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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.
Got a new white paper to share - this one is for NICE, and is a bit of a sequel to an earlier white paper I did for them. I touched on it briefly during a webinar last week, and to get the full story, here’s the registration link for downloading.
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.
Longer-form writing takes, well, longer to do, longer to be reviewed, and longer to be published. I do a lot of writing for all lengths, and here’s a current example of what I call an Insight Report. This would be longer than an article, shorter than a white paper, but substantive enough to be gated content.
I’ve been working with Upstream Works Software for a few years now, and when the stars line up, we do a couple of these annually. The latest one has been posted to their website, and here’s the registration page to get it.
The title is pretty self-explanatory, and speaks to a key trend driving just about everything in the contact center space these days: The AI Opportunity - Enhance the Agent and Customer Experience with AI Application Integrations. I hope you like it, and if any questions, just drop me a line.
Another busy month with travel to events, but three public things I’d been working on were published last month, so here they are if you haven’t seen them yet.
AI for the Contact Center - It’s So Much More than Chatbots, NICE, Nov. 30
Vendors Use AI to Boost Customer Experience in the Contact Center, No Jitter, Nov. 15
The AI Opportunity: Enhance the Agent and Customer Experience with AI Application Integrations, Upstream Works, Nov. 4
With the sub-title being “It’s so much more than chatbots”, you should get the gist pretty quickly. AI has become a must-have for contact centers, and while chatbots are often the entry point for getting on this path, the use cases are much richer.
My analysis examines the drivers for embracing AI, but also for taking a practical approach that gets beyond the hype. The white paper has been featured now on NICE’s website, and here’s the registration page to download a copy.
On Thursday, Dec. 1, Five9 is running the 2022 edition of their CX Summit Canada, and I’ve been brought back again to provide an overview of the contact center market. I’m part of a larger program running through the day - all of it virtual - and later, I’ll be joining an in-person reception in downtown Toronto. The Five9 folks will determine who can attend, and to find out more, here’s the registration link.
New things come up for me pretty regularly, and this time around, I was a guest on CX Pulse, which NICE’s regular podcast. Hosted by Amelia Earhart, we covered some ground around the need to take a digital approach to improving the agent experience. With so much focus on customer experience, it’s easy to overlook the needs of agents, and how important that is for providing great customer experience.
This is my first time being on Amelia’s podcast, and I hope you like it - here’s link to give it a listen.
I’m part of the UC Expert Team with BCStrategies, and we take turns contributing our perspectives to No Jitter. It’s my turn this week, and with all the industry events I’ve been attending lately, there’s plenty to talk about. There are many stories to tell for how AI is being used in the contact center - some is transformative, and some is more incremental, but overall, it’s a dominant trend now.
I can only cover so much ground in one article, and over the course my recent work with vendors, I’ve provided a brief update on what four vendors are doing - Cisco, NICE, Twilio and Dialpad. Each really warrants its own article, and the same can be said for other vendors I’m following just as closely. My writeup is running now on No Jitter, and as always, comments and sharing are both welcome. If this piques your interest in a longer analysis, I’m not hard to find!
Upstream Works is an innovative Canadian contact center vendor, and I’ve been doing various things with them for a few years now. One of these includes writing Strategic Insight reports - not quite as long as a white paper, but substantive enough to require registration for downloading.
My most recent Strategic Insight report for them has been published now, titled The AI Opportunity: Enhance the Agent and Customer Experience with AI Application Integrations. If that’s top of mind for you, and would like to read about it, here’s the link.
Busy week - I’ve been doing a lot of writing recently, and much of it is coming to market around now. Here’s the next one - another guest post for the NICE blog. The company is doing good things with CXi and their new branding, but the bigger message is how providing customer service now goes beyond the contact center. Lots more to explore here, so watch for more from me with NICE, as well as other places.
Analysts get all kinds of swag - much of it is the same, and some is better than others. Here’s one, though, that I won’t be getting traders of. We graciously accept all of this at face value, but it’s always great to see creativity and fun, and NICE really stands out for me in that department.
October is going to be a full month of travel, so there’s a lot to prepare for. One of these stops will be for NICE’s 2022 Analyst Summit, held in Marrakesh, Morocco of all places. This is one of those times where we get spoiled a bit, but in return, they’ll have our full attention while we’re there.
Most travel can become a grind going to familiar cities and airports, but this one falls more in the adventure category, at least for me. So, to help build that anticipation of going to an exotic locale, I got a small package at the post the other day.
Can’t say I already have a magic lamp, but yup, I’ve got one now. More aptly, it should be called Barak’s lamp, after NICE’s CEO, Barak Eilam. I know he’s in there - I can hear him “wishing” me a good trip to Morocco, but I don’t have the secret password yet to release the genie. If that magically happens and my three wishes are granted, I might update you - or not. :-)
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.
Two new things to share as we slide into what’s going to be a very busy Fall.
First, I have a new article out, running in the September issue of Contact Center Pipeline magazine.. You can read it here, and after that, feel free to peruse the rest of the issue.
Related to that, I’ll be an occasional contributor to Contact Center Pipeline, so expect to see more articles from me, and possibly other forms of involvement.
My latest guest post for NICE has now been published, and it’s running here on their blog page. The focus is on call deflection, and how it’s more than just service automation. There are richer benefits to be had, not just for making customer experience better, but agent experience as well. Hope you find it a good read, and more posts will be coming soon.
This is the first in a series of webinars I’m doing with Servion, with this one featuring Cisco, highlighting Webex Contact Center. I’ll be talking about trends driving the need for digital CX, and the audience is largely invite-only. However, I’m able to get the word out to my followers, and details to register are here.
The webinar is running Thursday, August 11, but the cutoff to register is Aug. 3. Since this isn’t a totally open event, Servion will review registrations as they come, and then determine who is a good fit beyond the participants they are bringing themselves.
With the month being abbreviated work-wise, public writing was pretty light. Just three pieces for the roundup, and next month, I should be back to higher levels.
My Q&A with Rob McDougall - AI and Setting Expectations in the Contact Center, Upstream Works Blog, July 22
Contact Centers Evaluate CPaaS vs CCaaS Benefits, TechTarget, July 21
The Difference Between a Traditional and Hybrid Meeting Room, TechTarget, July 19
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.
Some things happen quickly, and others take more time. The latter applies for some work I’ve been doing with NICE recently. I’ve been writing a number of guest posts for their blog, and the first one was published yesterday, titled “It’s truth time! Legacy technology and processes impact employee retention”.
Other posts will run there in due course, and if you give this a read, it would be great to get your feedback. Depending when you check this out, my byline isn’t quite right, but the fix is coming soon.
For my latest No Jitter writeup, I shared some takeaways from the recent NICE Interactions event, especially the main messaging from CEO Barak Eilam’s keynote. The creativity around his talk warrants a post of its own, but for now I’m just focusing on his vision for how contact centers need to evolve. It’s running now on No Jitter - hope you like it!
I’ve been on a webinar roll lately, and this time it’s with Servion. They’re a key partner for Cisco, and we’ll be talking about the rise of digital CX, along with what contact centers need to do to support that. Attendance, however, is limited - if interested, please register here, and Servion will get back to you if you meet the profile they’re looking for.
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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