New Research Report - Consumer Attitudes Toward Contact Center Queues

You may not know that I’m a market researcher by trade, and have been a practitioner for 30+ years. Most analysts do not have this skill set, and I find it a great way to enhance my thought leadership engagements.

I just completed one of these with Aizan Technologies, a vendor I’ve been working with for some time. The topic was contact center queues, or in more ordinary parlance, the on-hold experience. This happens to all of us when trying to get customer service, and it usually ends badly. There’s actually an opportunity here as part of the overall customer experience, but with no research out there to speak of, we went ahead and did our own study.

Aizan is the sponsor, and I did the rest, along with my field partner, Quest Mindshare. The findings are pretty rich, and Aizan has created a really nice, highly-consumable summary report. You need to register to get the study, and here’s the link for that.

I’ll be writing an article with my follow-on take soon, so keep watch for that. Also - of course - there’s no better way to tell your story than having proprietary research of your own, and if that’s on your 2025 roadmap, we should talk.

Next Stop - NICE Analyst Summit - Destination...

NICE doesn’t do anything in half-measures. If you follow me, you’ll know that they keep raising the bar each year, and clearly, they value what analysts bring to the table. Being a public company, they're pretty transparent about things, and if they choose to take us to an exotic location - not just to share their roadmap, but to nurture important relationships - so be it. With that backdrop, they’re taking us to….

Zambia. You heard right - Zambia. I’ll leave it to your imagination and Google searches to figure out what that might look like, and am sure it will be all of that and then some. As always, I’ll share updates and photos as time allows, and a whole lot more once back. Time to pack now…

Verint Engage 2024 - Quick Pix and Top Takeaways

Earlier this week, I attended my first Verint customer/partner event in Orlando. I’ve been to the last two analyst-only events, but Engage is where you get to meet and hear from customers and partners. Much bigger-picture, and nothing beats hearing success stories directly from customers.

Am not able to get a full writeup done while in between travel to various events, but the main takeaway to share is that when done right, chatbots can be effective, and Verint is front of the line for showcasing real benefits and financial impact. Every vendor in the contact center space has its own way of spelling success, and Verint’s approach is pretty simple - get tasks done faster with chatbots, and your agents can deal with more customers and do so more effectively. Time is money, and the ROI can be impressive, especially at scale.

What I’ve come to learn and like about Verint is their focused approach on using chatbots to help contact centers address real, long-standing problems. Yes, the bots are AI-driven, but this isn’t about selling an AI solution. It’s about identifying problems and outcomes, and attacking each one in a manageable way - with CX Automation being their go-to-market branding.

Rather than pushing a bunch of chatbots out there to streamline operations and make CX more seamless in a general way, Verint takes a bottom-up approach. They have dozens of chatbots ready to go, supported by their Da Vinci AI Data Hub. The key here is being an open platform, meaning that it can integrate with all CCaaS platforms. Verint is not competing to displace Genesys, Avaya, Five9, etc. Instead, they bring best-in-class chatbots that enhance these platforms.

The other key thing about being bottom-up, is that each chatbot is purpose-built to address a specific task. This allows customers to take a very targeted approach, and optimize the mix of chatbots for where they can bring the most value. Prime chatbot examples include Wrap Up, Coaching, Knowledge Automation, Smart Transfer, Copilot, and TimeFlex (WFM).

Each does one thing very well, and when deploying a suite of these, the incremental gains from automation and time savings add up quickly, translating into a fast ROI. It’s a great approach for contact centers who are taking a cautious approach with AI, along with being skeptical of chatbots - fair enough, but that reflects experiences with earlier generation chatbots, not what they can do today.

One more takeaway that may not be that evident - based on what vendors are selling, it’s easy to think that all contact centers are cloud-based, or well on their way. The reality, of course, is much different, with premises-based deployment still being the norm - in whole or in part. A key message to share is that contact centers do not need to be cloud-based to benefit from what Verint is offering. Their chatbots can work just fine with legacy deployments - what Verint does is based in their cloud, so any contact center can deploy this.

That’s the wrap for now, but more is coming in other forums, so stay tuned.

I’ll leave you with some of my photos, along with links to some LinkedIn posts during the events. If you follow me on LinkedIn, you probably didn’t see these, as I had a login glitch, and these were not posted to my main LinkedIn account. Subsequent posts are there, though, so I won’t bother with those links here. Feel free to give these a look, as there is some additional in-the-moment commentary not included here.

