The following is an an event recap from Aberdeen’s VP & Principal Analyst, Contact Center & Customer Experience Management, Omer Minkara. Follow him: @omerminkara, LinkedIn
Last week, I joined Verint’s analyst days event in the Washington D.C area. The event provided an opportunity for many insightful conversations with company executives and customers. The CX and contact center space is changing rapidly and while Verint plays in the space, it’s also active in the back-office space as evidenced by numerous discussions highlighting use of technology such as WFE and automation in the back-office. This post provides a brief summary of my key takeaways:
Celia Fleischaker, the CMO of the company has opened the event by highlighting that despite the recessionary pressures companies across many industries face, elevating CX is still a priority for business leaders. She then shared several findings and observations noting that the Engagement Capacity Gap™ -which is how Verint refers to the gap between buyer expectations and a company’s resources – as an ongoing challenge firms are trying to address to satisfy current and potential clients. Fleischaker noted that budget constraints are the current top challenge firms face when pursuing initiatives designed to narrow the gap, and that forward-thinking firms recognize the financial and operational benefits of doing so which is why they continue to bolster activities in this area.
Dan Bodner, CEO of Verint echoed similar observations during his session. He noted that the company is agnostic to platforms its customers use, and that Verint capabilities integrate with numerous platform providers (e.g., CRM) to enable firms with relevant capabilities in the contact center, CX and back-office space. Bodner emphasized that as CX programs mature, business leaders recognize that simply adding more channels into the CX channel-mix is not the right answer for creating happy customers. Rather, firms must focus on enabling customers to use the channels that are most convenient and preferred by each client to meet their needs – while ensuring that these interactions whether they be self-service or assisted service remain consistent and efficient.
Another important topic discussed at the event by numerous speakers, including Bodner, Jaime Meritt, CPO and Rob Scudiere, CTO was the Verint Engagement Data Hub. The data hub enables companies to ingest and export data from and across various systems and is designed to manage not just customer data, but also activity data and workforce data. On technology, Bodner also noted that the company had made significant advances in migrating users to the cloud – a reflection of data observed through Aberdeen’s research on the contact center space as well where firms are rapidly migrating to the cloud for reasons such as scalability, predictable costs etc.
Daniel Ziv, VP of Go to Market Strategy for Speech & Text Analytics provided a detailed overview of interaction analytics capabilities. He noted that companies are increasingly relying on voice and text interactions to serve customers and that analytics paired with AI and automation helps rapidly scale these activities by driving greater intelligence within each interaction. He also shared activities where firms can use speech and text analytics in combination with AI for category detection and creation in order to monitor and adapt to rapidly changing business conditions affecting customer behavior.
Digital was another important element of the sessions at the event. Heather Richards, VP of GTM Strategy for Digital-First Engagement Products noted this isn’t just about customer experiences. Rather, there’s also the workforce experiences influenced by adoption and use of digital tools. To this point, she emphasized the evolving role of knowledge management paired with automation and AI to empower employees both in the contact center and the back-office with relevant content to excel in doing their jobs. Besides assisted service and back-office use cases, knowledge management is also vital for firms to boost self-service success by providing customers the right knowledge at the right time. In fact, Richards alluded to bots and agents working seamlessly for service delivery where customers can use one or both methods to receive service without experiencing an erosion in the quality and consistency of CX.
On the workforce side, Dave Singer, VP of GTM Strategy for Workforce Engagement highlighted the company’s one workforce approach – one that refers to enabling firms to manage the contact center and back-office employees through shared capabilities such as forecasting, scheduling, next-best action guidance and quality monitoring. Singer noted that as companies continue operating in an increasingly remote environment, it’s more important than ever now that firms can get employees productive quickly after hire and onboarding. He also noted the need for more real-time advanced coaching and training to ensure improving employee performance and engagement levels. Another interesting topic Singer discussed was gig-economy employees who are third-party contractors that work for firms on-demand if and when the firm needs their services. He emphasized that gig workers have now become a part of both contact center and back-office activities as well as banks with physical branches. Those firms with gig workers need to quickly onboard and train those workers but also need to efficiently monitor performance in order to decide which workers to continue working with as third-party providers.
It was also very helpful to hear from John Bourne, SVP of Global Channels & Alliances about the company’s strategic partnerships and how Verint is partnering with various channel and alliance organizations. Bourne reiterated trends such as the increased move to digital, open platform and effective use of data as common themes involved in conversations with partners.
Two customers also presented: IHG Hotels and Florida Power & Light. Each discussed their use of different Verint capabilities with the former highlighting how the hospitality chain is leveraging AI and IVAs to manage guest experiences and the latter noting use of advanced analytics and automation to quickly determine changes in business conditions (e.g., hurricanes) and proactively adapt service delivery to address evolving customer needs.
Overall, the analyst days were packed with insights on the current and future state of contact center and CX activities. It was important for Verint to highlight the role of the back-office and branches in the overall CX delivery process, as poor operational activities are among the top reasons for inbound contact center traffic. So, firms aiming to boost CX results must master not only meeting and exceeding the expectations of the modern buyer but also streamline operational activities to minimize inefficiencies and client frustration.
Please share your take on the above observations. What trends and changes are you observing as key factors influencing contact center, CX and back-office activities in the 2023 (and beyond)?
VP & Principal Analyst
Contact Center & Customer Experience Management, Aberdeen
Follow: @omerminkara
