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A short note for navigating this section - scroll below for the most recent posts, and then for more, click on the Blog Archive box, where you can view all of my posts, going back to the beginning in March 2005.
My writing comes in fits and starts, and am on another run here. I’m a regular contributor to Contact Center Pipeline, and my latest writeup is running now in the September issue, which is just out now. CCaaS is a bottomless pit to be writing about, and the space sure keeps me busy. Here’s the link to my article, and as always, comments are welcome, as is sharing!
Quiet month before summer ends, but September will be busy, and even more so for October. Got a new webinar here to pass along - I’ll be speaking with RingCentral, and it’s hosted by ICMI, so I’ll be in good company.
There’s so much to talk about in the contact center space, and I hope you’ll join us for our take. The webinar is on Sept. 27 at 2pm ET, and here’s the registration page.
I can talk a long time about this mix of themes, but for this session, we only have 45 minutes, and there will be three of us. No matter - am happy to be there - and worth noting this will be a new event for me.
The event is called Digital CxO Summit - it’s a one-day virtual event on Wednesday, September 13, at 1pm EST. I’m new to this group - Techstrong - and they have several other events that may fall into my orbit later this year.
Let’s see how this one goes first, and if you want to attend, registration details are on their site. For more detail about the panel session, here’s the Agenda link, and if you scroll down to 1pm, you’ll see it there.
I recent engaged with Cresta for a two-part podcast series, talking with their executives about the growing role of AI in the contact center, its business value to them as a vendor, and how it helps improve customer service.
The latest episode was just published by EM360 - the host of this series - where I was in conversation with Cresta’s co-founder and CTO, Tim Shi. Here’s the link, and I hope you give it a listen - and if you like it, you’ll probably want to check out the first episode, which I did with their CMO, Scott Kolman.
Having been away on vacation all last week, the August editions were published a bit later than normal. However, they’re out now, so this post is an fyi for JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review newsletter, and the Watch This Space podcast.
If you’re not a subscriber, signing up to my newsletter is easy - the signup page is here. For my podcast, you can subscribe on all the major platforms, or click to listen to the current episode here. Hoping you’ll check both out, and would love your feedback any time.
Am back for another NICE Talks webinar, next Thursday, July 20 at 11am ET.
As with last time, I’m paired with Lauren Maschio, and we’ll be drawing from a recent white paper I wrote for them around the role AI is playing now to drive customer experience, aka CX. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and hope you can join us - register here!
With the long weekend earlier, the July editions were published a bit later than normal. However, they’re out now, so this post is an fyi for JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review newsletter, and the Watch This Space podcast.
If you’re not a subscriber, signing up to my newsletter is easy - the signup page is here. For my podcast, you can subscribe on all the major platforms, or click to listen to the current episode here. Hoping you’ll check both out, and would love your feedback any time.
This isn’t really an ICYMI post, and if you’re still wondering about what Avaya’s prospects look like, I think you’ll find my analysis a good read.
I was offline all last week, and actually wrote this right after Avaya’s ENGAGE event in Orlando, so it was done before most of the subsequent writeups came out. For reasons unbeknownst to me, BCStrategies couldn’t get my writeup published until last Friday - right before the holiday weekend, when everyone is heading to the beach or a bbq. Doh! That’s how it goes sometimes, so this is very likely the first you’re hearing about it.
There are many good stories to be told about what I’m calling Act III for Avaya, and my writeup on BCStrategies is just one of them. This week, my July Watch This Space podcast comes out, and there will lots more there about Avaya, so keep an eye out for that as well.
Travel schedule has been light lately, and all of a sudden, there are three good ones all happening next week - go figure. I can only do one, and my pick is Avaya ENGAGE, so it’s back again to Orlando.
As we all know, the stakes are high for Avaya these days, and so far, they’ve done a great job righting the ship. Under Alan Masarek’s leadership, things are looking promising, so I’m quite keen to attend and see where things are going from here. With a solid balance sheet and renewed market focus, there’s a lot of opportunity to capitalize on, and over the next few days, I’ll share my thoughts on how well they’re executing.
I’ve got a new guest post to share, and it’s for Toronto-based Aizan Technologies. They’re doing some interesting things in the communications space, both for telephony and messaging, as well as for both fixed and mobile networks.
One area of interest is A2P messaging - application to person - which is a much bigger deal in the consumer world, but as the contact center space keeps morphing, A2P becomes relevant here as well.
My guest post is about some fairly new requirements for A2P campaigns that marketers and brands need to be aware of. Without higher standards and safeguards to mitigate fraud, these campaigns will become even more of a nuisance for consumers, as well as a greater risk for brands.
