ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

Zoho Evolves Portfolio for Enterprises Using AI

Posted by Keith Dawson on 20 February 2025

Zoho’s recent analyst conference was an opportunity to explore how the India-founded software company is faring in its efforts to extend its enterprise business, and to place AI at the center of its product portfolio. It appears the company is having some success on both fronts. Zoho’s software suite includes nearly 60 applications that extend into almost every facet of business activity, from... Read More

Topics: Contact Center

There Are Gaps in the CX Toolkit Waiting to Be Filled

Posted by Keith Dawson on 14 January 2025

The breadth of customer experience (CX) solutions created by software providers in recent years has expanded into new areas, usually related or adjacent to existing, more traditional toolkits. Most providers in the space began as more-or-less pure play contact center software providers, so the CX toolset starts with that set of technologies. Products are grounded in core functions for service... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center

AI Use Cases for Field Service

Posted by Keith Dawson on 08 January 2025

Field service is an often-overlooked area of the service equation, in part because managing its operations involves tools and activities outside of normal contact center models. Field service has a communications component, which is partly handled by contact centers. However, the bulk of field service management activity has to do with organizing the work of technicians and dispatchers. It also... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center, Augmented Reality

What Open Platforms Mean for Contact Centers

Posted by Keith Dawson on 12 November 2024

Software providers have identified “openness” as a key consideration for contact center buyers. Since there is no generally accepted rule about what makes a system open, it makes sense for us to examine what components contribute to that quality, and why it should be thought of as a good thing. Contact centers have been dealing with the tension between so-called open and proprietary platforms for... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center

Verint Focuses Bots on Contact Center Outcomes

Posted by Keith Dawson on 05 November 2024

Verint is operating in quite a different marketplace for contact center and agent management technology than existed five years ago. We have seen tremendous innovation and expansion of the available technologies for running centers and optimizing the performance of the human labor pool, as well as an explosion of tools built to automate customer interactions. Agent management tools that were... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center, agent management

Contact Center AI Gain Traction: Profitable Use Cases

Posted by Keith Dawson on 29 October 2024

With a flood of artificial intelligence-related tools now available for contact center buyers, it can be helpful to take a step back and review where buyers can expect a quick return on investment and maximum improvement in efficiency and productivity. For now, it appears that there are three broad buckets into which contact center-focused AI applications are clustered. They all relate to agent... Read More

Topics: Voice of the Customer, Contact Center

Sprinklr Zeros in on a CXM Platform

Posted by Keith Dawson on 23 October 2024

Sprinklr’s analyst day in September was an opportunity for the company to dive deeply into its progress in pivoting its product offerings to align with a broader perception of the market for contact centers and adjacent customer-related applications. Sprinklr has described its market as “unified CXM,” or customer experience management. This is nominally aligned with how ISG Research defines the... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center, agent management

CCaaS, CPaaS or UCaaS for CX? It Doesn’t Matter.

Posted by Keith Dawson on 18 September 2024

It is unfortunate that business-focused digital communications are sold under three different headings: Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS), Unified Communication as a Service (UCaaS) and Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS). (And that just counts the cloud options—let us acknowledge the huge, continuing, installed base on premises.) These are terrible ways to describe complex, varied and... Read More

Topics: Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, Contact Center, Digital Communications, CCaaS, CPaaS

Businesses Need a More Expansive View of Self-Service’s Value

Posted by Keith Dawson on 20 June 2024

Self-service has changed immensely in recent years. It has gotten better, qualitatively, in delivering answers and resolutions to customers. But it has also gotten extremely complex, relying on a basket of new technologies to achieve results. It helps to look at it through the eyes of the three main constituencies that are affected by it: customers, contact centers and the businesses they sit in.... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center

Verint Turns Focus to CX Automation and AI

Posted by Keith Dawson on 12 June 2024

Verint held its analyst conference recently, using the opportunity to flesh out how it is responding to the rapid developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and data-related technologies and to changes in the way enterprises consider the purchasing process for contact center-related tools. The market for contact center technology is changing very quickly. It has historically focused on... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center