LinkedIn posts from Day 1 - here, here and here.

Almost forgot - bonus link - I was interviewed by Verint as part of their Blue Lounge series during the event. It’s just four minutes, where I’m talking about the role of AI in the contact center and how it’s being used to improve CX. I hope you check it out - here’s the link.

Below, CEO Dan Bodner - first in analyst-only session, then main stage.

Jaime Merrit during analyst session, Dave Singer on main stage talking about TimeFlex bots.

Kelly Koelliker leading a customer session, Heather Richards talking about Knowledge Automation bots, Kelly again with celebrity speaker Kal Penn.

Blair Pleasant leading breakout session with Daniel Ziv and Heather Richards, and fun time at Universal Studios at the karaoke bar!

Screenshots from my Blue Lounge interview about AI and CX.

Catching up on Analyst Events - 2 Reviews to Share

I’ve had four conferences over the past few weeks, and my run of travel has finally hit pause. Writing is a big challenge when on the road, and invariably this creates some gaps in getting timely analysis done, along with having time to share it.

So, in case you missed it, here’s where to find my reviews from two of these events. I’ve written reviews for the other two as well, and both are in line to publish any day now.

Verint Analyst Days - my review runs here on BCStrategies

Zoom Perspectives - this review also on BCStrategies

New Guest Post - Enhancing CX with Integrated Messaging Apps

My series of guest posts for Aizan continues, with the latest topic being the role for messaging apps to improve customer experience. Customer service has historically been voice-based, but the use of messaging has increased greatly, especially with mobility, and there are many scenarios where this is the best way to engage with customers. For more on this, I hope you check out my post, and more topics are coming soon.

Next Stop - Dubai for GITEX and Avaya

From London to Lima to Dubai - not my normal routine, but this will be my third straight week of international travel - yeow. If I sound confused about what time it is or where the hell I am, now you’ll know why.

This is my first trip to Dubai, and yes, I’m a little anxious about going to the Middle East right now. Nothing is certain these days, but Dubai is pretty far-removed from the realities of everyday life just about everywhere, and am hoping that extends to the next few days.

Many thanks to Avaya for hosting me, and this is the first time the stars have lined up for me to attend GITEX. There’s a lot of buildup for GITEX, and given how large this event is, I know I’ll only see bits and pieces, and am sure all of it will be great, if not over-the-top.

I’ll do my best to share on LinkedIn and here as time allows, and will definitely follow on with a review article soon after. More details here about Avaya’s presence at the show, and if you’re there, please drop me a note and maybe we can meet!

September Writing Roundup

Finally got closer to my normal public writing output last month, and here’s the digest. Hope you get to check some of these out, and as always, comments and sharing are welcome

Assess Unified Communications Pros and Cons for Hybrid Work, TechTarget, Sept. 26

CCTC Event in Toronto - Quick Post and Pix, my blog, Sept. 11

Climbing Over the CCaaS Obstacles, Contact Center Pipeline, Sept. issue

How AI is Transforming Voice Communications for Business, Aizan blog, Sept. 1

Next Stop - Five9 Analyst Summit - Porto, Portugal

I haven’t done a “next stop” post in ages - kinda went away with the pandemic. In-person events are definitely back, and I need to get back into the habit of doing these shout-outs for upcoming events.

Next up for me will be for Five9, and this will be my first time visiting Porto, Portugal. Am sure will be a great experience, and I’ll share along the way, as well as after, of course.

Until recently, these were called “analyst events”, but as social media becomes more pervasive, and as demographics trend younger, they’re now called “analyst and influencer” events. I’d be swimming upstream trying to parse this out - maybe a topic for a future podcast - and for now, let’s just say I’m happy to be part of this group.

To stay totally connected, follow the event using the hash in the visual below, and if you want track what I’m sharing, my Twitter handle is #arnoldjon.

UC Awards 2023 - It's On Now - Time to Meet the Judges

UK-based UC Today has been running their UC Awards for a few years now, and I’ve been invited back again to be part of the cohort of judges. It’s a fun process, and as an analyst, I talk to a lot of vendors, which helps provide the industry-based perspective needed here.

The awards program itself is underway, and applications can be submitted until June 9. If getting industry recognition is on your to-do list, more detail can be found here, including the 12 different awards categories.

