From the “first EU sovereign” CCaaS solution to a $185MN Microsoft megadeal, here are some extracts from our most popular news stories over the last seven days.
NICE Claims CXone as the “First EU Sovereign” CCaaS Platform
NICE has announced that its CXone solution is the CCaaS industry’s first EU sovereign platform.
In doing so, the vendor claims the offering will enable enterprises from all verticals in the EU to satisfy regulatory and compliance requirements.
To accomplish this, NICE partnered with data centers and cloud providers that meet EU market needs, regulatory and compliance requirements, and the BSI C5 criteria catalog.
Sharing the news, Barry Cooper, President of the CX Division at NICE, said:
We are pleased to announce CXone as an EU Sovereign cloud platform allowing organizations to further accelerate their cloud adoption and take another big step in their journey to deliver next-gen digital CX while maintaining compliance amid the most stringent of regulations.
NICE also revealed it has invested heavily in Network Operations Centres (NOCs), support, and development resources in the EU market.
As a result, all data passing through the CXone platform will stay within the EU.
Customers will also have controls and oversight of their data that has not previously been available in the market.
NICE describes CXone as the “world’s number one cloud-native customer experience platform.”
Meanwhile, the latest G2 Enterprise Grid, Gartner Magic Quadrant, and Forrester Wave each consider NICE a CCaaS market leader. (Read on…).
Teleperformance Strikes $185MN Megadeal with Microsoft to Launch GenAI Solution
Teleperformance sent shockwaves across the customer experience BPO space, striking a $185MN deal with Microsoft to release a proprietary contact center generative AI tool.
The TP GenAI tool leverages Microsoft Corp’s Azure OpenAI to automate simple low-value tasks for customer service teams.
While reports do not go much deeper, these tasks likely include auto-summarizing customer conversations.
Yet, the tool likely goes significantly further than auto-summarization alone, with Teleperformance’s handle times dropping 25 percent post-implementation.
Those gains enabled the BPO’s team to reduce email response times by 20 percent.
According to Reuters, Teleperformance also achieved the following results:
A 90 percent improvement in accurately addressing customer needs, a 35 percent increase in sales conversions, and near real-time insights on customer interactions.
However, perhaps most interestingly, Teleperformance now predicts it will automate 20-30 percent of its processes with the help of TP GenAI over the next three years.
As the BPO market remains primarily a space of outsourcing the role of live agents, expect a considerable drop in headcount when outsourcers mechanize 20-30 percent of the work.
That brings many possible benefits, including potential cost savings for clients – which may give Teleperformance an edge over its competitors in the short term. (Read on…).
Five9 Dives Deeper on Digital Engagement, Conversational AI, & Self-Service
Five9 has unveiled its latest release wave, which includes an expansion of its digital engagement, conversational AI, and self-service capabilities.
In doing so, it is updated its Intelligent Virtual Agent (IVA), released a new Broadcast SMS solution, and unveiled fresh number management tools, amongst other moves.
Driving the CCaaS provider’s innovation is the demand for convenient customer service experiences, which 69 percent of Americans call a “key factor” in retaining their loyalty to a company or brand, according to a 2023 ACA study.
In order to provide these quality customer service experiences, Five9 believes that enterprises must create fluid experiences.
Sarika Prasad, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Five9, explained how Five9 can help companies achieve this:
To meet these customer needs, Five9 is excited to announce a range of powerful features, that are offered to empower businesses to deliver exceptional service and drive customer satisfaction.
“Our suite of enhancements covers various categories, catering to the diverse needs of modern contact centers.”
A New Broadcast SMS Solution
Five9 Broadcast SMS enables companies to send bulk SMS messages to specific contacts, resulting in streamlined and proactive outreach.
Its global reach for outbound SMS covers 180 countries, ensuring cost-effective and hassle-free outbound communication. (Read on…).
Twilio Deploys Frame AI’s Customer Intelligence Platform
Twilio is adding Frame AI’s customer intelligence platform, which provides AI insights and recommendations to enhance contact centre operations and customer experiences.
Frame AI’s platform will be integrated with Twilio’s cloud-based digital engagement solution, Twilio Flex.
The new partnership with Frame AI will complement Twilio’s CustomerAI solution, launched earlier this month, which embeds generative AI into its Customer Engagement Platform.
CustomerAI embeds large language models with rich customer data into Twilio Flex to create platform-wide improvements, assisting service, sales, and marketing departments.
Meera Vaidyanathan, VP of Product at Twilio Flex, said: “The contact center experience is one of the most important touch points for businesses. If you are not personalizing these experiences, you are likely losing customers.
“Over half of customers say they will become repeat customers after a personalized experience, a 7 percent increase year over year, according to Twilio’s recent State of Personalization Report.
Vaidyanathan continued: “Customers’ expectations are skyrocketing while businesses are needing to cut costs.
“Decision makers across industries are looking for ways to do more with less.
Flex and Frame AI can enable contact centre managers to drive down costs for operation while also improving the end-to-end experience for consumers.
“This is our vision for CustomerAI, to transform businesses’ customer relationships and unlock their full potential.” (Read on…).
