JAA’s Analyst Blog is an award-winning and industry go-to that chronicles Jon’s involvement and thought leadership in a variety of subjects in the fields of telecom and technology sector. Call today for more information - (416) 907-8659
You should also know that the majority of JAA's thought leadership is published on sites other than this blog, and the best way to follow my broader coverage is to subscribe to my monthly newsletter.
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.
It's that time of year again, and there sure is lots to talk about for what transpired in 2017 in the collaboration space. This universe keeps expanding, but also morphing in directions that are hard for everyone to understand.
If you're nodding in agreement, then you'll find our collective reflections time well spent. Here's the link to listen, and there's more coming soon from me and others at UCStrategies in written form.
I've been working recently with Upstream Works, an emerging player in the contact center space with a strong focus on improving the customer experience. We just completed a white paper based on secondary source industry data and my analysis of the role of CX to create new business value.
The paper was just published today, and details are here on their website to get it. There will be more messaging around this on social media, and if you get a chance to read it, I'd welcome your thoughts, and I'm sure Upstream would too.
This crossed my path recently, and wanted to share it as a good resource/overview of technologies currently leading the contact center space.
RichCall is a contact center vendor I didn't know previously, and they recently compiled a pretty extensive summary, based on industry research and insights from analysts/consultants/experts in this space. This is a handy reference post if you want a 5 minute snapshot of what's driving contact center technology and what's coming next.
There's a solid list of industry experts - myself included, thanks - and if you're not sure who to follow to stay on top of things, this cohort covers the ground pretty thoroughly. Otherwise, there's some useful stats from Dimension Data's 2017 benchmark report, and if you like what you see, am sure RichCall will be happy for any sharing - and likewise for keeping our names out there.
I'm a regular contributor to No Jitter, and this time around, my focus was on a keynote speaker from the recent BroadSoft Connections conference. Of course, that event was overshadowed by the Cisco acquisition.
That development got plenty of coverage, but I wanted to provide a collaboration context around Bonin Bough's talk about hackonomy. He's a very engaging speaker, and while his focus was very much B2C, I can see relevance here for our space. He was speaking at BroadSoft for a reason, and if you didn't see him, hopefully my post will explain why. You can read it here now, and as always, sharing and comments are welcome.
Was a busy month, with more travel than usual, and attending/speaking at four events. Also made some good behind-the-scenes progress on my website, and had a good jump in new followers for my blog.
I've been talking about providing regular - and exclusive - updates for my subscribers for some time, and it's looking good to finally get that going this month, so please bear with me. All of this has cut into my writing a bit, but here's what was keeping me busy on that front during October.
Understanding Cisco's Acquisition of BroadSoft - I Think Taher Behbehani Knows Why, UCStrategies, Oct. 27
How do Huddle Rooms Fit in Video Conferencing Strategies?, TechTarget, Oct. 25
Why is Walmart Using Facebook for Collaboration? Should You?, Toolbox.com, Oct. 20
Why Messaging is the new Driver for Collaboration, Toolbox.com, Oct. 16
Chatbots - 10 Risks you need to Consider, Toolbox.com, Oct. 12
6 Reasons to Use Chatbots in your Business, Toolbox.com, Oct. 4
Market Analysis - How Mobility and Messaging are Transforming CX, JAA Blog, Oct. 3
Disruption is an understatement to describe the current state of the contact center space, and it goes well beyond Avaya’s Chapter 11 struggles, or the big move by Genesys to acquire Interactive Intelligence. These developments are relatively easy to understand, but as the frame of reference shifts from the “contact center” to “customer care”, other disruptive forces are emerging. Aside from being less easy to understand, they represent new channels of customer engagement that can potentially bypass the existing contact center model altogether.
In the course of my ongoing research, some of these disruptive forces have reached a point where there’s a broader story to tell, and I’ll summarize that in this post. There’s more disruption coming, and I’ll speak to that in due course, either here on my blog, or via one of the media channels I partner with.
Two disruption drivers – mobility and messaging
In my view, much of this disruption is due to the confluence of two major trends in customer care that happen to complement each other very nicely – mobility and messaging. To illustrate, this slide from Mary Meeker’s latest Kleiner Perkins Internet Trends report provides two important takeaways.
