ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

Avaya is Innovative in 2021 Contact Center in the Cloud Value Index

Posted by Keith Dawson on 22 June 2021

We are happy to share some insights about Avaya drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Contact Center in the Cloud 2021, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. It is an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings will address buyers’... Read More

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

Content Guru is Exemplary in 2021 Value Index for Contact Centers

Posted by Keith Dawson on 17 June 2021

We are happy to share some insights about Content Guru drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Contact Center in the Cloud 2021, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. It is an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings will address... Read More

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

Genesys is Exemplary in 2021 Contact Center in the Cloud Value Index

Posted by Keith Dawson on 16 June 2021

We are happy to share some insights about Genesys drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Contact Center in the Cloud 2021, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. It is an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings will address... Read More

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

Zendesk Advances a Suite for CX

Posted by Keith Dawson on 15 June 2021

The outlines of a post-pandemic customer experience (CX) landscape are emerging, and it appears that the market dynamic is bringing companies from different segments into heightened competition with one another. Over the past few years, there has been a change in software-buying preferences from niche point solutions to packaged software suites. Organizations and buyers now want more capability... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center, agent management

Talkdesk is Exemplary in the Contact Center in the Cloud Value Index

Posted by Keith Dawson on 14 June 2021

We are happy to share some insights about Talkdesk drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Contact Center in the Cloud 2021, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. It is an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings will address... Read More

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

NICE inContact is Exemplary and Overall Value Index Leader in Contact Center in the Cloud

Posted by Keith Dawson on 11 June 2021

We are happy to share some insights about NICE drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Contact Center in the Cloud 2021, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. It is an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings will address buyers’... Read More

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

The Value Index for Contact Center in the Cloud: Classification and Rating of 14 Vendors

Posted by Keith Dawson on 10 June 2021

I am happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Value Index research, an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Contact Center in the Cloud 2021 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... Read More

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

The Market for Contact Center in the Cloud Software

Posted by Keith Dawson on 09 June 2021

Having just completed the 2021 Ventana Research Value Index for Contact Center in the Cloud, I want to share some of my observations about how the market has advanced since our assessment three years ago. The trend towards cloud deployment for contact center infrastructure has accelerated, partly (but not exclusively) due to the urgency of the 2020 pandemic. CCaaS has been generally accepted as a... Read More

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

Customer Service and Support: Expanded Role and Need for Software

Posted by Keith Dawson on 27 May 2021

Customer service and support (CSS) is a term with two meanings. Most generally, it refers to the functions of a contact center in handling post-sales customer inquiries that require some effort or action on the part of the business. More specifically, it refers to the elements of the software stack that facilitate those operations, primarily case tracking and trouble ticketing. These functions... Read More

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

Zoho Builds a CX Suite Inside Zoho One

Posted by Keith Dawson on 11 May 2021

There are many software components that facilitate contact center operations. Historically, the industry has relied, in part, on niche or best-of-breed applications but this is shifting in favor of broadly integrated suites or ecosystems. When we look at CX trends beyond the contact center, the shift is even more pronounced, with the bundling/collection of applications from martech to... Read More

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

The Voice of the Customer Is Really a Chorus of Voices

Posted by Keith Dawson on 04 May 2021

Voice of the Customer (VoC) is a catch-all term that refers to the collection of customer feedback in various formats. Sometimes this feedback is in the form of quick surveys or reactions to questions like, "Did I resolve your issue today?" or "Would you recommend our service to a friend?" Alternatively, it can be derived from less specific but more numerous data signals that span multiple... Read More

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

Avaya: Adapting and Focused on CX, CCaaS Success

Posted by Keith Dawson on 22 April 2021

Business phone systems and contact center platforms received renewed attention in 2020 as organizations acquired tools for agents working from home. That put the spotlight on vendors, like Avaya, that have feet in both worlds. Since both forms of communications technology are well-suited to the cloud, Avaya has developed its Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) and Contact Center as a... Read More

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

8x8 Shows Why CCaaS and UCaaS Should be Unified

Posted by Keith Dawson on 30 March 2021

The pandemic accelerated several trends in the contact-center industry that were already underway, chiefly: moving infrastructure and software applications to the cloud, and rethinking the process of managing agents. One byproduct of these trends is a renewed look at the similarities between business-phone systems (also known as unified communications, or UC) and contact center systems (CC).... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Analytics, Collaboration, Contact Center, agent management, AI and Machine Learning

Salesforce Service Cloud: Contact Center with Workforce Engagement

Posted by Keith Dawson on 24 March 2021

The modern contact center relies heavily on software that enables agents to perform multiple complex tasks while simultaneously managing the customer-facing side of interactions. This has allowed CRM vendors to build tools, such as agent desktop interfaces, that control virtually all aspects of the service environment. Salesforce has been steadily growing its influence over the service... Read More

Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, Contact Center, Sales Performance Management, Workforce Management, agent management, sales enablement

The Mandate for Contact Center and Agent Management

Posted by Keith Dawson on 22 March 2021

The ways in which consumers engage with organizations have changed. Long-established communication channels such as the telephone, email and company websites are still used, but many consumers now prefer to use text messages, online chat, social media, virtual agents and applications on their mobile devices to contact the company and address issues. As a result, organizations have had to add... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center, agent management

Content Guru Brings CCaaS with Confidence to US

Posted by Keith Dawson on 19 March 2021

Shifts in the market due to the pandemic have upended the contact center marketplace, accelerating the inevitable migration of infrastructure to the cloud and changing the way agents are managed. The pandemic also increased the dependence customers have on contact centers in the absence of in-store buying. This has made it an interesting time to be a Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) vendor.... Read More

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

Customer Data Platforms: Essential for Effective Customer Experience

Posted by Keith Dawson on 16 March 2021

Since customer data platforms (CDP) emerged in the marketplace about five years ago, there has been debate about what roles they fill, especially within customer service organizations. They were originally developed by small software firms to provide marketing teams with a comprehensive view of customer records. Those records could be scattered throughout an organization, siloed by system and... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Marketing, data artisan, Data Governance, Data Lake, Data Preparation, Data, Information Management (IM), intelligent marketing

The New Verint: Experiences and Engagement with Customers

Posted by Keith Dawson on 12 March 2021

Verint has recently separated into two companies, one of which is a dedicated provider of software focused on customer engagement and will keep the Verint name. (The other is called Cognyte and focused on security analytics.) There are many reasons for the split but key among them is a long-term change in how organizations procure software designed to engage customers and handle interactions... Read More

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

SAP Service Cloud Bridges the Contact Center and the Back Office

Posted by Keith Dawson on 04 March 2021

The contact center is still, for most businesses, where customer experience is designed, delivered and measured. And as we might expect, customer experience (CX) tools are migrating from where they started point solutions based on narrow functions into broader suites that encompass multi-departmental functions and reach across customer journeys. The goal is to provide more consistency across... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Marketing, Voice of the Customer, Contact Center, Digital Commerce, Enterprise Resource Planning, agent management

The Potential of Marketing in 2021: The Market Agenda

Posted by Keith Dawson on 27 February 2021

Ventana Research recently announced its 2021 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. Chief Marketing Officers are under pressure to spearhead technology investments that better align marketing experiences with their brand and optimize... Read More

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