Every business or IT leader I talk to today has customer experience (CX) improvement as one of their top initiatives. My research shows that 95% of companies now compete on CX versus only 22% a mere five years ago. While there is no silver bullet to improve CX, AI is viewed as an enabler of change allowing companies to deliver differentiated experiences.
Last week, Avaya announced that its president and chief executive officer, Alan Masarek, will retire at the end of the calendar year (2024). His successor, Patrick Dennis, will take the helm and steer Avaya in its next phase. Mr. Dennis is an accomplished CEO with experience in enterprise software, SaaS, cybersecurity, and communications. He is currently the CEO of Venafi, a security vendor being acquired by CyberArk.
NICE recently held its Interactions user event under the hot and sunny skies of Las Vegas. Over the years, NICE has used Interactions as a platform for big news, and the 2024 edition was no different. At the event, the company announced its new 1CX product which offers customers a full unified communications as a service (UCaaS) suite for the low cost of $5 a month.
Last week, Zingly.ai emerged from stealth mode with its “Collaborative Customer Experience” (CCX) platform to rethink how businesses deal with customers. Industry veterans from Avaya, Five9, Glia, and Talkdesk are leading Zingly, whose platform merges generative AI (gen AI), digital interactions, and telephony. The platform is designed for businesses that want to offer personalized services to their customers, which should be almost all companies.
We’ve all faced the frustration of interactive voice response (IVR), which often fails to address specific problems and can be highly irritating. IVR systems make getting through to an agent difficult, leading to a poor customer experience (CX). At Customer Contact Week (CCW) Las Vegas 2024, Talkdesk launched two new generative AI (Gen AI) tools that address the challenges associated with traditional IVRs.