Articles by
Leonard Klie
Available in ServiceNow's Now Platform Vancouver release, Now Assist for Customer Service Management streamlines case management with generative AI.
Posted September 20, 2023
The low-cost airline is cutting its contact center to cut costs, a move that many see as short-sighted while others see as inevitable.
Posted November 29, 2022
Microsoft's Digital Contact Center Platform combines technologies from its Dynamics CRM 365, Teams, Power Virtual Agents, Azure, and Nuance Communications lines.
Posted July 19, 2022
Grand View has increased its projections for growth in the cloud contact center market, largely due to COVID's impact on contact centers.
Posted May 03, 2022
After a failed attempt to acquire Five9 last year, Zoom enters the cloud contact center market with a product of its own.
Posted February 23, 2022
Gartner survey reveals rampant agent disengagement, leading to poor customer experiences and economic costs.
Posted July 26, 2021
COVID-19 was the major headline-maker of 2020, but not all the news centered on the pandemic.
Posted January 08, 2021
Amazon Web Services' Contact Center Intelligence is making it possible for companies to build and deploy AI into contact center workflows.
Posted August 18, 2020
Speakers at Forrester Research's CX North America online forum this week emphasized the need for companies to reorganize around customer expectations and brand value. (Featured on DestinationCRM.com.)
Posted June 18, 2020
ServiceNow outlined new products and partnerships at its Knowledge 2020 Digital Experience event to help financial services, telecommunications, and healthcare firms with digital transformations and workflow improvements.
Posted June 03, 2020
Amelia for Customer Care allows organizations to scale and enhance customer service.
Posted June 02, 2020
Latin American outsourcers need to provide mare value for clients to remain competitive, Frost & Sullivan contends.
Posted February 14, 2020
Gupshup is enabling businesses and customers to customize messages over WhatsApp.
Posted July 31, 2019
New capabilities improve interactions, workflows, agent and supervisor productivity, scalability, and security.
Posted February 11, 2019
The acquisition of XOXCO brings together leading bot development communities to help advance conversational AI.
Posted November 14, 2018
Google Cloud's Contact Center AI combines multiple artificial intelligence products to help companies improve the customer service experience and the productivity of their contact centers.
Posted July 25, 2018
Nelson Hall's Digital Customer Experience study reveals an increased emphasis on top-down CX transformation.
Posted July 06, 2018
Integrated offering from Avaya and Afiniti will drive performance, profit, and productivity improvements for enterprise contact centers.
Posted April 24, 2018
Spoken's contact center offerings supercharge Avaya's move into big data, machine learning, AI, and the cloud.
Posted January 29, 2018
Poised for rapid growth and success, the cloud contact center infrastructure market is looking at untapped revenue potential in the tens of billions of dollars, DMG Consulting predicts.
Posted November 30, 2017
The acquisition expands TELUS's U.S. and international presence.
Posted August 21, 2017
For chatbots to be effective, they need to deliver the right information with little effort.
Posted April 27, 2017
Telecommunications company Avaya today filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and began formal proceedings to restructure its balance sheet to better position itself for the future. The company's foreign affiliates are not included in the filing. The company is assuring customers that it will continue normal operations.
Posted January 19, 2017
Twitter today introduced two new features to help companies create better conversational experiences with customers via Direct Messages on the social media site.
Posted November 01, 2016
Zendesk today launched a redesigned company brand and an expanded product family focused on building better customer relationships. Zendesk also introduced Zendesk Connect and Zendesk Explore, two products that create more personal connections between customers and organizations through customer intelligence and deeper analytics.
Posted October 28, 2016
Microsoft has chosen CafeX Communications, a supplier of mobile and web customer engagement solutions, as its preferred solution provider for real-time customer assistance within Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Service.
Posted October 19, 2016
Atlassian this week released an upgraded version of its JIRA Service Desk to help companies group their customers so they can view and share each others' requests. The latest version also allows for greater internal and external collaboration.
Posted October 12, 2016
NICE yesterday released Evolve WFM, a continuous delivery workforce management solution with advanced capabilities like analytics-based forecasting and user-defined scheduling in an elastic cloud-based deployment model.
Posted September 28, 2016
West, a provider of cloud-based communication applications and services, has enhanced its Cloud Contact Center with the addition of multichannel capabilities, including support for email, web chat, and text messaging; network-based queuing; and inbound and outbound call blending.