New Podcast with NICE - AI in the Contact Center

I’ve got a new podcast to share, this time with NICE. Am back for another episode of CX Pulse, hosted by Amelia Earhart, and this time we’re talking about the bigger picture for how AI is - and can be - deployed in the contact center.

There’s no direct link to specific episodes, so you have to scroll through their web page, but since mine is recent, it’s near the top - “AI in the Contact Center”. Also, there is a direct link for Apple Podcast subscribers, or here on Spotify, so those are other ways to access it.

Next Webinar - with NICE - Tapping AI Beyond Chatbots

Got another webinar to share here. This one is with NICE, and it draws on a recent white paper I did for them. As the title in the visual below shows, we’ll be exploring the bigger picture for AI in the contact center, and why it’s much more than chatbots.

I’ll be joined by Lauren Maschio from their Product Marketing Team, and the early response has been really great, so it should be well-attended. It’s happening next Thursday, January 26 at 11 ET, and here’s the link to register.

Telemarketing Fraud and Risks to Businesses - My Latest on No Jitter

This week was my turn to contribute an article to No Jitter from the BC Strategies team, and it’s a big topic - telemarketing fraud. As consumers, we all know what that looks like, but since we’d rather not think about it, the rest of the story tends to live in dark corners where there’s a constant struggle to stamp out or mitigate the damage done by bad actors.

There are a lot of moving parts here, and many have a direct impact on the telecom ecosystem. I’ve been researching this space recently, and the challenges are more daunting than you might think. This is my first analysis of telemarketing fraud, and there’s lot more to explore, and I hope you give this a read here on No Jitter.

New Guest Post for NICE - Their New Branding and CXi Vision

Got another guest post to share - this one is with NICE, where I’ve written about how their new “make experiences flow” branding reflects the thinking behind their CXi approach to today’s contact center challenges. It’s a two-part series on their blog site, and you can read the first one here now; and I’ll post again when the second writeup runs.

My Latest Guest Post - Value of Continuous Testing for UCaaS

Got another guest post writeup to share. This one is running on tekVizion’s blog site, and examines the value of continuous testing for UCaaS. Managing all these applications is harder to do than appears, especially since many of them are real-time.

IT cannot possibly keep up with all the updates and performance testing, and when things don’t go to plan, the user experience suffers, and that can really impact UCaaS adoption. The post is running now, and I hope you give it a read. No doubt, tekVizion would love to hear from you as well - they’ve been doing this for a very long time.

AI and the Contact Center - My Q&A with CEO of Upstream Works

Personal events have put work on the back burner the past couple of weeks, but am slowly getting back to things. I’ve had a few new things in the works that I’ll start sharing over the next few days, with the first one being an exec Q&A I recently did with Rob McDougall, CEO of Upstream Works.

I’ve been doing work with them for a few years now, and Rob was certainly early with AI. A lot of that is finding its way into Upstream’s offerings now, but more importantly, Rob has a pretty good perspective on how contact center leaders need to be thinking about AI. We’re certainly of like mind about these things, and I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Next Webinar - with LumenVox, Talking Speech Tech, May 25

If you don’t know, I present an annual update on the state of enterprise speech tech at Enterprise Connect, and I’ll be staying on that track for this upcoming webinar. This time around, I’ll be presenting and in conversation with LumenVox CEO/founder, Edward Miller on a webinar moderated by No Jitter’s Eric Krapf.

In particular, we’ll be examining the pros/cons of going with a purpose-built speech recognition platform as opposed to using the native capabilities that all the major cloud providers have. It’s a timeless topic in tech, and with speech tech coming into its own now with AI, there’s a lot to talk about. We go live at 2pm ET on May 25, and to join us, all the registration details are here.

Spring VON3 - Virtual Event Next Week - Web3, Creator Economy and Future of Communications

If you don’t know Jeff Pulver, then, well, that’s your homework. Nobody explores what’s next like Jeff, and all of a sudden, it’s VON3 next week. Apologies for not getting the word out sooner, but it’s a packed lineup, and all the details to register and attend are here on the event website. Hope to see you there!