AI Can Boost CX Outcomes in Field Service

Posted by Keith Dawson on 14 May 2024

Field service operations are not often discussed as part of enterprise customer experience planning, but there is a strong argument that they should be seen as an important factor driving how customers perceive brands. Like contact centers, field service teams are dealing with the advance of startling new technologies that can be expensive and disruptive. The flip side of disruption, though, is... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center

Zendesk Shifts the Conversation from Service to Enterprise CX

Posted by Keith Dawson on 20 March 2024

The next phase of buying for contact centers and adjoining service/customer experience (CX) teams is going to be heavily influenced by how vendors develop tightly integrated ecosystems and define use cases and benefits across enterprise personas. There are more people involved in the work of delivering customer service, and a broader technology landscape from which buyers can choose their... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center, agent management

Voice of the Customer Measurement Is Well Beyond Surveys

Posted by Keith Dawson on 14 March 2024

Contact centers have collected customer feedback almost as long as there have been telephones. The simple binary question "Did I provide you with good service today," or some variation is a common feature of agent scripts that contact center leadership uses to produce snap assessments of agent performance. Today’s analytic approaches are becoming more common, producing more insightful and nuanced... Read More

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

Uniphore Puts AI to Work Automating Interactions

Posted by Keith Dawson on 05 March 2024

The first wave of discussions around artificial intelligence (AI) in the contact center was focused on providing software buyers with a general understanding of what the technology could do. Now the conversations are becoming more specific, focused and direct. Buyers are more aware of the spectrum of available use cases and appear to be exploring how to map new tools to the particular business... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center, AI, natural language processing, agent management

Sentiment Analysis Unlocks Deeper, Better CX

Posted by Keith Dawson on 08 February 2024

We are going through an analytics revolution in and around contact centers. There is more data to analyze and better tools to conduct the analysis. One important advancement is assessing customer sentiment and using it to predict (and influence) behavior. Enterprises are using customer experience programs to identify and act upon hidden "moments of leverage" where customers may be inclined or... Read More

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

Content Guru Builds Out Its Brain with AI

Posted by Keith Dawson on 01 February 2024

The speed of innovation and transformation has picked up considerably in the 2020s, thanks to the confluence of artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing and the pandemic. Modern consumers have wildly different expectations than their predecessors when it comes to service delivery, whether that means a preference for digital channels and self-service or a willingness to do their own... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center, agent management

The 2024 Market Agenda for CX: The Steady Rollout of Gen AI

Posted by Keith Dawson on 25 January 2024

Ventana Research recently announced its Market Agenda in the expertise area of Customer Experience. CX has emerged as a way for enterprises to demonstrate value and stand out in the marketplace. The technology underlying modern CX is transitioning from tools that are based on communication to those centered on data analysis and process automation. No technology has had as dramatic impact as... Read More

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

Calabrio Enables Contact Center Agent Productivity

Posted by Keith Dawson on 16 January 2024

Every contact center agent represents an incredible investment in time and money even before that person starts working with customers. The costs associated with the labor force — and the need to continually replace agents who leave — have long forced managers to use technology to optimize performance and processes. Much of the technology that was developed decades ago is still relevant and in... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center, agent management

Contact Centers Must Adapt to New Agent Tools and Practices

Posted by Keith Dawson on 02 January 2024

The pandemic laid bare the tenuous relationship between many contact centers and their agents. The abrupt shift to remote work was just one component of the changes still under way. The past four years have also seen enterprises reckoning with questions about how to hire, what to pay their employees, what skills are needed and how an avalanche of new technology will change their operations. ... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center, Knowledge Management, agent management

ServiceNow’s Vancouver Is a Roadmap to the Future of Service Ops

Posted by Keith Dawson on 19 December 2023

It often takes longer to adopt new technology in the customer service delivery environment than in other business areas. In fact, service operations are among the most efficient and well-organized processes (despite what consumers might think). Because both the processes and the technology that drive them are deeply engrained in many companies, many people resist large-scale transformation... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center, agent management