Given how messaging is becoming more widely-used for customer service, there’s more at stake here than just pushing out marketing pitches en masse. If this piques your interest, I hope you give my writeup a read, and to do that, here’s the link.
The June editions of JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review, and Watch This Space podcast are out now.
If you’re not a subscriber, signing up to my newsletter is easy - the signup page is here. For my podcast, you can subscribe on all the major platforms, or click to listen to the current episode here. Hoping you’ll check both out, and would love your feedback any time.
I told you I had a lot of new content to share, and am slowly getting all of it out now.
This post is the first of a two-part podcast series with Cresta, a company that has been doing a lot in the contact center space with Generative AI. The series is being hosted by UK-based EM360, where I’m a regular contributor. For Part 2, I’ll be in conversation with their CEO, Ping Wu, and that should be out in the next couple of weeks. Until then, I hope you check out Part 1 with CMO Scott Kolman - it just went live yesterday.
We all know what being put on-hold feels like, and it’s never good. While it may be a necessary evil for customer “service”, there’s also an opportunity for contact centers and brands to use that time in a more constructive, engaging fashion. Annoying music can certainly make the experience even worse, but imagine providing content that customers would actually want to hear while on-hold.
When it comes to personalizing customer experience, this is just one more form of interaction that is fully in the control of the contact center. If you’re amenable to thinking more broadly about what on-hold can look and sound like, I think you’ll find my latest white paper of interest.
The paper was sponsored by Aizan Inc., an innovative company solving some pretty daunting problems in the communications space, especially around telephony and messaging. Usually, my white papers are gated, where registration is required, but this one is public, so it’s available for all. Here’s the link, and I’d love to hear your thoughts - as would the folks at Aizan.
I’ve recently completed another guest podcast with NICE, and their ongoing CX Pulse series.
Telecom fraud has been on my radar quite a lot lately, and this episode touches on how it impacts the contact center, along with how agent training and AI can help mitigate the threats.
This is a big topic for sure, so for a one-off podcast, it’s pretty high level, but hopefully this will start some important conversations about a topic nobody really likes talking about.
CX Pulse episodes aren’t searchable on NICE’s site, but having been recently published, mine is the most recent episode as of today, so it shouldn’t be hard to find, and then just click there to listen.
Another option - Apple Podcasts is one way to subscribe to CX Pulse, and they provide dedicated URLs for each episode - here’s the link for mine. Either way, I hope you check it out, and would love to hear your thoughts.
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.
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.
That’s the title of my latest article for Contact Center Pipeline, where I’m an occasional contributor. Telecom fraud takes many forms, and while we all know what those calls sound like, it’s likely far more insidious than you might think. I’ve been delving into this space recently, and my new article here is one facet of what I’m coming across.
If that’s of interest, you should check out the rest of the May 2023 issue, as cybersecurity is the editorial theme, so there’s lots of other good analysis here relating to the contact center. Here’s the link, and if you like the writeup, comments are welcome, and feel free to share. Visual below, btw, is from the article, from the folks at Contact Center Pipeline.
The May editions of JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review, and Watch This Space podcast are out now.
If you’re not a subscriber, signing up to my newsletter is easy - the signup page is here. For my podcast, you can subscribe on all the major platforms, or click to listen to the current episode here.
Our focus this month was on current industry events, along with growing concern about AI, and how technology is reshaping the fan experience at sporting events - and not necessarily in a good way.
On my website, there are now archives for both the newsletter and the podcast, so it’s easy to find earlier editions of each there. We’re into Season 6 of the podcast, so there’s a lot on offer in the archive if you want to check out earlier episodes.
Been plenty busy on many fronts lately, and during April, some of that work turned up in my public writing. Here’s a digest of that, and I hope you check some of these out.
Enterprise Connect 2023 - My Analyst Perspective, April 24, EM360
How Generative AI for Business Enhances Collaboration, April 18, TechTarget
POTS Replacement - More Complex Than You Might Think, April 11, No Jitter
The Year of AI: Impacts on UCaaS and CCaaS, April 4, RingCentral Blog
I’ve recently connected with John Heiberger, and one of his hats is running the CCSC - Contact Center Solutions Consortium. This community serves to share knowledge that helps contact center leaders make better buying decisions. They run regular virtual webinars, and I’m going to be the presenter for the next one, which is this week - Thursday, April 27 at 1pm ET.
Basically, I’ll be providing an overview of the state of play in this space, which we all know is being transformed in a variety of ways. The webinar is generally for members-only, but am sharing here because John will consider non-member requests on a case-by-case basis. The details are here, and maybe I’ll see you there.
J Arnold & Associates is an Independent Technology Research and Analyst, helping businesses understand the strategic value of communications technology as they adapt to the digital transformation of work
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