2022 has proved a transformative year for Zoom’s enterprise business, growing 27 percent YoY, per its latest earnings call.
The launch of the Zoom Contact Center, Zoom ONE, and Zoom IQ for Sales has fuelled this – with the vendor striving to become a platform business.
Indeed, it is seemingly making good progress, which Zoomtopia 2022 celebrates.
However, the event also provides Zoom with the platform to share its final innovations of the year, of which there are several.
Indeed, Ben Neo, Head of Enterprise Sales EMEA at Zoom Phone, discussed many of the most exciting announcements with CX Today ahead of time. These included the launch of:
Below, Neo shares his thoughts about each while introducing how they work and how they could benefit Zoom’s enterprise customers.
The Zoom Kiosk
With this new feature, individuals can walk up to a physical kiosk and use a touch screen to self-serve their queries. If it’s not possible, they route directly to a helpdesk via video call.
Zoom has started to implement these as internal kiosks within businesses, which route through to an IT helpdesk, allowing support staff to work remotely.
As a result, businesses does not need to establish a physical IT presence in particular locations. Instead, they can install a kiosk.
Sharing more, Neo says:
If the contact escalates from the kiosk to the IT team, the user routes through to a team member who is likely to have the right skill set for their particular problem.
As such, when it cannot automate the entire contact, the kiosk still automates a significant chunk of the user’s journey, passing them through to the best-placed human.
An integration between the Zoom Kiosk and Zoom Contact Center facilitates this process.
There is also the potential for broader use cases, such as in-store kiosks, where the contact center operates the customer service desk.
The Zoom Virtual Agent
Following its Solvvy acquisition earlier this year, Zoom will soon release a chatbot, which customers can deploy on their websites.
Powered by machine learning and natural language understanding, the chatbot connects to various data sources to solve more customer queries and offer personalized service.
Moreover, by adding a chatbot to their websites, Zoom customers can access another channel, extending their capabilities.
“It’s something our customers have been asking for,” adds Neo. “It’s also no-code, making it easier to deploy, with super rich around it.”
With the Zoom Virtual Agent, businesses may also deploy a 24/7 support system, which continuously improves, feeding from conversation transcripts, knowledge articles, and FAQs.
Zoom aims to make the solution generally available in 2023.
New Innovations with ServiceNow
Zoom has extended its relationship with ServiceNow. Already teaming up on conversational AI to support IT teams, the new integration takes the relationship much further.
Indeed, the two brands have joined forces to launch three new offerings.
First is the Zoom Contact Center for ServiceNow, which allows agents to manage their interactions directly from the ServiceNow app.
Second is the ServiceNow Employee Center for Zoom, an offering that brings the ServiceNow employee center experience into the Zoom desktop client.
Last but not least comes a Ticket Collaboration with Zoom Team Chat solution. With this, agents can resolve issues quickly with live collaboration in Zoom Team Chat, capturing the conversation history in a ServiceNow ticket.
This final innovation allows Zoom to offer similar swarming features as Microsoft and Salesforce.
These solutions highlight just how well the two vendors can work together to serve the enterprise, especially with both building a similar reputation for user-friendly software.
However, Zoomtopia 2022 also shines a light on other partnerships, with Zoom striving to increase interoperability within its CCaaS platform.
Zendesk is another excellent example, with a new integration that supports back-end processes, ticketing, and service automation use cases.
While Zoom already integrates with Salesforce to support sales use cases, the vendor also reinstated its desire to strengthen these ties and further enhance service experiences.
Noting this, Neo stated: “We will continue to bring out more integrations in the coming months.”
The Zoom IQ Virtual Coach
Having launched Zoom IQ for Sales earlier this year, Zoom has begun to build its own conversational analytics tool that strips actionable insights from transcripts of sales calls.
In doing so, it tracks keywords, sentiment, engagement levels, and more.
Now, with Zoom IQ Virtual Coach, it is taking this further, creating a virtual training ground for sales personnel to hone their craft.
To do so, it harnesses AI to simulate various sales situations within this coaching environment. Sellers can then perfect their pitch, gain feedback, and learn from real-time content tips, which they can leverage during conversations with prospects.
Discussing the benefits of Zoom IQ Virtual Coach, Neo states: “It gives a rich reporting capability for companies to look back and assess how effective a call was, and whether it was delivered in an easy, conversational manner that helps our customers.”
That’s what this is doing; it’s trying to help you improve.
More Announcements from Zoom
Aside from the core CX news, Zoom will also grab headlines after releasing Mail and Calendar Services – directly integrated with the Zoom platform.
In doing so, it looks to go head-to-head with Microsoft and Google – which it is also doing in the CCaaS market.
However, in the interest of interoperability, it is also integrating popular email and calendar services directly into the Zoom app.
Other significant announcements include:
- Zoom Spots: Integrated within Zoom ONE, this co-working space enables inclusive discussions within hybrid working environments.
- Zoom Developer Platform Updates: These support developers in provisioning and managing apps within Zoom while allowing them to monetize their own app creations.
- Zoom for Creators: Users can now enjoy a curated experience for creating live and recorded content, which they can stream from Zoom.
- Zoom Team Chat and Zoom Phone Enhancements: Translations and in-meeting chats will now appear in Zoom Team Chat. The channel will also integrate with Zoom Phone, adding chat to voice conversations, allowing teams to multitask and solve problems on-the-fly.
Hear More from Zoom
To get a head start on all the news from Zoomtopia 2022, CX Today reached out to Ben Neo and recorded an exclusive interview that previewed many of the most exciting announcements.
Check it out below, as we delve deeper into some of the most eye-catching innovations, Zoom’s vision for customer experience, and hints its future plans for the enterprise.