Posted September 16, 2016
[24]7, a provider of customer engagement solutions, is partnering with Amdocs, a provider of customer experience software for the telecommunications industry, to deliver intelligent, personalized customer support across all service channels, including chat, email, voice, web, and mobile.
Posted September 08, 2016
Cyara Solutions yesterday released version 6.4.0 of its omnichannel discovery, testing, and monitoring platform for customer service interactions. The Cyara 6.4.0 release brings increased intelligence to Virtual Agent and enhances enterprise security and audit requirements around user logins and application usage.
Posted September 02, 2016
IP Office 10 increases security and resiliency and enhances the user experience.
Posted August 31, 2016
The acquisition is expected to help Calabrio speed up its corporate growth.
Posted August 30, 2016
Verint Systems today unveiled several enhancements to its Real-Time Speech Analytics solution, which combines phonetic speech recognition and full transcription of calls with advanced language understanding.
Posted August 24, 2016
Five9, a provider of cloud-based contact center software, today launched the Summer 2016 release of its Virtual Contact Center (VCC).
Posted August 17, 2016
inContact, a provider of cloud contact center and workforce optimization software, has partnered with HelpSocial, providers of an integration platform for customer care and social media, to bring social media customer care abilities to contact center agents using inContact's Open Cloud Platform.
Posted August 11, 2016
Transparency Market Research forecasts the global intelligent virtual assistant market to grow from $627.7 million in 2015 to $7.9 billion by 2024, at a 32.8 percent compound annual growth rate.
Posted August 03, 2016
Verint Systems yesterday launched Verint Robotic Process Automation, a set of advanced capabilities to automate, manage, and execute time-consuming, manual, and repetitive business processes, such as customer address changes, claims processing, billing, underwriting, and other high-volume tasks.
Posted July 20, 2016
Zendesk has launched Automatic Answers, a feature powered by machine learning to help customers solve their inquiries without having to go through contact center agents. Companies can embed the technology right into their Web sites or mobile apps.
Posted July 13, 2016
The latest release of NICE's recording platform provides deeper business insights across channels, including chat and Skype for Business.
Posted July 08, 2016
eLoyalty, part of TeleTech Technology, has released version 10.6.3 of its Cisco-Powered Hosted Collaboration Solution/Contact Center as a Service (HCS/CCaaS) cloud offering. This is the second major release of the product, which uses the Cisco Unified Contact Center for Enterprise (UCCE) as its base, for 2016.
Posted July 06, 2016
inContact, a provider of cloud contact center and workforce optimization software, has introduced the second major release of Customer Interaction Cloud for 2016, version 16.2. Updates include new capabilities across key components of its unified solution, including omnichannel routing, workforce optimization, analytics, Voice as a Service, and Open Cloud Platform.
Posted June 29, 2016
Following years of investment in cloud technologies and more than 1,000 active cloud deployments, Verint Systems yesterday officially announced that its entire Customer Engagement Optimization portfolio is now available for cloud deployment.
Posted June 07, 2016
At his company's Interactions user conference today, Interactive Intelligence Group Founder and CEO Don Brown laid to rest the rumors that his company was going to sunset its Customer Interaction Center (CIC) solution in favor of PureCloud, its cloud-based contact center suite running entirely on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform.
Posted June 06, 2016
WASHINGTON -- Only 3 percent of all companies can start a customer interaction on one channel and seamlessly move to another channel, while still maintaining all the context of the previous interactions, Kate Leggett, a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, reported during her morning keynote to open the third day of the Customer Service Experience conference.
Posted May 26, 2016
WASHINGTON — Sir Francis Bacon is often credited with the phrase "knowledge is power." Eric McKirdy, global customer care manager at Ask.com and today's keynote speaker at the Customer Service Experience conference, can be credited with saying that "knowledge is not power unless it is accompanied by action."
Posted May 25, 2016
WASHINGTON — Disney excels at customer service, and the reason is that the company, in crafting every customer experience, looks at everything through the eyes of the customer, Dennis Snow, president of Snow & Associates and a former member of the leadership team at Walt Disney World, told attendees at the CRM Evolution, Customer Service Experience, and SpeechTEK conferences during his opening keynote Monday morning.
Posted May 24, 2016
NICE Systems yesterday entered a definitive agreement to acquire inContact, a provider of cloud contact center technology, for $940 million. The deal brings together NICE's workforce optimization and analytics solutions with inContact's advanced contact center cloud offerings.
Posted May 19, 2016
Research released today by the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) and Lionbridge Technologies found that most contact centers are not prepared to handle the increase in customer contacts in languages other than English.
