RingCentral has announced the general availability of its new RingCX CCaaS platform in the US, Canada, and the UK.
The solution offers 1,000+ features at launch, with many powered by the RingSense conversational analytics solution and various other AI models.
Many of these aim to support contact center agents before, during, and after interactions.
Meanwhile, others offer self-service features for customers alongside automated contact scoring and monitoring for team leaders.
Moreover, RingCentral has designed the cloud-native platform with the future front of mind so it can innovate quickly as more waves of AI reach the contact center space.
That AI-first approach is already catching the eye, with over 50 customers selecting RingCX as their CCaaS platform of choice during its controlled availability.
One of those is a Fortune 500 company that will move 1,000+ agents over to the platform.
Yet, Sheila McGee-Smith, President & Principal Analyst of McGee-Smith Analytics, suggests there is a lot more to like about the platform than AI alone.
“There is a very sizable segment of the contact center market that is resource-constrained and does not have overly complex requirements,” she says.
“Lengthy application deployments involving unanticipated professional service costs can prevent these organizations from getting the customer interaction capabilities they need to be competitive and to effectively serve their customers.
With a robust feature set, predictable, easily understood pricing, and a simple deployment model, RingCX is well-positioned to address the needs of this underserved segment of the market.
The pricing structure is simple, with businesses paying $65 per agent per month, which helps to add predictability to contact center costs.
Voice, video, and 20+ digital channels come as part of that package – alongside other sought-after features, including GenAI summaries, real-time contact guidance, and unlimited domestic inbound and outbound minutes.
In addition, the simple deployment structure that McGhee-Smith mentions allows companies to deploy the platform in days, not weeks – as per RingCentral.
However, as is the case with new CCaaS platforms, some of the more expensive bells and whistles are missing.
As such, RingCentral will still partner with NICE CXOne for many of the more complex contact center use cases and large enterprise deployments.
Yet, there is a significant market that RingCX addresses, providing contact centers with the AI foundation to build from and a tight integration with RingCentral’s MVP suite.
Workforce Engagement Management In Beta
While RingCentral teased the launch of RingCX as part of its recent CEO transition announcement, the accompanying workforce engagement management (WEM) add-on is hot off the press.
Currently in beta, this delivers automated quality management and conversation analytics – via RingSense – to contact center managers.
Service leaders can uncover insights into customer intent, sentiment, and agent performance across every contact center conversation with these tools.
All this information allows contact centers to track their demand drivers, isolate automation opportunities, and pinpoint coaching gaps.
After identifying the latter, supervisors can give feedback and monitor agent progress by tracking their automated quality scores across relevant interactions.
An AI Coach also assists agents during live contacts by providing “behavioral coaching” and keeping agents engaged across every interaction.
Such agent support tools are coming increasingly to the fore, with AI and self-service snapping up simple customer queries, leaving agents with a deluge of more complex interactions.
Recognizing this trend, many RingCX customers will likely jump at the chance to install the add-on.
Nevertheless, there is not yet a mention of workforce management (WFM) – which covers contact center forecasting, agent scheduling, and intraday management.
Contact centers can look to RingCX’s new partner ecosystem to close that gap.
A RingCX Partner Ecosystem
To connect RingCX with other enterprise systems, eliminate data siloes, and supplement its native capabilities, RingCentral has announced the launch of the RingCX partner ecosystem.
Again, this highlights how – as Srini Raghavan, CPO of RingCentral – puts it:
RingCX flexes with the business, allowing decision-makers to adopt capabilities and evolve their experience on their timeline.
And, at launch, there are many prominent CX providers included within the new ecosystem.
For starters, partner integrations Salesforce and Zendesk are available to ensure a tight CCaaS-CRM connection.
Several conversational AI platforms are also included, such as the Gartner Magic Quadrant high-flyers Cognigy, Google, and Yellow.ai.
Other CX vendors include Balto – which offers a solution to bolster the real-time agent-assist capabilities within RingCentral – and Calabrio.
Calabrio is especially significant as a WFM leader, which can plug that gap within RingCX.
Yet, several others are likely to come, with RingCentral teasing additional integrations with HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, and ServiceNow. So, watch this space!
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