Contact center software and applications
Contact center software and applications can make or break agents' ability to effectively solve customer issues via phone, chat, social media and other channels. Learn about the latest innovations in contact center technology.
Top Stories
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Answer
05 Jun 2023
How to calculate call center utilization rates
Customer service leaders use metrics like call center utilization rates to track performance and CX. Leadership must learn the effects of these rates and how to calculate them. Continue Reading
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News
24 Feb 2022
Zoom takes its video service to the contact center
Zoom has entered the contact center-as-a-service market. The company's product offers video calling as companies seek a more visual interaction with customers. Continue Reading
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Opinion
23 Feb 2022
Zoom CCaaS a big bet on the future of customer service
Zoom already integrates with the most popular contact-center-as-a-service platforms. So why has Zoom come out with a CCaaS of its own? Continue Reading
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Tip
10 Feb 2022
UCaaS and CCaaS unite as organizations embrace the cloud
The UCaaS and CCaaS markets are converging as vendors and end-user organizations alike integrate cloud-based contact centers with communications platforms. Continue Reading
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News
08 Feb 2022
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. Continue Reading
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Tip
07 Feb 2022
How to manage remote call center agents
Managing remote call center agents can be difficult -- but with the right tools in place, supervisors can effectively lead their agents from a distance. Continue Reading
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News
13 Jan 2022
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. Continue Reading
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Feature
13 Jan 2022
Call center vs. contact center: What's the difference?
Call centers and contact centers provide customer service in different ways. Decision-makers should understand which option best fits their organization's needs to optimize CX. Continue Reading
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News
03 Dec 2021
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. Continue Reading
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Feature
02 Dec 2021
10 customer service best practices to follow
As customer service evolves into a multidimensional force, agent training and experience, performance analysis, virtual assistance, customer sentiment and net promoter scores rule. Continue Reading
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Feature
30 Nov 2021
What are the different types of contact centers?
Choosing the right type of contact center depends on understanding the options available and the needs of the organization. Continue Reading
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Feature
24 Nov 2021
The future of customer service: 12 trends to watch
Advanced technologies continue to shape customer service goals to streamline digital workflows, increase positive experiences, lower agent turnover and improve contact center ROI. Continue Reading
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News
16 Nov 2021
Genesys, Google bolster contact center connections
Genesys and Google broaden multi-year partnership to include running Genesys applications on Google Cloud with Kubernetes; Genesys embeds apps in Chrome browser. Continue Reading
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News
02 Nov 2021
Microsoft Customer Experience Platform debuts
Microsoft introduces a number of CX tools, including the Customer Experience Platform, voice and SMS integrations, and technology for stores to connect physical and digital spaces. Continue Reading
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News
01 Nov 2021
Zendesk to acquire SurveyMonkey parent Momentive
Zendesk's burgeoning customer experience platform, which grew out of a customer service technology stronghold, lands key tech to gather customer feedback. Continue Reading
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News
22 Oct 2021
Genesys contact center cloud gets acquisition boost
Olivier Jouve, executive vice president of Genesys Cloud, and Mike Szilagyi, a senior vice president at Genesys, discuss how customer service will recalibrate after last year. Continue Reading
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Tip
05 Oct 2021
Benefits of moving to a cloud contact center
Cloud contact centers have various benefits for organizations, including cost savings, more interaction channels and staying with -- if not ahead of -- the competition. Continue Reading
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News
02 Oct 2021
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. Continue Reading
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News
30 Sep 2021
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. Continue Reading
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News
09 Sep 2021
IBM Watson Assistant tools aim to speed contact center CX
IBM has released new AI capabilities to speed virtual agents and automate more contact center tasks. The vendor also formed a partnership with contact center vendor IntelePeer. Continue Reading
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News
28 Jul 2021
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. Continue Reading
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Tip
23 Jul 2021
Top 10 contact center platforms of 2021
Contact centers enable organizations to support customers through various channels, but finding the best-suited platform can be difficult. Explore 10 options in this expert tip. Continue Reading
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Report
28 Jun 2021
15 essential contact center software features
Looking for the best contact center software features? We review some of the most useful capabilities including data reporting, speech analytics, routing methods and AI. Continue Reading
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Answer
17 Jun 2021
How do omnichannel vs. multichannel marketing differ?
While multichannel marketing connects customers and companies through various forms of communication, omnichannel marketing takes it further and removes any silos. Continue Reading
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Tip
02 Jun 2021
On-premises vs. cloud contact center: What's the difference?
