Webex sees the future of customer experience as smart, proactive, and personalized.
From developing AI tools that differentiate service experiences to introducing solutions that personalize customer outreach, Webex is making technological advances to meet this vision and cement its position at the forefront of CX innovation.
Much of this centers on its CCaaS offering. As Gartner notes, Webex has “rejuvenated its contact center business in recent years with investments in research and development, sales, customer support, and marketing.”
This rejuvenation brings a massive opportunity for Cisco’s large installed base of legacy on-premises contact center customers to confidently transition to the cloud.
As Zeus Kerravala, Principal Analyst at ZK Research, told CX Today when comparing Webex’s CCaaS offering to that of Microsoft, Google, and Zoom:
I’d say Cisco Webex has the most complete offering right now. They’ve got a huge UC install base with Webex, and they’re able to leverage that.
Yet, it is not only through UCaaS and CCaaS that Webex is bringing its vision for CX to life…
CPaaS as a Steppingstone Into the Cloud
Webex is a trailblazer in the communications space, offering a collaboration portfolio that adds CPaaS to its UCaaS and CCaaS offerings.
Many vendors offer the latter two elements, but the addition of CPaaS proved critical in Webex achieving Best Contact Center Platform at the 2022 CX Awards.
Furthermore, CPaaS is proving an excellent first step for many enterprises in their journey to the cloud. As Lorrissa Horton, Senior Vice President and GM of Webex Calling and Contact Center, said:
For some customers, that first step is just adding digital channels to their existing on-prem contact center, and that’s kind of like dipping your toes into the cloud.
CPaaS enables this channel adoption alongside increased ease of integration and accessibility, which many on-premise contact centers cannot enjoy because of system constraints.
Horton adds that CPaaS is enabling these businesses to harness “the power of automation and deflection in areas [they’d] never imagined in their existing load.”
As a result, building smarter, proactive, personalized customer journeys is easier than ever before. Indeed, teams can create customer support flows that automate tasks like ID verification, appointment scheduling, and even payment. This helps dramatically reduce the number of phone calls that contact centers receive, with only a positive impact on customer experience.
Personalization and Smart Outreach Is Central to Webex’s Mission
“The entire customer journey is evolving. Consumers expect you to be smarter,” said Horton.
A central part of this is anticipating customer needs. Understanding critical demand drivers, identifying the root cause, and pinpointing creative solutions is critical to the forward-thinking contact center of tomorrow.
Webex is supporting this vision with advanced contact center analytics – which gets to grip with customer intent – and its CPaaS solution.
An excellent example of how Webex has harnessed these technologies is in its work with a prominent pharmaceutical player. Horton added:
They used Webex’s CPaaS solutions to send simple reminders to customers that their prescriptions might be running out and needed topping up. The customer then just had to say “yes or no”, which not only helped deflect a call to the contact center but created a better customer experience.
Such thinking – which combines the power of personalization and smart outreach – is still a rarity in the CX space. But, for Webex, it’s the future, with these use cases lowering costs and paving the way for happier customers.
Next-Generation Call Analytics and Conversational AI
One of the most essential yet overlooked pieces of the puzzle when it comes to stellar customer experience is figuring out why a call went south.
Often, a customer might be upset because the agent lacks knowledge or fails to offer common courtesies. Other times, technical issues, such as a drop in reception quality or a headset problem, mire the interaction.
To address these issues, Webex is developing technology that can accurately understand the sentiment of a conversation. Add this to its existing technology that tracks call quality, and a complete toolset for analyzing calls emerges.
“With sentiment analysis and all the work we’re doing on tone, we could also tell you if it was the agent or words being spoken on the call that made it go left,” said Horton.
Webex is even starting to use sentiment analysis before a contact reaches the agent. How? Through extracting topics from the transcription of spoken words to a voicebot fronting the IVR. It then routes the call in real-time to an agent with the appropriate expertise and skills.
Learn More About Webex and Its CX Software
In recent years, Webex has transformed from a UC platform to a collaborations portfolio that powers innovative customer experience. To discover more about its vision and ever-expanding portfolio, visit: www.webex.com
