News
News
- September 29, 2022
29 Sep'22
Digital customer experience top of mind for PGA Tour
The PGA Tour's head of fan engagement discusses the tech stack that makes the organization connect better with fans, sponsors, golf pros and more.
- September 27, 2022
27 Sep'22
Salesforce's Marc Benioff and Bret Taylor the latest co-CEO trial
Some software companies rule their worlds with co-CEOs for years. Other co-CEO arrangements don't last long. We consider the future of Salesforce's current chief executive duo.
- September 22, 2022
22 Sep'22
Microsoft Viva Sales CRM automation focuses on end users
Microsoft Viva Sales takes AI notes from calls and automates data entry and other routine tasks. It's the latest tech to improve the sales rep experience.
-
- September 21, 2022
21 Sep'22
Salesforce customers react as details about Genie emerge
Salesforce grows up by connecting all its clouds to one data platform. The hard part will be demonstrating value behind the investments it will require.
- September 20, 2022
20 Sep'22
Salesforce Genie integrates automation, CDP, AI features
Salesforce Genie delivers a suite of automation, analytics and customer data tools the company claims is one of its biggest innovations over its 20-plus year history.
- September 15, 2022
15 Sep'22
Salesforce new training goal: 20K new admins, developers
Salesforce partners with nonprofits and customers to mint more admins, developers and consultants needed to sustain the company's five-year growth plan.
- September 14, 2022
14 Sep'22
Salesforce adds automation features across Customer 360
Salesforce's upcoming Customer 360 features include automation tied together with CDP data for sales, marketing, service and e-commerce.
- September 13, 2022
13 Sep'22
NFTs can boost customer loyalty -- if people would chill out
Starbucks launched an NFT loyalty program, which could change the public's -- and marketers' -- attitude toward the technology. But most people still have reservations.
- September 08, 2022
08 Sep'22
HubSpot's growing CRM takes on Salesforce -- but not head-on
No one is saying that HubSpot is building a 'baby Salesforce' for small to medium-sized businesses. But it looks a lot like that is exactly what's happening.
- August 31, 2022
31 Aug'22
DOT dashboard, Biden regs address airline customer service
The U.S. Department of Transportation's new dashboard shines light on airline passenger rights, and President Biden proposes new rules to make fees more transparent.
-
- August 26, 2022
26 Aug'22
Cloud e-commerce revives product information management tech
E-commerce managers have dusted off a tech oldie: the PIM system, 1990s tech that predates the internet's mass adoption. The new tools, of course, are way cooler.
- August 22, 2022
22 Aug'22
Salesforce offers new pricing option with 'Easy' subscription
The Salesforce Easy subscription offers CRM, customer service and rudimentary email marketing in a self-service subscription and lower per-seat price.
- August 17, 2022
17 Aug'22
NI CMO: Marketing should lead corporate social responsibility
As Gen Z holds brands accountable for corporate social responsibility values, Ana Villegas, CMO at NI (National Instruments), makes the case that marketing teams should handle CSR.
- August 12, 2022
12 Aug'22
Third-party cookies remain as Google advertising in DOJ's sights
If Google gets sued by U.S. antitrust authorities on the grounds its advertising network is a monopoly, marketers need to plan for how it may affect their operations.
- August 10, 2022
10 Aug'22
Oracle CX layoffs: What customers should do right now
After the turmoil that has hit Oracle's customer experience division, here's what current enterprise customers need to do next to preserve their technology investments.
- August 10, 2022
10 Aug'22
Salesforce adds headless commerce capabilities
Salesforce enables 'composable commerce' -- headless e-commerce, where users bring their own interface designs -- for large brick-and-mortar retailers and online-only sellers.
- July 26, 2022
26 Jul'22
Oracle releases major Fusion Sales CRM update, facelift
Oracle Fusion Sales users get a new UX and new features, including microsites called 'digital sales rooms,' which parallel Microsoft and Salesforce sales collaboration features.
- July 25, 2022
25 Jul'22
SAP green CX tech aids sustainable retail, B2B sales
SAP users can tackle sustainable e-commerce -- and be accountable to customers wary of 'greenwashing' -- with a bundle of Qualtrics, CDP, e-commerce and other tech tools.
- July 19, 2022
19 Jul'22
Microsoft releases cloud contact center platform
Contact center platform technology buyers have another option: Microsoft assembles a CCaaS from Nuance, Power Platform, Teams and -- for those who need it -- Dynamics 365 tech.