On-premises and cloud contact centers differ in terms of costs, staff requirements and management. Organizations must weigh both options to find the right fit. Continue Reading
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Tip
05 May 2021
How to define contact center technology requirements
Whether launching a new contact center or updating an existing one, CX leaders must evaluate their contact center technology requirements before selecting a provider. Continue Reading
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News
19 Feb 2021
Cisco completes the IMImobile acquisition
Cisco plans to use IMImobile's messaging and voice APIs to bolster its cloud contact center offering. The executive team of the U.K.-based company has joined Cisco. Continue Reading
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Tip
09 Feb 2021
4 tips for effectively handling emails in a call center
New service channels emerge, but email remains a popular way for customers to contact businesses. Call centers should use the proper email management software and strategies. Continue Reading
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News
21 Jan 2021
AWS contact center AI services expand to Salesforce, Avaya
Cloud contact center vendors that compete with Amazon Connect for customers will push AWS AI-powered intelligent search, speech recognition and language processing services. Continue Reading
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News
12 Jan 2021
Pegasystems acquires Qurious.io for Pega Customer Service
Pegasystems acquires Qurious.io for its customer service-oriented AI, natural language processing and self-service automation tools. Continue Reading
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News
24 Dec 2020
RingCentral acquires AI speech analytics startup DeepAffects
California-based startup DeepAffects uses AI speech analytics to collect data on voice and video calls. The information helps customers measure the productivity of meetings. Continue Reading
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News
09 Dec 2020
Cisco to boost contact center offering with IMImobile buy
Cisco plans to acquire IMImobile for $730 million to improve Cisco's contact center offering through the U.K. company's messaging and voice APIs. Continue Reading
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Tip
30 Nov 2020
10 technologies to transform customer experience in 2021
AI-powered technologies such as sentiment analysis, chatbots and real-time transcription can help customer service organizations improve the customer experience. Continue Reading
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News
10 Nov 2020
Zendesk, WhatsApp cozy up with co-development partnership
Zendesk and WhatsApp team up to break bottlenecks in customer service conversations over Facebook messaging apps -- including Instagram -- by building it into Zendesk Support. Continue Reading
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Tip
03 Nov 2020
8 best practices for call center monitoring programs
To create the foundation for an advanced quality monitoring program, contact centers need to invest in call monitoring and speech analytics software. Continue Reading
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News
02 Nov 2020
Twilio's Segment acquisition recasts UCaaS vendor as CX
Twilio, a contact-center-friendly UCaaS vendor, has completed the purchase of the Segment CDP for $3.2 billion in stock. Together, experts said, they could challenge Microsoft, Salesforce and Oracle. Continue Reading
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News
29 Oct 2020
Oracle CX targets communications industry with new apps
Oracle moves into vertical-specific digital experience customizations, starting with Oracle Digital Experience for Communications, with more to come. Continue Reading
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Feature
08 Oct 2020
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
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News
08 Oct 2020
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. Continue Reading
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News
22 Sep 2020
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. Continue Reading
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News
18 Sep 2020
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. Continue Reading
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News
03 Sep 2020
Emerging Genesys cloud strategy makes Amazon friend and foe
Amid a leadership change, Genesys retools cloud strategy, adds partnerships with Infosys, Adobe and others as its relationship to Amazon and AWS veers toward 'co-opetition.' Continue Reading
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News
28 Aug 2020
Twilio Flex deployed for COVID-19 contact-tracing agents
Tech teams supporting agents working remotely on COVID-19 surveillance efforts in several U.S. cities and the state of Illinois eschew traditional IT and opt for cloud platforms. Continue Reading
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Guest Post
07 Aug 2020
What to consider for a contact center remote working strategy
Colin Taylor suggests 11 areas that a good contact center work-from-home policy should address, including who provides equipment, workforce management, coaching and more. Continue Reading
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Tip
27 Jul 2020
A look at contact center technology and support costs
With so many technology options available to contact centers, per-agent spending can vary greatly. It's up to businesses to figure out what technology matters most to them. Continue Reading
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Tip
28 May 2020
How data from APM tools helps businesses improve CX
Businesses have many options when it comes to analyzing customer experiences. APM tools can help contact center leaders improve agent experience, as well as CX. Continue Reading
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Feature
27 May 2020
4 best practices for call center management
An effective contact center is a result of strong management and knowledgeable agents. Management teams must invest time and energy in training their employees properly. Continue Reading
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News
15 May 2020
Talkdesk adds virtual agents, rebrands CCaaS suite as CX Cloud