First, our engagement with digital media is steadily growing, hitting 5.6 hours per day in 2016. Aside from this being a big part of our day, it also means people are spending less time on the phone, and to provide good customer service, you need to use what they’re using. Secondly, within the digital realm, mobile devices caught up to the PC in 2013, and while PC usage has stagnated, mobility usage has grown 35% since then.
The rise of messaging goes hand-in-hand with mobility, and this presents some fundamental challenges for contact centers since they remain largely voice-centric. Messaging has been widely adopted in the consumer world, not just for its convenience, but also for economics, especially compared to telephony. These drivers aren’t as strong in the enterprise, so the adoption of messaging applications isn’t as common. Not only that, but most forms of enterprise messaging are automated – such as reminders - not person-to-person. The modes of messaging customers want to use to engage with agents aren’t native to the contact center, so there’s a gap here.
Furthermore, with customers showing an increasing preference for self-service and using messaging over voice, contact centers are struggling to keep pace. The above mobility trend seems likely to continue, and if this is where they are when customer service is needed, then messaging will become an important channel of engagement for the contact center.
Enter the new players – another form of disruption
Everything happens for a reason, and both mobility and messaging are impacting the contact center value proposition. While the existing vendors will continue to dominate the landscape – namely Avaya, Cisco and Genesys, but also the leading CRM players – their offerings are not built around these drivers. They’re definitely moving in that direction, but existing platforms and operating environments are well entrenched, making it difficult to adapt at the speed the market is moving.
This isn’t to say that all forms of contact will become messaging-based, or that all forms of customer service will occur on mobile devices, but these modes – these preferences – are too big to ignore or underestimate. With customer experience – CX – being a top strategic mantra, management is going to back the horses that do the best job, regardless of how it’s been done until now.
These shifts – and opportunities – haven’t been lost on other players, who are leveraging them to enter this space with a clean slate and a nextgen approach to customer care. In particular, I’m talking about Amazon, Apple and Facebook – all outsiders to the contact center world, but when viewed through the lens of mobility and messaging, it’s not hard to understand why they’re here. So far, these companies are only having a nominal impact on the status quo, but consider four ways in which they can be disruptive:
1. As outsiders, they can create a new and different CX, built from the ground-up based on today’s needs, wants, preferences, expectations, etc. Like everything else in tech, customer service is becoming increasingly user-driven, and when the tools – and rules – of engagement are in the customer’s hands, that’s what defines CX.
2. With that shift in the balance of power, CX becomes consumer-driven rather than company-driven. Understanding consumer behavior now becomes paramount, and can you think of any companies in tech better suited for this than Amazon, Apple and Facebook? To varying degrees, today’s CX plays to their strengths in ways that the contact center vendors cannot match. Of course, the converse is also true, but I’m focused on where the market is going, not where it’s been.
3. Not only do these companies have the scale to compete against anybody, their footprint and strength as consumer brands translates into incredible market power that can change the game if successful. That said, it’s equally true that if they don’t get enough traction, they can – and will - exit the CX space and move on to other things. These companies all have track records of success and failure, and are more likely to take bold risks to reinvent CX than the established contact center vendors. They have everything to gain and little to lose, and there’s a lot at stake given how hard it is to provide a great CX.
4. Each in their own way is capable of delivering an end-to-end CX that bypasses the contact center altogether. This may be the biggest form of disruption, because they can bring a new value chain to market that is fully within their control and provides an alternative to engage with a company’s contact center operation. I’m not saying this will make the contact center obsolete – not at all. However, they do represent new channels of engagement that may not happen otherwise, and not all forms of CX require dealing with a contact center.
To clarify, here’s a very brief summary of what these companies are doing in the CX space. Each one needs a detailed analysis, but that will be for another time.
Amazon
Their initial entry with Connect was more of a direct form of competition in the contact center space, and while it’s far from complete, they have the market power to jump right in. They know their limitations – or maybe not – and one improvement they just made was to message-enable Connect. This allows agents in real time to identify if an incoming call supports SMS or Facebook Messenger. If so, the session can shift to being messaging-based, including with a Lex chatbot that can easily be escalated to a live agent, and there are lots of scenarios where that would provide a better CX.