Posted May 13, 2016
A recent Gallup poll found that when both their customers and employees are engaged, companies see a 240 percent increase in performance-related outcomes, which goes to show that customer service "really matters," said Brad Cleveland, cofounder and senior adviser of the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI), during the opening keynote of the ICMI Contact Center Expo.
Posted May 12, 2016
Cyara today launched its Virtual Agent for Desktop, a solution for testing how efficiently contact center agents can interact with the myriad of systems and apps that reside on their desktops.
Posted May 04, 2016
Based on feedback it has received from its customers, B2B customer support and help desk software provider TeamSupport has added Customer Families as part of the spring release of its support platform and upgraded its ScreenView screen recording software to support WebRTC.
Posted April 27, 2016
Interactions, a provider of speech and natural language technology, and Arise Virtual Solutions, a provider of work-from-home agent business process outsourcing (BPO) services, have partnered to expand the delivery of conversational virtual assistant solutions for customer care.
Posted April 22, 2016
Social customer service software and services provider LiveWorld today launched the Conversation Management Platform, a cloud-based solution to help companies manage customer conversations across social media and messaging apps in real time.
Posted April 19, 2016
Pegasystems today announced its acquisition of OpenSpan, a provider of robotic process automation (RPA) and workforce analytics software, bringing together robotics, analytics, and case management to enable more productive contact center employees.
Posted April 12, 2016
WorkFlex's agent self-scheduling empowerment tool is expanded beyond hours and days to the type of work performed during the day.
Posted April 05, 2016
Inbenta, providers of a natural language search platform powered by artificial intelligence, today launched its Hybrid Chat service, which combines Inbenta's self-service virtual assistant support with its on-demand live chat technology.
Posted March 29, 2016
Desk 360 offers SMBs a collection of tools for greater customer insights and context.
Posted March 24, 2016
When it comes to poor customer service, 52 percent of consumers have stopped doing business with companies because of it. And once companies have lost those customers, 68 percent will not return, resulting in an estimated cost to U.S. businesses of $1.6 trillion, according to new research from Accenture.
Posted March 23, 2016
InContact, a provider of cloud-based contact center software and cloud workforce optimization tools, today launched its first major release of Customer Interaction Cloud for 2016. The latest release provides omnichannel routing, workforce optimization, voice as a service, and an open cloud platform.
Posted March 15, 2016
8x8, a provider of cloud-based enterprise communications services, has added to its Virtual Contact Center (VCC) solution with new features that integrate quality management, customer journey analytics, and a prebuilt CRM integration tool that allows contact center managers to configure and tailor the agent and customer experience. The new VCC capabilities will be available in June.
Posted March 08, 2016
Hallmark Business Connections, the business-to-business subsidiary of Hallmark Cards, has launched a customer care solution for businesses that lets contact center employees create meaningful connections with customers through Hallmark greeting cards.
Posted March 04, 2016
Microsoft today announced that the spring wave of Dynamics CRM 2016 will be available to online customers in the second quarter of this year. The new release will bring a number of changes, including the addition of field service capabilities and portal solutions.
Posted March 02, 2016
Verint Systems has acquired Contact Solutions, a provider of cloud-based voice and mobile customer self-service and business intelligence software, from North Bridge Growth Equity, a venture capital firm. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The deal extends Verint's Actionable Intelligence vision with real-time, contextual self-service software.
Posted February 22, 2016
TeleVoice, a provider of customized call center solutions, including interactive voice response (IVR) and computer telephony integration (CTI), to the financial services industry, has launched TeleVoice Insight, a comprehensive call recording solution.
Posted February 17, 2016
Avaya today launched a pair of multichannel unified communications and contact center hybrid cloud solutions targeted for the midmarket. Called Avaya Midmarket Cloud, the solutions are Powered by Avaya IP Office and OnAvaya-Google Cloud Platform.
Posted February 09, 2016
Salesforce.com yesterday introduced the next generation of its Customer Success Platform, Salesforce Lightning, and previewed its product strategy for the first half of the year. Included in those plans is an upgrade to Service Cloud Lightning, the company's unified customer service platform and ecosystem.
Posted February 03, 2016
Wise.io, a provider of machine learning applications to help enterprises provide better customer experiences, today launched Wise Auto Response, an intelligent auto reply functionality for customer support organizations. Using machine learning to understand the intent of incoming tickets and determine the best available response, Wise Auto Response automatically selects and applies the appropriate reply to address customer issues without involving agents.
