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
As brands increasingly strive to provide self-service options for customers to solve straightforward problems quickly and efficiently, contact centers are taking on new roles, becoming an extension of the brand. Here are four reasons why customers still love—and need—contact centers.
Posted July 29, 2016
The acquisition will unite Nuance's IVR solutions and TouchCommerce's "omnichannel" offerings under a common umbrella. (Featured on DestinationCRM.com.
Posted July 21, 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
As Twitter continues to struggle and analysts start to speculate about a possible sale, the company is continuing to roll out features dedicated to the social customer service space. One new tool is designed to let consumers know when a brand is most active based on how quickly it responds to tweets and messages. Another is an updated Featured Tweet capability, which enables brands to pinpoint specific tweets that will remain fixed at the top of their feeds for other users to see immediately.
Posted July 08, 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
Xerox has announced plans to split into two companies, with one portion remaining as Xerox and the other becoming Conduent, a business process outsourcing company that will offer solutions for customer service as well as other areas.
Posted June 24, 2016
At its SugarCon annual user conference on Wednesday, SugarCRM introduced an intelligent virtual assistant named Candace and Sugar Intelligence, a service that will combine data from external sources with company CRM data to provide a single view of the customer. (Featured on DestinationCRM.com.)
Posted June 17, 2016
Larry Augustin says that CRM has to move from a "system of record to a system of engagement." Also, SugarCRM announces an enhanced partnership with IBM and an integration with 3CLogic. (Featured on DestinationCRM.com.)
Posted June 15, 2016
Helpshift's cofounder and CEO, Abinash Tripathy, maintains that omnichannel service is not the answer to customers' growing expectations. As customers increasingly expect faster, more efficient support, the need for more sophisticated self-service support and support through artificial intelligence will grow. With $23 million in funding, Helpshift plans to continue improving its in-app messaging customer service tool by making it more proactive.
Posted June 13, 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
In an industry often criticized for poor customer satisfaction, T-Mobile rose to the top, beating out competitors AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint in the American Customer Satisfaction Index. On ACSI's 100-point scale, T-Mobile earned 74 points while Verizon and AT&T both earned 71. Though the victory margin is slim, T-Mobile's improvement is noteworthy—the carrier's score grew by 4 points. Sprint was the most-improved carrier, raising its score from 65 to 70 this year, but the company fell behind its three primary competitors overall.
Posted June 03, 2016
To deliver a more seamless cross-device experience for customers, Salesforce.com has introduced Snap-In SDKs for the Web and for mobile devices. The debut of snap-in functionality enables users to quickly add tools such as Cases, Knowledge, Live Chat, SOS, and Tap-to-Call to their mobile and Web apps.
Posted May 27, 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
The former Disney leadership team member urges organizations to focus on improving their customer experiences.
Posted May 11, 2016
Messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and WeChat are becoming increasingly popular among consumers, and as the platforms introduce tools for companies, they are also becoming a route for customer support. Live chat has become quite popular as well, with companies deploying proprietary chat or implementing chat solutions from vendors such as Zendesk. But messaging apps and live chat tools have limitations from a customer service standpoint. That's why newcomer LiveNinja just secured $2 million to continue developing a hybrid tool that brings together the best of both.
Posted May 06, 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
Effective self-service functionality can make a company's customer experience stand out, and solid search capabilities play a key role in ensuring that customers quickly find the resources they need. With the introduction of Coveo's new Sitecore native search app, Coveo for Sitecore Pro Cloud Edition (as well as an on-premises version of the same tool), companies can add context to customers' searches and improve the relevance of the content that is returned in a search.
Posted April 29, 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
At its developer conference this week, Facebook introduced bots on Messenger, an automated response system for customer support and other e-commerce interactions. The chatbots are powered by Messenger's updated Send and Receive API, which enables the platform to not only support text, but also other types of content such as images and links. Call-to-action buttons will also be available on the updated platform, according to Facebook.
Posted April 15, 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
After relying on email customer support for six years, Uber is ditching the channel in favor of in-app self-service. As the company expands globally, email is proving to be an unsustainable support route, especially in countries such as India where email is not widely available. The redesigned help function within the app will now replace email and will tackle the most common questions and concerns that riders and drivers have, including giving riders easy access to passenger ratings.
Posted April 08, 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
TeamSupport CEO Robert Johnson reveals the company's latest customer support updates and future product plans. Johnson talked about the ability to incorporate video and screen shots into its chat offering, as well as future product plans, such as a more customized Web portal for customer support. (Featured on destinationCRM.com.)
Posted April 04, 2016
Millennials are more likely to file customer complaints than other generations, even Baby Boomers, according to a report from J.D. Power. The study of more than 600,000 consumers revealed that Millennials have a lower tolerance for customer service issues, errors, and delays than Boomers,tend to value effective issue resolution more than their older counterparts, and tend to reward brands that solve customer service challenges with their loyalty.
Posted April 01, 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
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
Known for extensive regulations and customer processes, the financial services industry has strict onboarding procedures called Know Your Customer (KYC) that add complexity and time to customer experiences. To streamline the process while ensuring that banks continue to observe all required regulations, Pegasystems today introduced a client lifecycle management (CLM) tool that speeds up the onboarding process.
Posted March 21, 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
At the Enterprise Connect conference earlier this week, Avaya introduced Zang, a cloud communications platform that supports application development, embeds capabilities from outside solutions such as Salesforce.com, and offers a turnkey application called Zang Spaces.
Posted March 11, 2016
LiveOps Cloud today unveiled the next generation of its CxEngage platform, a contact center-as-a-service (CCaaS) solution designed to help organizations provide quality customer service on a global level. (Featured on DestinationCRM.com.)
Posted March 08, 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
For years, Apple has made an effort to avoid establishing a major presence on social media, but on Thursday, the company broke its social silence by launching a Twitter customer support account. The launch comes on the heels of Twitter's rollout of additional customer service tools, as both Apple and Twitter acknowledge the social channel's central role in modern customer service.
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
From silly GIFs to sophisticated branded content, video has been exploding online but hasn't really entered the enterprise feedback management space. With its video feedback solution, InMoment is turning video into a key Voice of the Customer (VoC) channel and enabling companies to use customers' video testimonies to gain insight into the customer experience.
Posted February 26, 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
Twitter's stock is hurting, and CEO Jack Dorsey has been making an effort to set the social network back on course with new features, including a suite of customer service tools that play to one of Twitter's greatest strengths. Earlier this week, Twitter updated its Direct Message capability with deep links, which enable users to send private messages to businesses quicker and more effectively.
Posted February 19, 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