Most contact centers aren’t able to manage inbound messaging inquiries, so this is a big step forward to use this channel in cases where customers prefer that. This can also help agents be more productive, since voice calls can only be handled one at a time, but with messaging, they can manage multiple sessions concurrently.
Other features are no doubt coming that will make Connect more messaging-centric, and better able to support more CX. Not only are they motivated to succeed because the enterprise is an attractive growth opportunity, engaging with customers via Connect provides another touchpoint into the broader Amazon universe. In this regard, they’re not competing against Cisco or Avaya – it’s Facebook and Apple they’re trying to keep pace with for consumer engagement.
Apple
This represents something very different, but as with Amazon, Business Chat is part of Apple’s broader plan to play in the enterprise market. Business Chat is tied to their new iOS 11, and for this post, the interesting part is how iMessage allows communication with a business from any touchpoint in the Apple ecosystem, such as Safari, Maps, or even Siri. Now, iPhone users can use messaging to directly engage with a business, or do so via the contact center. The latter is certainly not Apple’s forte, and for that, they have done integrations with the likes of Genesys and Saleforce.com.
Now, add Apple Pay to the equation, and iMessage can facilitate a mobile, end-to-end CX, right through to making a purchase and completing the transaction. Not a word need be spoken, and no need to disrupt the session by fumbling around for your wallet. This doesn’t hold for all customer service scenarios, but it all seems pretty intuitive for Apple users, and that’s the point. Why risk the aggravation of a contact center when you can do all this from the palm of your hand while walking about or even driving? As a sidebar, it’s worth noting that AR/VR with iPhone 8 could, at some point, have a role to play in creating a new, Apple-centric CX.
The CX story here is less clear, but there are important parallels to both Amazon and Apple. On the messaging front, Messenger represents a new CX channel, not only due to its large footprint, but with their Payments application, this becomes a massive e-commerce play. The success of WeChat in China validates the mobile payments opportunity, so it’s not hard to see why CX fits into the Facebook angle.
This is also relevant because Facebook is addressing a global market, and they have an advantage over mobile carriers competing for a slice of the payments pie. In many markets, SMS is costly, but being free, Messenger can capture some of that traffic, bringing customers into Facebook’s CX value chain. To counter that, of course, concerns about privacy have dogged Facebook for years, so a lot has to go right to become a trusted CX channel. Even now, however, I think they’re an important part of this changing landscape.
My main takeaways
While it’s clear how mobility is transforming CX, the impact of messaging is less evident at this point. However, we all know that contact centers are trying to shift the workload from voice to text to keep costs down, manage call volumes, and engage using tools preferred by customers. We also know that there are many contact center scenarios that don’t require voice at all, and this points to the growing need to become more messaging-centric. That’s certainly the common thread with Amazon, Apple and Facebook, and their momentum will continue regardless of how the contact center vendors respond.
On the messaging front, contact center vendors will continue evolving, but probably not as quickly as these disruptors, and their progress needs to be closely followed. Another factor in all this is the way these vendors have evolved. They all have messaging-centric platforms as part of their CPaaS story, but these are independent of their contact center platforms. Those worlds are coming together, but at present, their messaging APIs are generic, and don’t integrate specifically with their contact center platforms, or anyone else’s for that matter.
The missing piece is having vendor-specific APIs, where the messaging platform integrates directly with the contact center platform – that’s what’s needed to fully support this emerging nextgen CX. CPaaS offerings like Fuze and Twilio are going in that direction, but it’s not their core business, and probably will never be. To my knowledge, the only pureplay messaging vendor focused on CX – both for the contact center and these disruptors – is WebText. They’re the partner for Amazon’s new messaging capability, and I suspect more is coming.
If you’re trying to follow where the puck is going, they’re an important company to follow. I’ve seen this happen before, where pureplays have brought the innovation needed to take a market to the next level, such as with Acme Packet with SBCs, or Convedia with media servers. It’s too soon to tell how things will unfold with WebText or the CPaaS players, but I’m pretty sure messaging is going to give voice a good run for its money as CX moves along this path.
I write a regular column for No Jitter, and it's long been a rich resource for the collaboration space. My followers will know that messaging has been a current focus of my research, and Apple's Business Chat has been on my radar for a bit.
