ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives | Customers and CX

Verint Uniquely Advances AI for CX with New Ownership

Posted by Keith Dawson on 15 October 2025

Verint held its annual Engage conference in September, shortly after it announced the news that it had agreed to be acquired by private equity firm Thoma Bravo for $2 billion. The new ownership plans on merging Verint with its competitor, Calabrio, after the deal closes in 2026. That sequence of events raises many important questions about the direction of both companies and the sector... Read More

Topics: automation, Contact Center, Verint, agent management, Customer Experience Management, CCaaS, Intelligent Self-Service, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Conversational Intelligence

Why Customer Journeys Matter to Enterprise CX

Posted by Keith Dawson on 30 September 2025

The idea of customer experience (CX) as a business practice relies heavily on being able to understand and track customer journeys. And that can be tricky because there isn’t a standard definition as to what a journey consists of. For example, inside a contact center the journey is perceived in terms of the steps a customer takes to achieve a particular result. Sometimes that is broadened out to... Read More

Topics: Contact Center, Field Service, CXM, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Customer Journey, Journey Management

Zendesk Illustrates How CCaaS Becomes CX

Posted by Keith Dawson on 24 September 2025

When building or outfitting a contact center, the core question that must be answered is: what software provider or system is foundational? For decades, the fundamental element was the routing engine, but as technology moved to the cloud, the primacy of the voice ACD receded. As it did, it became possible to conceive of a tech stack that’s not organized around routing but instead is focused on... Read More

Topics: Contact Center, Customer Experience Management, CCaaS, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Conversational Intelligence, Zendesk

How Contact Centers Will Use Agentic AI for CX

Posted by Keith Dawson on 27 August 2025

I am struck by the blizzard of software announcements this year describing new features for CX tools that are “agentic,” meaning autonomous tools take actions without (much) human intervention. Industry conversation about agentic AI has proceeded ahead of clarifying definitions and a sense of how it fits on a continuum of rapid AI development. I’m not sure that everything currently described as... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Contact Center, Personalization, Customer Experience Management, Generative AI, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Agentic AI, Transformation, Disruption

The Tricky Relationship Between Personalization and Customer Loyalty

Posted by Keith Dawson on 30 July 2025

There is an industry assumption, call it a consensus, that increasing the degree of personalization in customer interactions is beneficial: it improves loyalty, lifetime value, CSAT and other key metrics. Core to this assumption is that it benefits both the customer and the business. Whether or not that’s actually true is somewhat beside the point. The fact is that the industry has identified a... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center, NPS, Personalization, Customer Experience Management, Orchestration, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Conversational Intelligence, Customer Journey, Loyalty, CSAT