I was part of the last VON3, which ran in January, and several of those speakers are back, along with many new faces. This time around, I’ll be speaking on three sessions, one for each day:

Monday - 3:30 PM - 3:45 PM - Workstream Collaboration: A New Approach to Serve the Modern Workforce, in conversation with JR Guerrieri, CEO of Nynja

 Tuesday - 3:40 PM - 4:10 PM - Future of Work, back again with long-time podcast partner Chris Fine, Founder & CEO, Integrative Technologies

 Wednesday - 3:40 PM - 4:05 PM - Voice in the Metaverse Roundtable, with Bret Kinsella, Founder & CEO of Voicebot.ai & Roger Kibbe & David Colleen, CEO SapientX

Start Saying Goodbye to the Contact Center - My Latest on No Jitter

It’s time for my next No Jitter post - wearing my BCStrategies hat - and I based it on takeaways from three recent industry events - NICE, Genesys and Twilio. Each is doing different things around the space we currently call the contact center, but just like we don’t make a lot of phone calls on our smart phone, customers now engage with businesses in many ways - not just via the contact center.

This space is ripe for reinvention, and my post talks about a few ways that this is happening now. You can read it here, and would love to hear your thoughts.

Talkdesk CX Innovators Awards 2021 - Judging Again

Judging for various industry and vendor awards events is one of the hats analysts get to wear, and I’ve been doing a few of these lately. This is the most recent one, which I got to do last year with Talkdesk as well.

I’m just doing a heads-up here in advance of the winners, who will be announced on June 15 at their upcoming Opentalk event. I’ve completed my round of judging, which closes on June 1, and the winners will be notified on June 4. Stay tuned!

Five9 Analyst Summit - My Quick Take

Virtual events with analysts are tricky to plan, especially for pacing out the program. Over the last year, vendors have tried all kinds of formats, but it seems clear that the best approach is to do it in manageable chunks of time. Nobody is going to sit through a day-long marathon of video streaming - it’s just too intense, and too easy for folks to wander off.

Over the past threee days, I’ve been tracking the Five9 Analyst Summit, and they seem to have the right formula - three days and three hours each day - and starting at 10:30 ET, which works pretty well going across multiple global time zones. It’s still a lot of content to digest, and I managed to take in just about all of it - only had to drop out a couple of times.

I’m not going to write up a full research note now, but will share a few takeaways and screenshots here while it’s still fresh. Following a solid Q1 earnings report, the updates we got this week provided detail as to why the company is doing so well.

Much like Zoom has been the right technology at the right time to enable work from home, Five9 provides a pretty complete CCaaS solution as contact centers rush to the cloud. As we heard, 85% of this market is still premises-based, and it’s hard to see why so many players are jumping in with all types of cloud offerings. Being a fully cloud-native contact center pure play, Five 9 is in a great spot right now.

The CCaaS market sure is messy right now - as is the broader customer service/CX space - and for that tangent, I’ll steer you to my latest No Jitter post which came out earlier this week. Coming back to Five9, here are some notable takeaways around the many things they’re doing right.

• Lots of strong growth metrics, but their upmarket success with large enterprise customers catches my eye the most, with 45% YoY revenue growth. and 83% of Q1 business revenue. All cloud vendors will book their share of smaller customers, but I think it’s the ability to sell into this end of the market that will create the most sustainable value and growth for Five9.

• We heard lots about their culture, and it’s a strong selling point for them as an organization. They’ve built out a solid managment team along with proven industry leaders on the sales side, and as CEO Rowan Trollope noted, it’s a place now “where nobody leaves” - in a good way, of course!

• Plenty of updates around innovation - I’m not that technical, but their Inference acquisition is a good example with IVA - intelligent virtual agent - to help automate customer service - as is Whendu, which helps contact centers with complex legacy integrations migrate to the cloud. Aside from acquistions, they’ve added over 150 developers, and are maintaining R&D spend at a solid 12% of revenues. This is just a taste of what they’re doing, and the main idea here is that they’re holding their own, and then some, in a very competitive space that is evolving quickly.

• So much more to talk about, and before I close off with some screenshots that can be shared, the intangibles of leadership have a lot to do with their success. You might be surprised to know that Five9 started in 2001, so this isn’t exactly a startup with wheels or a unicorn with hardly any revenues. They’ve been at this a long time, and both President Dan Burkland and CEO Rowan Trollope shared a clear vision for where they’re going and why they’ve been so successful, especially in this big moment of CCaaS adoption. Rowan kicked this event off talking about re-imagining CX and taking a clean slate approach with cloud and AI, and to build around the emerging “multi-modal” workforce, where both human agents and chatbots play key roles in transforming customer service into a highly personalized experience. Easier said than done, but they’re definitely on the right track - leading and not following.