ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

Three Tools to Boost Omnichannel Customer Experience

Posted by ISG Software Research on 17 November 2015

Much is written about omnichannel customer experience, and various software vendors now claim to focus on the customer experience. With various degrees of credibility they range from providers of communication channel management to workforce optimization, voice of the customer, self-service, analytics and even CRM. This bandwagon raisesthe question of what omnichannel customer experience really...

Topics: Big Data, Sales Performance, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Speech Analytics, Analytics, Business Collaboration, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Operational Intelligence, Uncategorized, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, Text Analytics

Subscriber Experience Impacts Recurring Revenue

Posted by ISG Software Research on 08 November 2015

The digital economy has changed the way many companies provide products. Some no longer deliver packaged products but provide them as services over a network, typically the Internet. Telecommunications providers in particular are familiar with this business model and have developed processes and systems that use innovations such as product bundles that include elements of fixed charges (such as...

Topics: Big Data, Sales Performance, Customer Analytics, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, Marketing, Customer Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer Service, Financial Performance, CRM

Genesys Brings G-Force to Powering a Better Customer Experience

Posted by ISG Software Research on 05 November 2015

I recently joined more than 1,000 users, partners, consultants and other analysts at the first global G-Force 2015 conference, held in Miami. Sponsor Genesys put together an agenda that not only educated but entertained the attendees. For an example of the latter, Sekou Andrews, a poet, actor, musician and voice-over artist, preceded the main keynotes with a wonderful sketch that put customer...

Topics: Customer Analytics, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, Speech Analytics, Customer Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Text Analytics

Insights from Dreamforce ‘15 Exceeds Expectations

Posted by ISG Software Research on 17 October 2015

I recently attended my first U.S. Dreamforce, the annual salesforce.com event designed to showcase its products and services as well as those of its partners, and I was impressed. I was told that Dreamforce ‘15 would be big, and it was – just about every hotel, restaurant, meeting room in San Francisco seemed to have been taken over for the week, and still the company had to bring in a cruise...

Topics: Big Data, Sales Performance, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Marketing, Mobile Technology, Speech Analytics, Wearable Computing, Customer Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Text Analytics

ResponseTek Makes Customer Experience Management Simple and Sophisticated

Posted by ISG Software Research on 08 October 2015

ResponseTek is a software vendor whose platform and services help companies collect and act on feedback from their customers. It supports a closed-loop process that collects feedback, analyzes it, provides customizable reports and analysis dependent on the user, and most importantly enables taking action based on the information. This allows companies to understand product and service issues,...

Topics: Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Customer Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Text Analytics

Interactive Intelligence and Omnichannel Customer Engagement

Posted by ISG Software Research on 14 August 2015

At the end of last year, I wrote about Interactive Intelligence’s release of a new service, PureCloud. It was the company’s first step into the multitenant cloud computing market, using Amazon Web Services and aimed at small-to-midsize contact centers. To help companies understand the different cloud-computing models, I provided answers to Interactive Intelligence questions on the advancements of...

Topics: Customer Experience, Customer Performance, Cloud Computing, Call Center

Upstream Works Helps Customer Service Agents Improve Efficiency and Effectiveness

Posted by ISG Software Research on 16 July 2015

My research and experience show that contact center agents and others handling customer interactions face the continuing challenge of meeting customer expectations while keeping down the cost of handling interactions. Our benchmark research into the agent desktop and customer service finds that one obstacle to meeting these dual objectives is that users have to access multiple systems – typically...

Topics: Customer Experience, Customer Performance, Cloud Computing, Call Center

OnviSource Opens Up Workforce Optimization for Contact Center Excellence

Posted by ISG Software Research on 19 June 2015

OnviSource is a 10-year-old vendor of workforce optimization software whose core product, OnviCenter 7, includes interaction capture, quality monitoring, workforce management, coaching and training, and workforce analytics. The company is rated a Hot vendor in our 2015 Workforce Optimization Value Index. It scored highly in the Manageability, Usability and Reliability categories but was held back...

Topics: Big Data, Customer Experience, Customer Performance, Cloud Computing, Call Center

New Revenue Recognition Rules Require Software

Posted by ISG Software Research on 12 May 2015

For most of the past decade businesses that decided not to pay attention to proposed changes in revenue recognition rules have saved themselves time and frustration as the proponents’ timetables have slipped and roadmaps have changed. The new rules are the result of a convergence of US-GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles – the accounting standard used by U.S.-based companies) and IFRS...

Topics: Planning, Customer Experience, Governance, Office of Finance, Recurring Revenue, Reporting, Revenue Performance, Budgeting, Tax, Customer Performance, Business Performance, Financial Performance

Panviva Embraces Cloud Computing for Guiding People and Business Processes

Posted by ISG Software Research on 29 April 2015

When I last wrote about Panviva I likened its product SupportPoint to a smart agent desktop – a system that helps contact center agents access the information they need to handle customer interactions, guides them through the process of handling interactions and offers advice on what to say next (for example, which product to upsell). Several trends have emerged since then. Two of our recent...

