Keith Dawson's Analyst Perspectives

Why Intelligent Self-Service Is the Tip of the Spear for CX

Posted by Keith Dawson on Mar 29, 2023 3:00:00 AM

Organizations looking to improve the customer experience and contact center operations should closely examine the processes at work in the front-end self-service environment. Technology advancements are converging at this gateway, including artificial intelligence, chatbots and knowledge management. The front end of the customer interaction offers a greater opportunity for customer engagement than most organizations realize.

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Topics: Customer Experience, Self-service, Contact Center, Knowledge Management, Chatbots, agent management, Intelligent Self-Service, Conversational AI

Qualtrics XM Platform Zeros in on Customer Experiences

Posted by Keith Dawson on Mar 27, 2023 3:00:00 AM

Modern business relies on having a clear, continuous understanding of customer perceptions and intentions. That insight is increasingly used to deliver them experiences that they would consider excellent, in turn leading to higher satisfaction and more profitable relationships. Qualtrics, a provider of Experience Management (XM) software, focuses on creating applications that analyze customer interactions and feedback so that different teams across the enterprise can better identify opportunities and challenges.

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

8x8 Pivots to Emphasize Contact Center Technology for CX

Posted by Keith Dawson on Mar 23, 2023 3:15:00 AM

At its March 2023 analyst conference, 8x8 described a significant pivot in its focus. Going forward the company will be emphasizing the Contact Center (CCaaS) side of its portfolio, which to this point has represented a small portion of its overall sales. It made several product announcements to bolster the argument that it can effectively meet the needs of complex contact center operations while continuing to provide business users with a UCaaS solution. The overall XCaaS platform is aimed at both markets, which have been converging for several years.  

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Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center, Customer Experience Management

Making Automation Easier for Contact Centers

Posted by Keith Dawson on Mar 2, 2023 3:15:00 AM

Contact centers are very often keen on optimizing their costs through automation. Technology vendors supplying this market have recognized this need, and in the past few years, they have been putting workflow and automation tools front and center in their offerings. This has raised some questions among practitioners about the most effective strategies for implementing automated processes.

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Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center, agent management, Intelligent Self-Service

IoT Will Enhance Customer Experiences with Field Service

Posted by Keith Dawson on Feb 2, 2023 3:00:00 AM

The Internet of Things describes machines and objects that are enhanced with sensors and communication connections, enabling them to report on their operational status, including outages, faults or threshold conditions that require attention. The technology has gradually made its way into business and consumer systems over the past decade. Today, these connected devices are playing an important role in customer experience processes such as field service.

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Topics: Customer Experience, Field Service, Intelligent Self-Service

The 2023 Value Index for Customer Experience Management: Vendor and Product Ratings

Posted by Keith Dawson on Jan 25, 2023 3:15:00 AM

I am happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Value Index research, an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The 2023 Ventana Research Value Index: Customer Experience Management 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 derived from RFP responses submitted by customer experience (CX) vendors. These categories reflect the real-world criteria required by organizations for CX software procurement. Using this methodology, we evaluated vendor submissions in seven categories: five relevant to the Product Experience — Adaptability, Capability, Manageability, Reliability and Usability — and two related to the Customer Experience — TCO/ROI and Vendor Validation.

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

All-Inclusive CX Suites Reveal the Big Picture to Optimize CX Management

Posted by Keith Dawson on Jan 19, 2023 3:00:00 AM

Having just completed the 2023 Ventana Research Value Index for Customer Experience Management, I want to share some of my observations about how the market has developed. We found that there are many tools available for various needs related to customer management and communication, ranging from marketing tools to contact center systems to data and analytics applications. It is rare to find all the components fully integrated into a single platform, although that appears to be where the industry is headed. We found that despite the lack of clarity in the marketplace, technology is moving quickly to provide users with more extensive tools that work better together. The vendor landscape is fractured, but most are taking advantage of developments in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and workflow automation to deliver functionality that, in some cases, was simply not possible as recently as five years ago.

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

The 2023 Market Agenda for CX: Analytics Takes Center Stage

Posted by Keith Dawson on Jan 12, 2023 3:00:00 AM

Ventana Research recently announced its Market Agenda in the expertise area of Customer Experience. CX has emerged as a way for organizations 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. This allows organizations to build great experiences and reap the benefits in customer loyalty and value. It also forces companies to reckon with the complexity and disruption that technologies like artificial intelligence and automation bring to an organization.

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Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, CEM, Self-service, Analytics, Contact Center, AI and Machine Learning, agent management, Customer Experience Management, Field Service

Verint Bets Big on Engagement Automation and Intelligence

Posted by Keith Dawson on Jan 11, 2023 3:00:00 AM

Since 2021, Verint’s message to the customer experience community has focused on the “engagement capacity gap,” a way of describing how the available resources for CX clash with the high level of customer expectations. The argument is that efforts to close that gap require a rethink of how contact centers (and their parent organizations) operate and plan.

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Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, Contact Center, agent management, Customer Experience Management, Intelligent Self-Service

The CCaaS Business Case Shifts from Costs to Capabilities

Posted by Keith Dawson on Dec 14, 2022 3:00:00 AM

The market and buyer landscape for contact center operating services has changed significantly since the onset of the pandemic, now almost three years ago. Three years would have been enough time for some significant shifts, even without the pressure the pandemic put on service operations. Nevertheless, with on-premises systems now taking a backseat industrywide, it’s fair to say that CCaaS, which typically refers to cloud-based systems, now represents the lions’ share of spending and therefore stands as a proxy for the industry as a whole. Ventana Research predicts that by 2026, 7 in ten organizations will have moved all or part of their contact center technology into the cloud to attain greater flexibility and scalability.

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Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, Contact Center, agent management, Customer Experience Management, Field Service, customer service and support