- July 12, 2022
12 Jul'22
HubSpot releases free CMS with marketing, CRM integrations
HubSpot small-business users are the focus of free CMS, marketing automation and CRM features, after the company spent several release cycles wooing enterprise customers.
- July 11, 2022
11 Jul'22
Optimizely CEO talks roadmap plans, A/B testing and DXP
Optimizely CEO explains why the company bet big on digital marketers' perpetual need for A/B testing. Also: how content management systems morphed into experience tech.
- June 29, 2022
29 Jun'22
Salesforce users get more low-code automation, including RPA
Salesforce integrates MuleSoft RPA and Composer with Salesforce Flow, which avails low-code process automation and bot creation to line-of-business users.
- June 23, 2022
23 Jun'22
Microsoft Viva Sales takes on Salesforce-Slack tandem
The Salesforce-Microsoft rivalry reignites as CRM applications vendors focus on employee experience by automating tasks that subtract selling time from a sales rep's day.
- June 23, 2022
23 Jun'22
Salesforce Financial Services Cloud features focus on EX
Salesforce for Financial Services adds employee experience tools -- a nod to evolving digitization of banking, wealth management and insurance users' operations.
- June 20, 2022
20 Jun'22
AWS Amazon Connect adds case management tools
The AWS contact center as a service, Amazon Connect, previews tools to manage cases. The features will drive more self-service workflows based on case data.
- June 16, 2022
16 Jun'22
Salesforce Sales Cloud Unlimited Edition adds AI, automation
Pricing stays the same for Salesforce Sales Cloud's highest-level subscription, but formerly a la carte tools are now included that span AI-powered analytics and automation.
- June 14, 2022
14 Jun'22
Adobe adds CDP functionality for B2B use cases
Adobe catches up with the competition with the release of new customer data platform features for marketers, including a 'data clean room' and tools for B2B users.
- June 08, 2022
08 Jun'22
Salesforce moves forward with controversial NFT Cloud pilot
Salesforce integrates with TikTok and adds marketing and e-commerce features to its platform -- including NFT Cloud, which sparked controversy earlier this year.
- June 06, 2022
06 Jun'22
Contact center orchestration features on tap from Genesys
Genesys is set to productize contact center technology from LogMeIn Bold360, Exceed.ai and Pointillist acquisitions to better compete with Microsoft, Zoom and Salesforce.
- May 31, 2022
31 May'22
The Readability Consortium's lessons for marketing content
The University of Central Florida, Adobe and Google band together to study digital readability. Those who create marketing content can get an edge if they pay close attention.
- May 25, 2022
25 May'22
Lob launches direct mail automation platform
As direct mail makes a comeback, longtime API vendor Lob launches a web front end to automate physical mail campaigns directed by marketing automation data.
- May 20, 2022
20 May'22
Oracle plugs customer data platform into customer service
Oracle Service adds Unity CDP integration to afford contact center agents a historical view of customer interactions and new features.
- May 16, 2022
16 May'22
Customer experience technology's next phase as teams regroup
In this Q&A, Eastern Bank CX head Rich Dorfman discusses how the pandemic shifted approaches to tech, transformation, and measurement of customer and employee experience.
- May 11, 2022
11 May'22
Zendesk enhances CRM, low-code customer service chatbots
Zendesk's Answer Bot moves past the knowledge base and gets a low-code interface so that business users can orchestrate automated conversations.
- May 10, 2022
10 May'22
SAP reboots Service Cloud, adds retail recommerce
SAP venture-backed Feather by SAP integrates marketplaces for retail users to give their customers a place to resell goods they've bought from them.
- May 06, 2022
06 May'22
Square exec discusses metaverse, electronic payment trends
Millions of physical and online merchants use Square's payment processing services. We discuss retail tech trends with Roshan Jhunja, Square head of retail.
- May 02, 2022
02 May'22
Metaverse shopping 101, from Forever 21's Roblox store creator
The founder of the agency behind Forever 21's Shop City explains what it is -- and what it isn't -- and what retailing in the metaverse will eventually look like.
- April 29, 2022
29 Apr'22
Contact centers struggle to improve employee experience
AI, better workforce management tools and conversation intelligence are key technologies to help customer service teams get through the current rough patch.
- April 27, 2022
27 Apr'22
Salesforce-Slack sales, marketing, service integrations in beta
Slack integration apps for Salesforce Service Cloud, Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud move into beta; MuleSoft takes on API management and governance.
- April 27, 2022
27 Apr'22
Qualtrics hardwires sentiment analysis into contact center tools
Qualtrics beefs up its contact center offering by embedding new sentiment detection tools as well as social listening across review sites, social media and other digital channels.
