Customer service technology

Customer service strategy drives customer service technology purchasing. Learn how customer service and support team leaders create customer experiences that drive loyalty and retention, serving their customers on a variety of platforms and channels.

October 12, 2020 12 Oct'20
Twilio's Segment acquisition recasts UCaaS vendor as CX

Twilio, a contact-center-friendly UCaaS vendor, acquires the Segment CDP for $3.2 billion in stock. Together, experts said, they could challenge Microsoft, Salesforce and Oracle.
October 08, 2020 08 Oct'20
Twilio adds video developer tools, field service app, Flex apps

The developer-centric UCaaS vendor Twilio offers users new tools to support video chat, field service workers and aggregation of customer activity data.
September 22, 2020 22 Sep'20
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service to add voice channel

Leading a host of CX releases, Microsoft plans to add native voice telephony and voice-channel hooks for chatbots and transcription into its contact center platform.
September 18, 2020 18 Sep'20
Oracle CX upgrades focus on field service, contact center

Oracle adds self-service features, field tech tools and call center capabilities to its CX stack in response to customers' business needs in pandemic.

Bring yourself up to speed with our introductory content

omnichannel

Omnichannel -- also spelled omni-channel -- is a multichannel approach to sales that seeks to provide customers with a seamless shopping experience, whether they're shopping online from a desktop or mobile device, by telephone, or in a ... Continue Reading
speech recognition

Speech recognition, or speech-to-text, is the ability for a machine or program to identify words spoken aloud and convert them into readable text. Continue Reading
contact center as a service (CCaS)

Contact center as a service (CCaaS) is a framework for contact center infrastructure management that combines the principles of contact center hosting and cloud-based contact center infrastructure. Continue Reading

Weigh the pros and cons of technologies, products and projects you are considering.

The evolution of customer service

Today's customer service meets the consumer where and when it is convenient for them, with multiple contact channels, self-service and always-on coverage. Continue Reading
Customer success vs. customer support: What's the difference?

Customer success and customer support are important terms for businesses to be familiar with if they want to provide great CX. They sound similar but are different. Continue Reading
Evaluate call center outsourcing costs and benefits

Outsourcing call center operations can take some financial burden off businesses -- depending on what partner they choose. But there can also be some drawbacks. Continue Reading

Learn to apply best practices and optimize your operations.

Contact center roles shift from cost center to profit center

Customer experience is key to the ROI of contact centers as they undergo changes due to AI, cloud migration and COVID-19-induced agent migration to remote workspaces. Continue Reading
Call center customer experience ROI is more about metrics

When measuring contact center ROI, don't get caught up in dollar signs. Focus on CX metrics, including the length of customer calls, wait times and net promoter scores. Continue Reading
AI improves customer experience, call center efficiency

Customers and employees can benefit from the use of AI in contact centers. Businesses can use AI to provide customer self-service options and help make agents more productive. Continue Reading

We’ve gathered up expert advice and tips from professionals like you so that the answers you need are always available.

8 ways to improve call center agent performance

Side-by-side evaluations, reinforcement, training resources and coaching can help call center agents improve their performance and catch up to the pack. Continue Reading
How to calculate call center utilization rates

Call center utilization rates provide managers with information about agent productivity, and businesses can use these rates to calculate efficiency of agents. Continue Reading
6 tips for handling emergency calls in contact centers

Many contact centers do not have a procedure for handling emergency calls, but they should. It is important for agents to know how to react to emergency situations. Continue Reading