Posted January 27, 2016
Lionbridge Technologies has broadened its GeoFluent real-time translation technology to include new omnichannel customer care features for contact centers. With these new features, customers can deliver real-time multilingual interactions across all communication channels, from virtual and agent-assisted chat to email, in-call voice, social, SMS, forums, knowledge bases, help desks, and ticketing.
Posted January 19, 2016
Businesses are substantially more satisfied with their electricity providers this year, reaching an eight-year high, despite having to call their service providers twice as often and having their issues resolved significantly less often then residential customers, according to the latest J.D. Power 2016 Electric Utility Business Customer Satisfaction Study.
Posted January 13, 2016
Accelerize and its digital marketing software division CAKE yesterday announced a partnership and technology integration with DialogTech, a provider of end-to-end call attribution and conversion platforms for marketing and customer service.
Posted January 08, 2016
Genesys, a provider of omnichannel customer experience and contact center solutions, has acquired SpeechStorm, a provider of self-service applications for mobile, Web, and interactive voice response (IVR) channels. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Posted December 22, 2015
Marchex, a mobile advertising analytics company, today launched a major security enhancement to Marchex Call Analytics that enables companies to automatically redact credit card numbers from recorded phone calls in real time.
Posted December 15, 2015
Zendesk today released Advanced Voice, an enhanced version of its phone support offering, embedded directly into its cloud-based contact center software. With it, companies can set up Zendesk phone support in minutes without purchasing extra equipment and can make or take calls from the same multichannel environment in which they manage all other support channels.
Posted December 10, 2015
Marlin Equity Partners, a global investment firm, has acquired LiveOps Cloud Platform, a provider of cloud-based contact center technology. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Posted December 01, 2015
Avaya and Plantronics have started a co-development initiative to simplify communications in contact center and unified communications environments. The first initiative under this expanded relationship is focused on ensuring compatibility and tight integration between Plantronics headsets and Avaya's Chrome-based contact center apps, including Avaya Agent for Chrome and Customer Engagement OnAvaya-Google Cloud Platform.
Posted November 18, 2015
TouchCommerce, a provider of omnichannel customer engagement solutions, today launched TouchSocial, which enables companies to embed shortlinks into social media posts so that customers can initiate personalized live chat sessions with product or customer service specialists.
Posted November 10, 2015
Support ticket volume has increased in 63 percent of all support organizations, according to a new report by HDI, a membership association and certification body for the technical support industry. This is largely due to an increase in the number of new applications, systems, equipment, infrastructures, and devices that customers are using and a growth in the number of customers at many companies.
Posted November 06, 2015
Enghouse Interactive, a developer of contact center software, yesterday unveiled the latest versions of its five key business communications and customer interaction technologies, integegrating all of them into a unified product suite. These releases include new version of Enghouse Interactive's Contact Center: Enterprise (CCE); Communications Center (EICC); Contact Center: Service Provider (CCSP); Communications Portal (CP); and Quality Management Suite (QMS).
Posted November 05, 2015
Opus Research's Intelligent Assistants Conference highlights the growth of virtual assistants in customer apps.
Posted October 14, 2015
Satisfaction Prediction uses machine learning to identify which customer interactions are at risk of turning bad in real time.
Posted October 07, 2015
TouchCommerce now enables in-app mobile chat and many other integrations.
Posted September 10, 2015
Adding channels and technologies shouldn't be done in silos, speakers say.
Posted August 20, 2015
Conference attendees are reminded that the key to happy customers is happy and informed employees.
Posted August 19, 2015
Speakers urge attendees to stop thinking operationally and start looking at service from the customers' perspective.
Posted August 18, 2015
Microsoft's DNN technology brings greater speech recognition accuracy to the [24]7 Customer Engagement Platform. (Featured on SpeechTechMag.com.)
Posted August 14, 2015
PureCloud Engage is designed to help contact centers accelerate business impact, deliver consistent outcomes, and improve the customer and agent experience.
Posted June 09, 2015
The $275 million deal expands Alorica's capabilities, service offerings, and delivery options. (Featured on destinationCRM.com.)
Posted January 07, 2015
Don't bother calling Square.The rapidly growing mobile credit-card processing company has joined an increasing number of Silicon Valley-area tech firms, including Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and crowdsourced question-and-answer site Quora, in eliminating the phone as a customer support channel. But is abandoning the telephone for low-cost online channels the right move for your organization?
Posted April 15, 2013