- April 25, 2022
25 Apr'22
AI virtual assistant grooms skier experience at Snowbird
Using an AI-powered chatbot designed with the friendly likenesses of avalanche dogs, the famed Utah ski resort is able to quickly respond to customers' questions.
- April 22, 2022
22 Apr'22
Retailer: Informed humans still the hottest e-commerce trend
Sweetwater, the largest online audio gear and musical instrument retailer, uses AI to augment -- not replace -- its agents. Mike Clem, chief growth officer, explains why.
- April 15, 2022
15 Apr'22
Marketing to Gen Z takes new tech, channels, strategies
Gen Z consumers will change the world. Savvy, nimble brands know to give them digital platforms for sharing their values as corporate America catches up to their worldview.
- April 12, 2022
12 Apr'22
'CRM Analytics' Salesforce's new name for Tableau CRM
Salesforce refreshes the sales analytics package formerly known as Einstein Analytics by adding CRM-native features, a Slack app and vertical-specific integrations.
- April 06, 2022
06 Apr'22
Salesforce Marketing, Service Clouds add, rename features
Salesforce partners with Genesys, Google for telephony; adds AWS Contact Lens natively, among a raft of new features. Some are available now; some are coming in Summer '22 release.
- March 30, 2022
30 Mar'22
New Google Cloud retail tool targets search abandonment
The new tool is aimed at providing better results for online shoppers. It understands user intent and context, provides results for broad inquiries, and includes semantic search.
- March 29, 2022
29 Mar'22
It's coming: The wild world of metaverse shopping
Gap and PacSun lead the way in NFT experiments, as retailers and analysts ponder the revenue potential of selling virtual products in the metaverse.
- March 28, 2022
28 Mar'22
Recommerce, rebuilt digital experiences top of mind for stores
Brick-and-mortar retailers look to technology to compete with online counterparts and mold digital experiences to what resonated with consumers during the past two years.
- March 23, 2022
23 Mar'22
Oracle amps up field service management mobile app support
As customer service and field service converge, software giants still build functionality for techs visiting homes and businesses to work on devices and machines.
- March 22, 2022
22 Mar'22
Amazon Connect updates contact center workforce management
AWS's Amazon Connect contact center as a service platform adds machine learning workforce optimization to predict customer contact volume, as well as staffing numbers to cover it.
- March 21, 2022
21 Mar'22
Google, Twilio release CCaaS tools and integrations
Google Contact Center AI Platform bundles its own tech with partners' for a complete contact center package. Twilio, meanwhile, releases Flex Conversations.
- March 16, 2022
16 Mar'22
Adobe Experience Cloud messaging collaboration in the works
Adobe reveals potential roadmap features in development, which include a chat client that might span Adobe Experience Cloud apps and foster collaboration across teams.
- March 15, 2022
15 Mar'22
Salesforce AppExchange revamps user search, discovery
Salesforce updates AppExchange partner marketplace to add more effective search and surfacing of more appropriate results for users, as the app count tops 7,000.
- March 15, 2022
15 Mar'22
HubSpot gives customer service platform a makeover
HubSpot's refreshed contact center platform features self-service automation and Twilio telephony. The company hopes a fragmented market and user loyalty will spur its growth.
- March 09, 2022
09 Mar'22
Adobe Target adds more granular personalization features
Adobe's personalization engine adds AI tools and CDP connections for marketers to experiment with their cross-channel marketing campaigns for specific audiences.
- March 02, 2022
02 Mar'22
Salesforce releases Tableau CRM telco churn prediction AI
For telcos that use Communications Cloud, Salesforce adds an AI-powered tool that predicts customer churn, part of its vertical strategy in the wake of its Vlocity acquisition.
- February 14, 2022
14 Feb'22
Salesforce Safety Cloud debuts for event vaccination proof
Salesforce launches new cloud to aggregate COVID-19 testing and vaccine information for users hosting customer and employee events, with more to follow later in 2022.
- February 11, 2022
11 Feb'22
Google boosts AI customer experience
Two bits of CX news from Google: Cloud Platform expands customer success operations globally, and users find the search behemoth's AI a fit for customer experience deployments.
- February 09, 2022
09 Feb'22
Adobe Journey Optimizer adds mobile marketing capabilities
Adobe adds marketing personalization and messaging orchestration capabilities to Experience Cloud for B2B and B2C users whose customers favor smartphones.
- February 08, 2022
08 Feb'22
Pegasystems releases contact center agent-assist tools
Pegasystems adds voice recognition and natural language processing agent-assistant 'copilot' tools for contact centers, based on 2021 acquisition of Qurious.io.