Talkdesk refocuses it CCaaS suite on customer experience by adding 20 features, including virtual agents and remote work features for contact center agents. Continue Reading
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News
05 May 2020
ServiceNow CSM navigates pandemic, partners with Adobe
ServiceNow connects its Customer Service Management environment to Adobe Experience Manager to improve support experience through deeper personalization. Continue Reading
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Tip
17 Apr 2020
Renewed focus on contact center trends in 2020
As contact centers move from office settings to remote work environments, businesses renew push for sustainable work-at-home programs, enhanced AI and cloud technologies. Continue Reading
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News
15 Apr 2020
LogMeIn launches CCaaS platform to complement GoToConnect
LogMeIn releases GoToConnect call center as a service features during a high-demand period for supporting remote customer service work amid COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. Continue Reading
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News
06 Apr 2020
Pivot to remote call centers difficult for some; others roll with it
Remote contact center tech easily supports agents working from home, experts say. It's the culture of each team that determines success in the current national health crisis. Continue Reading
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News
26 Mar 2020
Kansas City Royals spin up cloud contact center
The Kansas City Royals closed its offices, but a telephony switch helped the call center address ticket holders' anxieties over baseball games affected by coronavirus shutdown. Continue Reading
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Tip
26 Mar 2020
Tips for creating remote call center programs amid COVID-19 pandemic
To create a sustainable work-from-home contact center program, businesses need to adjust a number of processes, including, hiring, training, supervision and technology. Continue Reading
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News
24 Mar 2020
Zendesk Relater primes customers for remote call center work
Zendesk focuses on fledgling Sunshine and Sell CRM platforms, as well as helping its well-established customer service base switch to remote call center work. Continue Reading
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Tip
23 Mar 2020
Businesses move toward UC and contact center integration
Integrating unified communications and contact center software is trending and it can provide a number of benefits to both business employees and customers. Continue Reading
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News
06 Mar 2020
Amazon chatbots to employ neural networks for CX
Amazon tests neural network bots to help site customers and human agents more quickly identify answers to refund and order-cancellation questions. Continue Reading
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News
04 Mar 2020
Zendesk Sunshine CRM, social media upgrades released
Zendesk upgraded Sunshine CRM and Support platforms to manage digital customer conversations, and added e-commerce tools that enable agents to work through order and payment issues. Continue Reading
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Tip
21 Feb 2020
AI in customer experience: Key benefits
Incorporating AI in customer interactions enriches the customer experience in multiple ways, builds brand loyalty and boosts efficiency. Learn about three ways AI improves CX. Continue Reading
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Feature
13 Feb 2020
Cloud migration needs contact center integration strategy
Contact center integrations can complicate a cloud migration. Learn what platforms can ease the transition to the cloud by reintegrating back-end business apps. Continue Reading
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Answer
03 Feb 2020
What are some benefits of SSO in contact centers?
Contact center agents often need to remember a number of passwords to log in to multiple applications. Single sign-on can alleviate that pain point and increase productivity. Continue Reading
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Feature
27 Jan 2020
4 contact center trends that drive customer experience
Modern contact centers are making a variety of improvements, such as incorporating AI and chatbots. Learn about four contact center trends that are poised to improve CX. Continue Reading
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Feature
22 Jan 2020
5 common call center terms to know
Businesses interact with customers in a variety of ways, including via phone calls and chatbots. Here are some call center terms that define these interactions. Continue Reading
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Tip
19 Dec 2019
Strategize a smooth contact center migration
Companies are migrating from on-premises contact center software to the cloud. But before making the move, organizations must approve it from a strategic and practical perspective. Continue Reading
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Tip
12 Dec 2019
4 steps to successful contact center technology implementation
Before starting implementation of any new technology in a contact center, it is important to have a strategy to ensure both employee and customer satisfaction. Continue Reading
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News
19 Nov 2019
Salesforce Service Cloud Voice, Einstein Voice Assistant unveiled
Salesforce unveils a voice assistant and call center tools to enable real-time natural language processing for agents to connect customer data and supervisor help on a single screen. Continue Reading
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Tip
23 Oct 2019
Benefits of migrating customer experience apps to the cloud
Nemertes research claims 75% of contact centers do some or all business in the cloud. As CX technology improves, businesses increasingly consider the benefits of cloud migration. Continue Reading
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News
10 Oct 2019
Calabrio rolls out contact center self-scheduling technology
The new technology aims to enable flexibility in scheduling for contact center agents and to reduce managers' workloads in monitoring and requests handling. Continue Reading
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Answer
26 Sep 2019
What are the benefits of a UC and contact center integration?
