ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

Field Service Heads for Greater Automation and Integration

Posted by Keith Dawson on 26 July 2022

Field service is a segment of customer experience that is dominated by two elements: the complexity of the issues handled, and the high cost of providing on-site services. It is recognized as a critical component of the service experience, especially when managing the condition of high-precision equipment in the medical, manufacturing and utility industries. It is also a high-risk moment in the... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, Contact Center, agent management

Amazon Connect Adds Workforce Optimization Capabilities

Posted by Keith Dawson on 01 June 2022

At Enterprise Connect in March, Amazon announced new functionality in its cloud contact center platform, Amazon Connect. The company is now including a full Workforce Optimization component, which includes built-in forecasting, capacity planning and scheduling capabilities. It's no surprise that Amazon is adding these capabilities, as WFO has become a core component of a complete CCaaS platform.... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center

Work-From-Anywhere Has a Communications Impact

Posted by Keith Dawson on 10 May 2022

Contact centers are undergoing a radical reshuffling of the workforce, partly because the pandemic shifted agents to remote work. But the trends were in place to reorganize the world of work long before the pandemic. Digital contact channels, which are gaining in popularity, require workers that are better informed and capable of handling more complex and interdependent interactions and... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, Contact Center, agent management

Technology Trends in Customer Support Software

Posted by Keith Dawson on 03 May 2022

Customer Service and Support (CSS) software is about more than case tracking and trouble tickets. Many organizations view the service call as an opportunity to solidify a positive customer relationship and perhaps enhance the loyalty and value of the customer. That has propelled interest in the emphasis on workflows and automation that now/currently drives CSS, particularly when it comes to... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, Contact Center

Ujet Simplifies Omnichannel Interactions in the Contact Center

Posted by Keith Dawson on 19 April 2022

Although the bulk of contact center seats are still served by on-premises equipment, there appears to be a consensus that the cloud is better suited to delivering a successful, omnichannel customer experience, and that most new contact center deployments will be run on cloud-computing platforms. The trend toward cloud-based contact center infrastructure (CCaaS) has opened a space in the market... Read More

Topics: Contact Center, CCaaS

OnviSource Brings Intelligence to Contact Center Automation

Posted by Keith Dawson on 24 March 2022

Today’s contact center agents find themselves handling increasingly more complex interactions due to changes in consumer demand, advances in self-service and the proliferation of digital contact channels. This added complexity requires continuous agent support for successful customer experience outcomes. Intelligent software can reduce agent workload and improve customer interactions by picking... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center, AI

Why We Need a New Definition for CX Software Platforms

Posted by Keith Dawson on 18 March 2022

The technology underpinning customer experience (CX) is a hodgepodge of tools that have been developed for niche use cases and then expanded to fill broader roles. Examples include the old (CRM, help desk software and speech analytics) and the new (customer data platforms and conversational AI). This is because CX is a set of very specialized processes that happen in different parts of the... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Marketing, Marketing Performance Management, Voice of the Customer, Contact Center, Product Information Management, Digital Marketing, agent management, intelligent marketing, Digital Experience Platform

Contact Center Cost Control, Part 2: Getting Granular

Posted by Keith Dawson on 01 March 2022

In a previous Analyst Perspective, we discussed some of the big-picture trends that are bringing cost control back as a core driver of contact center operations. In this report we will tackle some of the practical ramifications: how those trends affect decision-making and operations. The pandemic opened the door to a much broader consideration of how organizations engage with employees,... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, Contact Center, agent management

Contact Center Cost Control, Part 1: Rethinking Modern Operations

Posted by Keith Dawson on 22 February 2022

Contact centers have always been very cost-centric and attuned to the kinds of constraints that they have to operate in, but many organizations were diverted from that kind of focus when the pandemic first hit. In 2020, there was a sudden need for new tools and equipment just to keep centers running, and the costs involved in enabling agents to work from home — equipping them and their... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, Contact Center, agent management

Top Trends in VoC Analytics

Posted by Keith Dawson on 16 February 2022

A formal Voice of the Customer (VoC) program is a necessity for any organization that wants to grow its customer base and differentiate from its competitors. Unfortunately, many organizations have not updated their notion of “formal” in quite a few years. VoC has a contact center component and an enterprise component. They are related, hopefully connected, but not the same. Contact centers are... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Marketing, Voice of the Customer, Contact Center, Digital Marketing, agent management

