In CCaaS market reports by prominent analysts – such as Gartner, Forrester, and Ventana Research – NICE always seems to achieve leader status.
During recent years, NICE has cemented this status, and CEO Barak Eilam credits its longstanding strategy “to become THE CX Hub in the market, powered by AI.”
As part of an exclusive interview with CX Today, Eilam delved deeper into this focus – and where the LiveVox acquisition fits in.
“We’ve been investing over the years to strengthen and broaden the capabilities of CXone in every aspect, covering types of interactions, knowledge, data, and so on,” he said.
“Proactive outreach is part of that, and LiveVox will further strengthen this capability of CXone.
[Together] we are further advancing and revolutionizing how proactive outreach is done by companies.
As Eilam suggests, LiveVox offers an advanced outbound dialer, an area NICE has placed little emphasis on since the 2013 release of its Personal Connection Outbound Dialer.
However, this acquisition allows NICE to leapfrog many other providers – as it aims to bring together the best in inbound and outbound contact center capabilities onto one platform.
Read on to learn more about how NICE will do so, or check out the video interview with Eilam below.
Eilam: We Wanted to Join Forces with the Best
NICE first stepped into the CCaaS space in 2016. Eilam notes that the business looked for the market leader and acquired inContact. “We thought they had the best technology out there,” he said.
In a similar way, there are several players in the outbound business, and we wanted to join forces with the best… and LiveVox has by far the best technology.
That technology will merge with NICE’s inbound capabilities on a single platform – with Enlighten AI running across it.
Moreover, the AI will further advance outbound operations by spotlighting insights such as: when is a proactive notification most likely to be successful for this specific customer?
Then, there is the Enlighten Journey Orchestration solution that pulls everything together.
Finally, it’s worth highlighting how LiveVox is a favorite provider amongst BPO operations, a space that NICE will look to further expand within.
What Next for LiveVox Customers?
“LiveVox has an outstanding customer base,” said Eilam. “They are catering to hundreds of leading brands around the globe. And, under the NICE umbrella, those customers can expect further and better service.
As NICE is a larger company with a lot of resources, we’ll provide further acceleration to their pace of innovation.
“They can also enjoy better integration – and the same is true for NICE customers, who will now be able to enjoy both offerings together.”
That proposition may seem enticing, specifically to prospective customers who recently read The Contact Center Suites Buyers Guide 2023 by Ventana research.
In that report, Ventana ranked NICE and LiveVox as the first- and third-best vendors across the CCaaS space for delivering ROI.
NICE also achieved top marks for “capability”, “reliability”, and “usability” – rubberstamping many of its credentials, which LiveVox customers may wish to dig deeper into.
Eilam Hints at Further Acquisitions
“Over the past ten years, since I became CEO of the company, we’ve gone through about 20 acquisitions,” said Eilam.
We are known to be a very efficient, effective, and acquisitive company. I believe that will continue as we bring our customers not just organic capabilities but a variety of non-organic options that allow them to enjoy a much better, wider offering.
NICE’s acquisition of ContactEngine in 2021 is another excellent example, which heightened its conversational AI capabilities.
At the time, NICE vowed to redefine proactive conversational AI, a statement that aligns with the LiveVox acquisition and highlights how it is part of a much broader, longer-term strategy.
According to Eilam, that strategy is gaining momentum. “Our direction is to infuse CXone with more and more capabilities powered by Enlighten,” said Eilam. “I don’t remember seeing us innovate at such a rapid pace.
“Every month, we have dozens of new capabilities introduced into CXone, and that will continue in 2023 and beyond.”
To dive deeper into the most exciting recent announcements from NICE, check out our articles:
- NICE Introduces New Integration Hub, Makes CXone Available on Azure
- NICE Launches Industry Benchmarks, Brings GenAI to Customer Experience Measurement
- NICE Launches ‘Groundbreaking’ Generative AI Solution