- January 26, 2022
26 Jan'22
Salesforce expands CRM maps for sales-team territories
New patterns for selling -- salespeople travel less and use more digital channels to meet with customers -- drive new map features for Salesforce Sales Cloud.
- January 25, 2022
25 Jan'22
Google debuts Topics, its latest third-party cookie replacement
Topics, a replacement for browser tracking cookies, is Google's latest idea to preserve browser privacy while preserving the value of its digital ad platform.
- January 21, 2022
21 Jan'22
Adobe, Salesforce release tools to enhance retail experience
Adobe to open beta program for store-pickup features developed in partnership with Walmart; Salesforce debuts Datorama features for retailers.
- January 13, 2022
13 Jan'22
Genesys CEO on the future of contact center tech
In this interview with Genesys CEO Tony Bates, we discuss the intersection of empathy and technology, as well as the future of video in the contact center tech stack.
- January 12, 2022
12 Jan'22
Customer data platform market heats up again
As companies plan for the post-pandemic reality, customer data platforms are expected to be a bigger part of marketing workflows and other emerging use cases.
- January 11, 2022
11 Jan'22
Instacart, McDonald's, Target share digital marketing strategies
Customer experience leaders discuss strategies to accommodate customers who want contactless shopping, those who want in-person sales, and everything in between.
- January 10, 2022
10 Jan'22
IBM ports weather data to AWS Data Exchange feed
Marketers can now tap IBM's Weather Company data feed at the AWS Data Exchange. The question is, will they know how to use it proactively to execute timely campaigns?
- December 29, 2021
29 Dec'21
Why marketing personalization has yet to pay off
Forrester analyst discusses why personalization investments aren't paying off, what marketers can expect in 2022 in technology -- and in the job market.
- December 29, 2021
29 Dec'21
How bad writing, templates and chatbots kill customer service
Leslie O'Flahavan, a writing coach specializing in contact center communications, discusses how humans, AI and bots can work together to provide good customer service.
- December 16, 2021
16 Dec'21
Biden targets federal CX improvements with executive order
President Biden issues a detailed executive order that lays out agency-by-agency federal digital experience improvement mandates -- and builds accountability into the process.
- December 15, 2021
15 Dec'21
ServiceNow-Qualtrics partnership tackles total experience
ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott bought Qualtrics when he ran SAP, which spun it off after he left. McDermott renews his pursuit of Qualtrics, this time with a partnership.
- December 03, 2021
03 Dec'21
Amazon Connect adds quick bot setup, call summarization
AWS' Amazon Connect CCaaS offering comes into sharper focus with new features for contact center managers, agents and data scientists setting up bots.
- December 02, 2021
02 Dec'21
More marketing personalization from AWS, Pegasystems
AWS and Pegasystems add AI tools to their cloud offerings that enable deeper personalization and journey orchestration for marketers and e-commerce sellers.
- November 29, 2021
29 Nov'21
Technology drives holiday shopping for retail, e-commerce
Black Friday e-commerce sales maintained 2020 gains. Retail traffic is up but hasn't rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. Technology, supply chain, COVID-19 variants all factors.
- November 22, 2021
22 Nov'21
Cisco customer experience manager: What makes good tech CX
Cisco users buy its hardware and apps through partners, mostly. Cisco's customer experience architect discusses how the company forges customer relationships.
- October 12, 2021
12 Oct'21
HubSpot CRM adds B2B online payments processing
HubSpot CRM adds no-code Stripe online payments as well as data governance and enhancements to Operations Hub such as analytics and a Snowflake integration.
- October 06, 2021
06 Oct'21
Qualtrics releases Experience ID customer profile platform
Qualtrics Experience ID isn't labeled as a customer data platform, but it's not far off from one, as it aggregates customer info into individual profiles.
- October 02, 2021
02 Oct'21
Contact center agents' post-pandemic future
The pandemic changed how contact centers operate and the technologies used to provide customer service. In this Q&A, ICMI's Brad Cleveland predicts what's next.
- September 30, 2021
30 Sep'21
Amazon Connect adds voice ID, agent assist features
AWS adds tools to search knowledge bases for answers based on terms picked up via in-call voice recognition, as well as voice ID to confirm identities of callers.
- September 22, 2021
22 Sep'21
Benioff: Salesforce-Slack merger supports hybrid workforce
Just 1,000 of the typical 180,000 Salesforce users attended Dreamforce 2021, but it was enough to get CEO Marc Benioff fired up about the future of hybrid work opportunities.