I'll be writing and speaking about this topic elsewhere over the next few weeks, and hopefully this post will pique your interest enough to keep tabs on me during this time, and beyond. With that, here's the link to my No Jitter post, and if you like my analysis, I'd love to hear from you, and so would the folks at No Jitter!
That's the title of my latest post as a UC Expert with UCStrategies. AI takes many forms, and in the collaboration space, voice is particularly interesting now that devices like Amazon Echo are becoming mainstream. Business applications are emerging now for these devices, and there's lots more to come.
To read more, here's the link to my post, and your comments are welcome, as would be any sharing. I should add that the BC Summit is about a month away, and if you're attending, I'll be speaking more about this topic there.
I've been exploring thought leadership themes with Toronto-based Upstream Works Software recently, and my first guest post has been published now on their blog portal. As I normally do with direct clients, my analysis isn't about their offerings; rather, my focus is on industry trends that impact their served market, which in this is case is cloud-based customer care.
Their site has a good repository of blog content and other resources, and it's worth reviewing to stay current in this space. Of course, I hope you'll give my post a read, and your feedback is welcome any time.
If you don't know what I'm getting at with that title, then ask your parents - they'll know.
Either way, I'm talking about something very new - and very different - from Plantronics. Building on their rich audio heritage in the headset business, they've come up with a unique approach to making the workplace more conducive to collaboration, but I'm not going to tell you here. I'm just trying to make sure you know that my current No Jitter writeup has been posted, and that's where you can read my take on Habitat Soundscapes. I hope you like it, and would love to hear your thoughts.
That's the title of my current contribution to the UCStrategies portal, where I've been a UC Expert since 2013. I publish monthly there, plus I participate in our Industry Buzz podcasts regularly. All told, it's the best resource out there for the collaboration space, and after reading my post, I encourage you to explore what else we have on offer.
So, my reference to MoNage is a tech conference run by Jeff Pulver that I've been speaking at a few times recently. The event is rapidly evolving, and is doing a great job staying on the leading edge of chatbots, AI and messaging.
I've also been active with several other industry events lately, and based on all this, my message is about how enterprises should be looking at these technologies, especially for how they can enhance collaboration. Lots of implications across the whole collab ecosystem, and I'd love to hear your thoughts after reading my post.
This will be US stop #3 for me this month, and then things finally slow down on the travel front. Am flying on Sunday to Indy for CX17, where the event tagline is "Together", referring to the combined conference for Genesys and Interactive Intelligence.
I posted the basic details about the conference already in the Event Calendar of my website, so please go there for that. I don't get to do this often, so I'd be remiss to not do another shout-out for our SIPtones gig next Tuesday during the conference. More info about that is also in the Event Calendar listing, including a link to a video compilation of our last show in Indy. Enjoy!
Am busy enough this month with conferences and speaking at events, but I still need to manage my regular workload with clients. Aside from various writing engagements, I'm doing another Ziff Davis webinar on May 30 - and another one after that in June.
The full title is "How Collaboration Helps Businesses Adapt to Digital Transformation", and the main idea is that collaboration offerings can help workers in many ways as they adapt to the impact of digital transformation. These are two big themes, and I'll be exploring how they intersect on this webinar. Details and registration form is here, and I hope you can join me.
Just a quick note of thanks and appreciation for all those who came out to our event in downtown Toronto last night. The room was full, the energy was great, and I think the audience came away with a better idea of Jeff's vision, the opportunity he's trying to address with his MoNage event, and the community he's trying to build to use technology for good in our world.
Props to Steven Pulver and Caravel Law for hosting and providing the pizza and drinks in true startup style. Special thanks to the many VON alum who turned out, especially Alan Percy and Garrett Smith who made the drive from Buffalo, getting there JIT.
Chris Fine and I really enjoyed reprising the presentation we gave at MoNage in San Jose, and for those who hadn't seen Jeff before, I know they came away inspired on a few levels. He has that effect on people, and we need more of that!
Also - we're happy to share our slides, and if you didn't get a chance to pass on your card to me last night, drop me a line and I'll get them to you.
Jeff mentioned that some of the event was live-streamed on Facebook, but I haven't come across that yet - fyi.
