From a massive CCaaS acquisition to news from one of the biggest vendor events in CX, here are some extracts from our most popular news stories over the last seven days.
NICE to Acquire LiveVox for a Reported $350M Fee
NICE has moved to acquire fellow CCaaS provider LiveVox for a reported $350MN fee.
While NICE did not disclose that figure, prominent CX Analyst Nicolas de Kouchkovsky took to LinkedIn to reveal the supposed price tag.
Yet, putting the price tag aside, NICE’s motivation seems to be soaking up LiveVox’s outbound capabilities and expertise.
Indeed, fellow analysts have also noted how the CCaaS Magic Quadrant leader will benefit from gaining one of the most advanced outbound dialers in the space.
Despite CXone already having such a dialer, it has not made any significant investment or R&D in the area since releasing its Personal Connection Outbound Dialer in 2013.
Now, it has skipped ahead of the queue to pair its often lauded inbound offering with a premier outbound service to further its CCaaS leadership claims.
Moreover, the vendor has revealed its plans to use this as a platform to spread conversational AI “across all types of engagements”. (Read on…).
Zoom Unveils Game-Changing Innovations at Zoomtopia 2023
At Zoomtopia 2023, the company showcased a plethora of innovations aimed at redefining both employee and customer experiences, all underpinned by cutting-edge AI technology.
A Quantum Leap in Features
In 18 months, Zoom has rolled out over 600 new features into its Contact Center, transforming it into a powerhouse for customer experience.
The recent launch of the Workforce Engagement Management Suite further amplifies this, offering a comprehensive solution for agent coaching and forecasting.
Zoom Docs: The New Frontier of Collaboration
One of the most buzzworthy announcements was Zoom Docs, a direct competitor to Google Docs. Designed with AI at its core, Zoom Docs offers a modular workspace for documentation, project management, and much more.
AI-Powered Customer Experience
Zoom’s AI Expert Assist is set to revolutionize customer service. This feature leverages AI to provide real-time, contextual actions and suggestions to customer service agents. It’s like having an expert looking over your shoulder, but less creepy and more helpful. (Read on…).
Zendesk Expands Its Generative AI Capabilities, Announces New Safeguards & Controls
Zendesk has expanded its customer service suite with new generative AI (GenAI) capabilities.
First, GenAI will infuse its virtual agents, allowing them to automate queries they’ve had no training to handle by leveraging various contact center knowledge sources.
Next, it has expanded its auto-summarization feature to cover voice alongside digital channels.
Those auto-summaries will feed through to the CRM – accelerating post-call processing – and include AI-generated insights, like customer sentiment data.
Such sentiment data may then fuel other AI engines to create automated, proactive customer retention campaigns – in another example of AI unlocking data to feed other AI models.
Back to the announcement… Zendesk will also expand its intent detection tooling across further industries, including insurance and travel/tourism.
In doing so, it allows businesses to use GenAI to more accurately track their demand drivers.
The helpdesk juggernaut also promises to provide AI to help admins and managers customize their CX solutions.
While the vendor didn’t dive deeper on this, GenAI is changing how businesses develop CX solutions. Instead of using drag-and-drop interfaces, GenAI-powered platforms allow users to enter natural language prompts to more simply build and customize solutions. (Read on…).
MTN Cuts Its Contact Volumes by 40 Percent After Deploying the Genesys Cloud CX Platform
MTN has partnered with Genesys and Accenture to migrate its contact center operations to the cloud.
The African telecoms giant has operations across the continent and is beginning to deploy the Genesys Cloud CX Platform across each.
After doing so in South Africa, it has already recorded a 40 percent year-on-year reduction in call volumes across the country.
MTN has utilized the vendor’s AI and automation capabilities to achieve these results.
For instance, it now leverages natural language processing (NLP) to better understand its demand drivers and customer preferences.
Combining this with machine learning, the vendor also unlocks real-time insights and analytics to assist in decision-making.
MTN’s Group Chief Information Officer, Nikos Angelopoulos, spoke about the anticipated benefits of the solution:
“As we navigate the complexities of a digital world, this transition to a leading-edge cloud-native Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) solution serves as a cornerstone for reimagining customer care.
Our collaboration with Accenture and Genesys produced a scalable and adaptable solution that empowers our agents to better serve customers and positions us for long-term growth and operational efficiency.
MTN Group offers voice, data, fintech, digital, enterprise, wholesale, and API services to over 292 million customers across 19 markets in Africa and Asia. (Read on…).
