From groundbreaking new platforms to a 40,000-seat CCaaS megadeal, here are some extracts from our most popular news stories over the last seven days.
Genesys and Salesforce Announce a Joint Platform for CCaaS and CRM
Genesys and Salesforce have teamed up to announce a new solution: CX Cloud from Genesys and Salesforce.
The solution embeds contact center, journey orchestration, and workforce engagement management (WEM) features from Genesys Cloud CX into Salesforce Service Cloud.
In bringing these features to Service Cloud, Genesys aims to allow organizations to better understand customer conversations, behaviors, and other significant events across their journeys.
Doubling down on this aim, Olivier Jouve, Chief Product Officer at Genesys, stated: “To build the experiences customers and employees want today, businesses need to link their data, AI, and systems of engagement across their technology ecosystem.
Genesys and Salesforce are strongly positioned to enable joint customers to define the next generation of experience orchestration fueled by enriched insights and AI capabilities resulting from our platforms working in sync.
In combining CCaaS and CRM data into one platform, the vendors also hope to better power the new wave of AI solutions sweeping across the customer service space.
Those AI solutions include virtual agents, agent-assist tools, and all the latest GenAI-driven innovations touching the contact center market.
The potential of the CX Cloud from Genesys and Salesforce to power the next generation of these tools brings to mind a recent quote from Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce:
This AI revolution is really a data revolution.
Yet, alongside fueling future AI innovations, there are many more possible benefits from better synchronized CCaaS and CRM data.
More contextualized customer conversations, deeper analytics and reporting, and greater personalization across the customer experience are some of those that Genesys puts forward. (Read on…).
Sprinklr Clinches a 40,000-Seat CCaaS Megadeal with Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom will migrate its entire European customer service operations to Sprinklr Service.
The deal spans 11 countries, and – by the close of 2024 – more than 40,000 of Deutsche Telekom’s contact center agents will use Sprinklr’s CCaaS platform.
In winning the contract, the vendor – which is also gaining ground in the conversational AI space – will support Europe’s largest telco provider in moving away from its own set of legacy tools.
Excited to share the news in an earnings call, Ragy Thomas, CEO of Sprinklr, stated: “A transition to Sprinklr’s cloud-based solution will enable them to streamline operations and enhance efficiency while improving agent workflows and customers’ experiences.
The flexible architecture of Sprinklr’s CCaaS solution will enable Deutsche Telekom to integrate its contact center ecosystem across Europe and drive its consolidation and innovation strategy across the region.
Deutsche Telekom previously worked with the vendor to implement Sprinklr Marketing and Service in the German market. However, this expansion takes the relationship to a new stratosphere.
Moreover, it may surprise industry observers. After all, deals of this magnitude seldom go to vendors so new to the space, with Sprinklr first stepping onto the CCaaS scene in early 2022.
Yet, ever since, it has sunk significant resources into contact center innovation, evolving Sprinklr Service at a rate of knots and sensing an opportunity to disrupt an increasingly crowded market. (Read on…).
New Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights Is Generally Available
The new Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights platform, which brings together Dynamics 365 Marketing and Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, is now generally available.
Microsoft announced it would create such an offering at Microsoft Inspire 2023, and it has since decided to launch it as part of the existing Dynamics 365 Customer Insights solution.
The latest iteration of Customer Insights will provide organizations with access to the customer data platform and real-time marketing with customer journey orchestration.
Jayme Mesecher, Director of Product Marketing at Microsoft, wrote about the new Customer Insights in a Microsoft blog: “Today, we’re excited to share that the new Dynamics 365 Customer Insights is now generally available for purchase.
For our existing Dynamics 365 Marketing and Dynamics 365 Customer Insights customers, this change signals an acceleration into our “better together” story, where we’ll continue to invest in new capabilities that will enable stronger, insights-based marketing, making it easier for marketers and data analysts to glean insights from customer data.
The updated Customer Insights became generally available on September 1, at which time customers with the previous license for Marketing or Customer Insights will not experience any changes to the core functionality resulting from this product consolidation, apart from a change of product name.
Microsoft will introduce pricing options to give customers the ability to purchase both applications and select the capacity they need.
As a result, customers can choose to start with just one or both applications and then unlock further capabilities that they would like to scale as and when they need. (Read on…).
AWS Releases “Agentless” Voice Dialing for Amazon Connect
AWS has added “Agentless” voice dialing to its Amazon Connect Outbound Campaigns solution.
The feature allows contact centers to send high-volume, personalized voice notifications without involving live agents.
Those notifications may include appointment reminders, upcoming delivery notifications, and perhaps even post-contact follow-ups.
Moreover, service teams may use “Agentless” voice to build and kickstart customer journeys across multiple channels.
For instance, an automotive company could send an automated voice reminder to a customer that their MOT is due soon. Then, they could offer the option to pass the customer through to a voicebot, allowing them to schedule an appointment with the garage autonomously.
AWS has embedded capabilities from Amazon Pinpoint – AWS’s marketing communications service – to make such omnichannel use cases possible.
Yet, there are many more conceivable applications of “agentless” voice. (Read on…).