- September 21, 2021
21 Sep'21
More Salesforce-Slack integrations to come
Salesforce unveiled a total of 16 Slack integrations to its platform, some available now, and some to come next year, following the blockbuster acquisition.
- September 20, 2021
20 Sep'21
Oracle Fusion Marketing enables campaign orchestration
Oracle has announced plans to release Fusion Marketing in 2022. The middleware app will more deeply integrate customer data to marketing initiatives and CRM.
- September 16, 2021
16 Sep'21
Salesforce automation tools for 2022: RPA, document ingestion
Salesforce Einstein Automate tools to come next year include RPA, document intake and drag-and-drop process automation.
- September 15, 2021
15 Sep'21
Salesforce Marketing Cloud to get analytics boost
Salesforce to add analytics capabilities and AI tools that spider Salesforce CDP data; Commerce Cloud adds shipping and logistics integration through a FedEx partnership.
- September 09, 2021
09 Sep'21
Infosys releases headless commerce services bundle
Infosys breaks down Skava, an e-commerce startup it acquired in 2015, into e-commerce, marketing and merchandising microservices, and renames it Equinox.
- September 09, 2021
09 Sep'21
Salesforce Service Cloud to add Servicetrace RPA, Slack
Salesforce plans to release features that increase Service Cloud's flexibility for contact centers to manage agents working remotely either part time or full time.
- September 02, 2021
02 Sep'21
FACE Act aims to improve government CX
The bipartisan bill that would codify the measurement of customer experience for federal agencies cleared the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.
- September 01, 2021
01 Sep'21
New features coming for Salesforce Sales Cloud
Salesforce adds CRM features to support remote-work models for sales teams born in the pandemic and continuing -- possibly permanently -- through 2022 and beyond.
- August 25, 2021
25 Aug'21
Qualtrics adds BrandXM experience management tool
Qualtrics adds Brand Impact Simulator, which BrandXM users can use to model how changes in a customer experience might entice new customers to make purchases.
- August 17, 2021
17 Aug'21
Initial Salesforce-Slack integrations: Sales, service, marketing
Salesforce unveils the first Slack integrations. But it could be Slack Connect -- which extends Slack's reach outside the Salesforce user's organization -- that is the killer app.
- August 16, 2021
16 Aug'21
Meet the CIO who keeps the Salesforce platform running
Salesforce EVP and CIO Jo-ann de Pass Olsovsky embraces the pivot to remote work, low-code appdev and the role of alpha tester of upcoming Salesforce products.
- August 10, 2021
10 Aug'21
Adobe, Salesforce expand health clouds
Adobe releases Experience Manager for Healthcare and plugs its CDP into marketing and clinical data; Salesforce releases healthcare features.
- August 03, 2021
03 Aug'21
Salesforce automation strategy sharpens with acquisition
The CX giant plans to fold RPA technology from an acquisition into some of its platforms. The move comes after Microsoft and other big tech firms bought RPA vendors.
- July 28, 2021
28 Jul'21
Nice expands contact center AI offering with ContactEngine buy
Nice acquires ContactEngine conversational AI technology to support customer self-service and live agent conversations across multiple digital channels.
- July 27, 2021
27 Jul'21
OpenText releases customer data platform
OpenText customers get a natively integrated runtime CDP to drive marketing personalization and other customer interactions; AI content security features debut.
- July 20, 2021
20 Jul'21
Redpoint Global moves into data quality as a service
Redpoint Global users get tools to manage first-party partner, product and customer data quality, identity and governance with In Situ feature bundle.
- July 15, 2021
15 Jul'21
Salesforce to pull plug on Audience Studio DMP
Salesforce Audience Studio DMP is no longer being sold, Salesforce confirms. It could signal the beginning of the end of programmatic digital ad sales.
- July 14, 2021
14 Jul'21
Salesforce Industries' Media Cloud adds ad management
Salesforce Media Cloud adds a multimedia ad sales platform for media companies to manage their customers' ad spend. Also: AppExchange partner marketplace adds chat, user reviews.
- July 12, 2021
12 Jul'21
Brands opt for headless e-commerce vs. traditional commerce
For large enterprises, headless commerce breaks down websites into user-friendly modules marketers can update. SMBs can also use it, paired with WordPress and other simple tools.
- July 01, 2021
01 Jul'21
Google gives third-party cookies a stay of execution
Experts -- and Google -- tell us why 'The Cookiepocalypse' for which advertisers are braced is delayed until at least 2023, and what it means for internet advertising.