The 2022 Market Agenda for Marketing: A Digital Experience Revolution

Posted by Keith Dawson on 04 February 2022

Ventana Research recently announced its 2022 Market Agenda in the expertise area of Marketing, continuing the guidance we have offered for nearly two decades to help organizations derive optimal value from business technology and improve outcomes. Marketing technology has enabled chief marketing officers to oversee teams that orchestrate more effective and sophisticated communication and customer... Read More

Topics: Marketing, Marketing Performance Management, Product Information Management, Digital Marketing, intelligent marketing, Digital Experience Platform

The 2022 Market Agenda for CX: Enabling Resilience in Experiences

Posted by Keith Dawson on 02 February 2022

Ventana Research recently announced its Market Agenda in the expertise area of Customer Experience. For the past several years, many organizations have found it challenging to provide excellent customer experiences in the face of drastic technology changes and the ongoing pandemic. These challenges have highlighted for many decision-makers how strategic CX can be in differentiating from... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, Contact Center, agent management

The 2022 Value Index for Agent Management Classifies and Rates Vendors

Posted by Keith Dawson on 31 January 2022

Ventana Research is sharing insights gleaned from our latest Value Index research, an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Agent Management 2022 is the distillation of a year of market and product research by Ventana Research. Drawing on our Benchmark Research, we apply a structured methodology built on evaluation categories that... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, Contact Center, Product Information Management, Digital Commerce

Shifts in Agent Management Software Benefit Agent Experiences

Posted by Keith Dawson on 26 January 2022

The 2022 Ventana Research Value Index for agent management software is published, offering interesting observations about how the market is advancing to provide more sophistication to agents and the management of them. The market is now characterized by applications integrated into multifunction suites, a significant change accelerated by the pandemic in the short term and vendor consolidation... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, Contact Center, Product Information Management, Digital Commerce, Subscription Management, agent management

Customer Experience Needs Accountability with Executive Leadership

Posted by Keith Dawson on 10 January 2022

The contact center is where much of customer experience management happens, but it is by no means the beginning or end of the CX story. Other departments, notably marketing and revenue, have a stake in what happens during the customer’s lifecycle. Whether it’s developing offers, orchestrating interactions or assessing behavior and intent, handling the complexity of the relationship requires a... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, Contact Center

Automating Workflows for a Better Customer Experience

Posted by Keith Dawson on 01 December 2021

Any organization that relies heavily on a large labor force looks to automation to reduce costs, and contact centers are no exception. They handle interactions at such large scale that almost any effort to automate some part of the process can deliver measurable efficiencies. Two factors have ratcheted up attention on automating customer experience workflows: the dramatic expansion of digital... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, Analytics, Data Integration, Contact Center, Data, agent management, data operations, Experience Management, AI and Machine Learning

Vonage Buys Into Conversational Commerce With Jumper.ai

Posted by Keith Dawson on 12 November 2021

When migrating their communications stacks to the cloud, many organizations come face to face with a quandary: do they emphasize the business phone system and gravitate toward a unified communications vendor? Or should they focus on the specific applications needed for running their contact centers and seek out a CCaaS vendor? It turns out there is a third option, which is to build their own... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, Contact Center, agent management, AI and Machine Learning

NICE CXi Is a Pivot to the Post-Contact Center World

Posted by Keith Dawson on 04 November 2021

When NICE acquired inContact in 2016, it began a transformation that saw it broaden its product offering and positioned itself to play a larger role in the contact center and customer experience industries. It was a prescient move, creating a firm that could supply end-to-end contact center functionality in the cloud. And it anticipated today’s market dynamic, in which NICE and its competitors... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, Business Continuity, Analytics, Contact Center, Data, Digital transformation, agent management, Experience Management, AI and Machine Learning

AI’s Value to Contact Centers: What Are the Use Cases

Posted by Keith Dawson on 28 October 2021

In part one of this Analyst Perspective on the use of artificial intelligence within contact center applications, we focused on the evolution — and resulting benefits — of tools embedded with AI, including ease-of-use for non-data-scientists. In this Analyst Perspective, we’ll explore the most beneficial applications of this technology in contact centers. To understand how contact centers... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, Analytics, agent management, AI and Machine Learning

AI’s Value to Contact Centers: Improved Customer and Agent Experiences

Posted by Keith Dawson on 21 October 2021

When artificial intelligence emerged from the labs and vendors started offering it as a component of their software, many contact-center buyers shied away from it. From their point of view, AI and machine learning tools were new, expensive, relatively untested and had an uncertain use case. This stance was understandable, as contact center professionals are traditionally expected to be... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, Analytics, Contact Center, agent management, AI and Machine Learning