Store A compares to Store B, how your Southern California region compares to the national average, or where call answer times dip below industry standards. This isn’t reactive data; it’s prescriptive intelligence.
One client told us, “This is like going from a telescope to a microscope.” Suddenly, their regional managers had visibility down to the agent level—who was thriving, who needed coaching, and what systemic issues were hiding behind average performance numbers.
In a world where consumer expectations are only rising, Spotlight ensures that multi-location operators can execute like a single, well-oiled machine.
7. AI is evolving very fast, and so is Marchex. What is one trend in AI or conversation intelligence that will redefine how businesses operate in the next five years?
Edwin. The trend that will define the next five years is the rise of agentic AI orchestration. That might sound academic, but here’s what it means in practice: we’re transitioning from point solutions that address isolated questions to AI capabilities that manage entire workflows across multiple channels and formats.
Currently, we have systems that can interpret voice calls, texts, images, and documents. But soon, we’ll have agentic agents that combine all of that. A customer sends in a photo of a damaged product, calls support, and follows up via chat. The AI agent will recognize the same issue, understand the urgency in the customer’s voice, verify warranty eligibility in real time, and trigger a refund, all before the agent even answers the phone.
This isn’t sci-fi. At Marchex, we’re already building toward this with our Sentiment Suite, Spotlight, and our next-gen integrations into CRM and CDPs. We’re not just listening to calls. We’re interpreting emotions, predicting subsequent actions, and recommending targeted interventions that close the loop more efficiently.
The businesses that succeed in this next phase won’t be the ones with the most AI tools; instead, they will be those that effectively utilize them. They’ll be the ones who can unify those tools into a seamless customer experience.
It’s no longer about what data you have. It’s about how quickly and responsibly you can act on it.
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