Cyara’s Acquisition of Spearline Is Excellent News for the CX Assurance Market

“We’re evolving from CX assurance partners to CX transformation collaborators,” exclaims new Cyara SVP Kevin Buckley

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Cyara's Acquisition of Spearline Is Excellent News for the CX Assurance Market - CX Today News
Contact CenterNews Analysis

Published: June 28, 2023

Charlie Mitchell

Many CX Assurance firms claim to deliver end-to-end testing. Yet, how many actually do?

Until now, this answer was zero – as many large enterprises that have previously partnered with three or four assurance vendors – for voice, digital channels, and conversational AI – will likely confirm.

Earlier this year, that all changed.

Indeed, two goliaths of CX Assurance – Cyara and Spearline – came together to change the game, signaling a new chapter for this space.

“We have established ourselves as the global leader in all areas of CX Assurance and Transformation,” said Kevin Buckley, former Spearline CEO and now SVP of Cyara. “No one else in the industry can match what we can do.”

Certainly, following the convergence of the two offerings, Cyara now provides the deepest portfolio in the market. That includes global in-country dialing, customer journey monitoring, load testing, voice of the customer, conversational AI optimization, etc.

And now all of this is available through one supplier.

One Provider to Lead the Pack

Spearline was perhaps best known for its Voice Assure solution. With this, organizations can continuously test and monitor their voice connections across global, in-country locations and telecom carriers. This provides real-time visibility into call quality metrics, including audio quality, latency, jitter, and packet loss.

Such information allows teams to identify outages quickly and efficiently, and they can also ascertain whether a problem is isolated or if it is a more widespread issue. This is critical information for finding a fast resolution.

Spearline was also highly regarded in SMS and WebRTC testing, particularly since its acquisitions of testRTC and Callstats.io in 2021 and 2022 respectively.

Nevertheless, that summary just skims the surface. When combined with Cyara’s offerings – Velocity, Pulse, Cruncher, and Botium solutions – all through a single provider – that is where the magic happens.

After all, enterprises are already looking for the ability to complete end-to-end testing from a single interface.

Nonetheless, this is only the beginning for Cyara. The company’s ambition transcends the CX Assurance space of today and leads the market in a new direction based on evolving customer needs.

United by One Vision

Conventionally, organizations first contact a CX Assurance provider to conduct load testing, which assesses whether their new platform will perform appropriately during peak periods of demand.

Now, that is changing. As Buckley stated:

Companies are reaching out to Cyara as a thought leader. They want advice from people who know and are experienced with what works.

Prior to the acquisition, both companies were working on expanding their expertise and portfolios to support all types of contact center transformation projects.

Whether that was by accelerating the testing of voicebots, omnichannel strategies, or something else, both aspired to evolve from Assurance partners to CX Transformation leaders.

However, each had gaps within their product suites to provide a holistic solution that enabled them to be that end-to-end provider.

For instance, Spearline had just gotten started on conversational AI testing. Meanwhile, Cyara faced hurdles in its bid to increase its global presence.

Yet, with one fell swoop, Cyara has become the market trailblazer in both regards.

“As enterprises commit to their contact center transformation, we will support them in every step of their journey,” continued Buckley.

With Great Presence Comes Great Power

In this market, a vendor’s global presence can often be the deciding factor when it comes to large contracts with global enterprises.

Spearline recognized this many years ago and began developing its robust international network of hosted services – which now spans over 80 countries, with servers in each and over 250 points of presence (POPs).

According to Buckley: “This allows Cyara’s customers to test internationally and safeguard their journeys.”

For example, let’s take a US contact center that is located in The Philippines. If an individual from a different country, such as the UK, makes a call, that call will traverse various carriers and potentially even multiple countries before reaching its final destination in The Philippines.

Through testing and monitoring, these global contact centers can test their entire customer journey from locations all around the world and through different carrier routes.

Such an ability has proved a significant differentiator and many Cyara customers are already leveraging this capability.

What’s more, it supports their operations in ways they would have never before imagined…

Servicing the AI-Powered Contact Center of Tomorrow

As conversational AI evolves, more businesses are working to apply it to their voice channel.

Nevertheless, Buckley warns:

If the audio quality feeding into those voicebot models is poor, then the resolution rates they deliver will drop sharply.

“As a result, more contact requests will funnel back to the contact center agents. That adds costs and additional resource requirements while frustrating customers and agents alike.”

This risk may seem minor, given speech recognition vendors often showcase excellent accuracy rates. Yet, these scores can vary significantly across different accents, dialects, and languages.

Now, as Cyara customers leverage the expanded global network, they can test whether a voicebot is worth the investment across various territories.

Moreover, these new findings will help teams to pinpoint which bot framework best suits particular countries and regions.

Finally, the solution will also be able to test the network connection, which is crucial. After all, even if the audio quality is excellent, connection issues could still scupper conversational AI implementations.

Combine all of this with Botium and the recently acquired CentraCX offerings, and Cyara is well-placed to support global organizations in delivering AI-fuelled contact center transformations.

Work With One Vendor, Not Four

“Organizations today are attempting to consolidate the number of vendors they have, and we allow that to happen,” concluded Buckley.

“Some enterprises have previously worked with four vendors to accomplish all their CX testing requirements; now they only need to work with one.”

That is quite the value proposition. After all, in March 2023 – before the acquisition – Forrester Consulting conducted a commissioned study on behalf of Cyara, based on a composite organization. This estimated that the Cyara Platform delivered an ROI of 336 percent.

With this acquisition, Cyara, the CX Assurance and CX Transformation leader, will now be able to get them there even faster.

To delve deeper into how and Cyara’s impressive portfolio, visit: cyara.com

 

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