Got a few pix to share here. The lighting wasn't great, but here's a few. If you were there and had good shots, you're welcome to share, and I'm happy to amplify.
Talk about true startup style - from humble beginnings with a simple sign, directing people downstairs to the space.
Photo - Ron Gruia
Photo - Jessica Fowler
Photo - Sara Belmont
That's the title of my latest Rethinking Communications column for TMC's flagship publication, Internet Telephony magazine. I've been writing this column for a few years now, but you haven't heard from me about it for some time. The reason is that at the start of 2017, the magazine cut back its publishing cycle from monthly to quarterly, reflecting the broader trend of reduced print readership. I got my start in the trade publishing business, and can totally relate to what they're up against.
As such, I haven't posted about my column since January, and for whatever reason, their Q2 edition has been slow to publish. However, it's out now, both in print form, and digitally, and here's the link to read it online. The title is self-explanatory, and I've been writing a lot lately about how players from outside the collaboration space are having a big impact on the market. I hope you like it, and comments are welcome.
Aside from that, I'm also cited in three different features in that issue:
I hope you get a chance to read these as well, and any sharing is always appreciated!
That's the title of my first writeup of takeaways from last week's Monage conference in San Jose. This writeup was done wearing my UC Expert hat for UCStrategies, as I wanted to address implications for the UC/collaboration/customer care space from the conference. Most of the content was consumer-focused, and really interesting, but that's a topic for another time.
I was a presenter at Monage, and shared some of that talk in this writeup, and will have more to say about that in a future post. So, for now, I hope you hop over to the UCStrategies site and give the post a read, and would love to hear your thoughts. Maybe you'll like it enough to consider attending the next Monage this fall in Boston - I'll be there.
If you weren't there last week, you may enjoy my photos, both of the event and my short walkabout the nice and not-so-nice parts of San Jose.
That's the title of the session I'll be speaking on at next week's Monage conference in San Jose. Joining me will be Chris Fine, where we'll reprise the topic from last fall's inaugural Monage in Boston. Here's the full event schedule, and if you scroll down the page to Thursday, you'll see our session is scheduled for 11am.
More importantly, it's not too late to attend, and if you're still deciding, you should explore the Monage website, especially the impressive speaker roster, and the YouTube clip on the home page with Jeff Pulver giving his personal pitch to come, as only Jeff can! It's great, and if you follow him on Facebook, he's got a new clip there you won't want to miss.
Just one more post as a reminder about my webinar tomorrow at 2pm ET.
This is my latest Ziff Davis webinar, and the title is self-explanatory. If you want to learn more about how Gen Z is different from Gen Y, and how businesses need to think about collaboration with them, then you'll want to join me. More info is here on the registration page.
I've had a steady run of webinars lately, and my next one is coming up fast - next Wednesday at 2pm ET. The title is self-explanatory, and the topic builds on a series of posts I wrote recently for Ziff Davis on the emerging demographic, Generation Z.
They're on the cusp of entering the workplace, and in terms of collaboration, they won't be doing things exactly like their predecessors, Millennials. Am looking forward to sharing my perspectives on the webinar, and hope you can make it - all the details are here on the registration page.
I just wanted to do a quick shout-out for the second Monage event, coming in a few weeks out in San Jose. The inaugural event was in Boston last fall, and marked Jeff Pulver's return to show biz in our space. I spoke there and will be speaking again in San Jose. For reference, here's my "This is Craziness" post about the event, and here's my Q&A interview with Jeff.
If this is new for you, "Monage" is Messaging on the Net, aka the age of messaging. Of course, this is a play on VON, Jeff's claim to fame, but now the focus has shifted from voice to messaging. I'll have more to say about Monage soon, and for now, I just want to get it on your radar.
If you're looking for a next step, please explore the Monage website, but before that, Jeff's personal pitch below will be a minute of your life very well spent.
https://youtu.be/k4ev0IwVAxQ
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
Who’s Who in Telecoms?, March 2021
Top 100 Unified Comms Influencers Revealed, September 2020
Unified Comms Influencers - Top 50 for 2019 Revealed, August 2019
TOP VoIP Bloggers to Follow VoIP Review, 2018
Top 10 Telecom Experts to Follow on Social Media - June 2017