Topics: Customer Experience, Customer Performance, Cloud Computing, Call Center

SaaS Buyers and Customers Beware: Data Issues are Cloudy

Posted by ISG Software Research on 27 April 2015

There’s a long history of companies not paying close enough attention to the contractual elements of acquiring software. Today, this extends into the world of cloud computing. Many companies are choosing to acquire software services through cloud-based providers and increasingly rely on access to cloud-based data, as is shown by our forthcoming benchmark research, in which a large majority of...

Topics: SaaS, Sales, Customer Experience, Governance, contract, e-discovery, Customer Performance, Operational Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, Business Performance Management (BPM)

Enghouse Interactive Expands Portfolio of Contact Center Systems

Posted by ISG Software Research on 13 March 2015

Enghouse Interactive is one of three divisions of Enghouse Systems, a publicly traded Canadian company founded in 1984. The other two divisions provide network technology to telecommunications providers and applications for public and private transportation companies; Enghouse Interactive owns the company’s three contact center systems. The corporate group has a history of growth – it now has a...

Topics: Big Data, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Speech Analytics, Customer Performance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Text Analytics

Recurring Revenue Challenges Finance Departments

Posted by ISG Software Research on 13 March 2015

As I noted in a recent analyst perspective note the recurring revenue business model is gaining increasing use worldwide. Our recently completed recurring revenue benchmark research shows that companies are using this business approach because they find that it can convey a strategic advantage in creating additional sales opportunities, making future revenues more predictable, enhancing their...

Topics: SaaS, Customer Experience, NetSuite, Office of Finance, Recurring Revenue, Zuora, Customer Performance, Operational Performance, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer Service, Financial Performance, billing software, Intacct

Tracking the Customer Journey Is Critical for Engagement

Posted by ISG Software Research on 27 February 2015

Competition for customers is more intense today than ever before, and companies struggle to differentiate themselves from the competition. Our research repeatedly finds that customer experience is a key differentiator. Our research into next-generation customer engagement said the impetus for improving engagement is to improve the customer experience in almost three quarters (74%) of...

Topics: Big Data, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Speech Analytics, Customer Performance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Text Analytics

Verint Advances Feedback Management to Improve Customer Experience

Posted by ISG Software Research on 26 February 2015

Verint entered the enterprise market for customer feedback management when it acquired Vovici in August 2011. Since then the Vovici products have been integrated into Verint’s Customer Engagement Optimization suite, which includes products originally developed by Verint and Kana, which it also acquired. The current suite supports a range of capabilities that Verint groups into three categories:...

Topics: Big Data, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Speech Analytics, Customer Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, Text Analytics

Recurring Revenue: An Increasingly Important Business Model

Posted by ISG Software Research on 19 February 2015

Recurring revenue is a term applied to business models that involve three types of selling and billing structures: a one-time transaction plus a periodic service charge; subscription-based services involving periodic charges; or a contractual relationship that charges periodically for goods and services. Telecommunications was the first major industry to use it, but recently the model has gained...

Topics: SaaS, Customer Experience, NetSuite, Office of Finance, Recurring Revenue, Zuora, Customer Performance, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer Service, Financial Performance, billing software, Intacct

Cisco Provides a Portfolio of Contact Center Products

Posted by ISG Software Research on 17 February 2015

I recently attended a Cisco Collaboration analyst day in the U.K. and was impressed by what I heard and saw.Cisco of course is known as a supplier of network equipment and software, and it has long provided these through a global network of partners. But Cisco also has been in the contact center market for several years and has had success with its small and enterprise contact center systems,...

Topics: Big Data, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Speech Analytics, Analytics, Business Collaboration, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, Text Analytics

Genesys and Workforce Optimization

Posted by ISG Software Research on 28 January 2015

Genesys is best known as a provider of contact center management systems and has long provided computer/telephony integration (CTI) and single-queue call routing systems. Over the past few years it has had changes of ownership and now is a stand-alone company focused on providing systems to improve the customer experience. To do this its combines contact center infrastructure systems and a suite...

Topics: Big Data, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Speech Analytics, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Text Analytics

Research Agenda: Customer Technology for 2015

Posted by ISG Software Research on 23 January 2015

I recently wrote about customer experience lessons I learned during 2014 and the technologies required to deliver EPIC experiences. Both of these analyses focus on the people, processes, information and technologies required to improve the customer experience at every touch point, and these themes will also be at the heart of our customer technology research agenda for 2015.

Topics: Big Data, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Speech Analytics, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Text Analytics

Technology Requirements for Providing an EPIC Customer Experience

Posted by ISG Software Research on 20 January 2015

Customer Experience was one of the subjects most talked and written about during 2014, and I expect this to continue in 2015. Many observers and analysts, including me, believe it can be the difference between companies succeeding or going out of business. Yet debate continues to define what customer experience is and how to manage it. Some think the best tools are “voice of the customer”...

Topics: Big Data, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Speech Analytics, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Text Analytics