UC offerings that include contact center integration provide more seamless communications and engagement between office workers and contact center agents. Continue Reading
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Guide
26 Sep 2019
How unified communications is getting down to business
This guide will get you up to date on what's happening in the world of UC, including how UC employs AI now, and what's new with UC tools for business messaging and contact centers. Continue Reading
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Feature
12 Sep 2019
Upselling customers adds ROI gold to contact center channels
AI, analytics and customer service technologies can predict behavior and secure brand loyalty, but generating impulse buys adds a new ROI wrinkle to the evolving contact center. Continue Reading
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Tip
04 Sep 2019
The difference between autodialers and predictive dialers
Some people don't know that a predictive dialer is a type of autodialer. There are, in fact, five broad categories of autodialers contact centers need to know about. Continue Reading
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News
19 Aug 2019
LivePerson Inc. adds new capabilities to Maven AI
Maven AI's updates are aimed at enabling new conversational commerce use cases. The new capabilities include Maven Assist, Maven AI-Powered Routing and Maven Developer APIs. Continue Reading
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Tip
19 Aug 2019
10 things to know about Google Cloud Contact Center AI
Google has partnered with more than 90 different companies to roll out its contact center AI. This article lists 10 important things you need to know about the program. Continue Reading
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Feature
16 Jul 2019
Customers stay connected with Talkdesk 100% uptime SLA
Talkdesk customer Cognosante sees 50% cost savings after switching to the vendor's contact center software and, so far, has seen no interruptions in service. Continue Reading
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Tip
16 Jul 2019
3 call routing methods to consider in your contact center
Contact center call routing methods include next-available agent, skill-based and predictive; however, each strategy has pros and cons. Learn what is best for your business. Continue Reading
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News
15 Jul 2019
TechSee Smart uses AI vision to aid contact center support
TechSee Smart aids live agents in contact centers by using AI and deep learning to analyze customer product images, identify issues and guide customers through the resolution process. Continue Reading
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Feature
03 Jul 2019
Contact center AI: Agents may be training their replacements
The goal for software developers training sophisticated agent-assist AI tools for contact center software platforms could be 'superbots' far smarter than today's chatbots. Continue Reading
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News
27 Jun 2019
8x8 Contact Center launches as a stand-alone CCaaS offering
8x8 Contact Center is a stand-alone, cloud-based contact-center-as-a-service offering, aimed at organizations that feel restricted by legacy contact center infrastructure. Continue Reading
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Feature
24 Jun 2019
The evolution of call centers to experience centers
The call center has evolved over the years, moving from phone-based systems to multichannel contact centers. The next move is toward a customer experience center. Continue Reading
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News
07 Jun 2019
Companies entrust CX to customer service chatbots, but only so far
Depending on the vertical, chatbots can relieve human agents of simple, repetitive customer-support tasks. But brands await smarter tech to fully trust them with CX. Continue Reading
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Feature
29 May 2019
Contact center-as-a-service platforms here, but face hurdles
Cloud contact center platforms offer promise, migrating agents into a flexible environment. Contact centers, a long-established on-premises IT world, are slowly starting to adopt them. Continue Reading
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News
24 May 2019
Expanded deal with Collab9 brings Avaya cloud to governments
Avaya has expanded its partnership with Collab9 to bring Avaya cloud UC and contact center products to federal, state and local governments. Continue Reading
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Podcast
21 May 2019
Replacing contact center platforms poses big dilemma
CX expert Scott Sachs discusses the various dilemmas posed by migrating legacy on-premises contact center platforms to the cloud. Continue Reading
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News
15 May 2019
Effective customer surveys help contact centers drive CX
As companies try to figure out who will run customer experience initiatives, contact centers make a strong case for the customer support team, using the right technology. Continue Reading
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News
14 May 2019
CX initiatives driving contact center technology trends
Making contact center agents more present across all channels is a new focus, as tech vendors rush to give customer service operations more tools to improve customer experiences. Continue Reading
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News
06 May 2019
ICMI co-founder on contact center technology trends
Contact center technology stacks now include pervasive AI and CX-oriented tools, enabling agents to do a better job more efficiently, said ICMI co-founder Brad Cleveland. Continue Reading
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Answer
28 Jan 2019
Is dialer technology relevant to CX projects?
Live chat is still the preferred method of communication in contact centers, and the use of autodialers helps free up salespeople to speak with callers. Continue Reading
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Tip
07 Dec 2018
5 tips for picking a call center customer experience platform
Change comes to customer contact centers as cloud systems and the customer experience movement force IT leaders to rethink software stacks. Here's advice for choosing your next platform. Continue Reading
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Tip
05 Jun 2018
Designing chatbots with personality-plus and gift of gab
Planning, patience, trial and error and a business-minded team approach are the keystones to developing chatbots with human-like qualities that seamlessly assist customers. Continue Reading
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News
02 Nov 2016
Election Protection helps voters with call center technology
Election Protection handles upward of 100,000 calls per day as Election Day nears, routing calls from high-call-volume states using Genesys. Continue Reading
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Answer
16 Sep 2008
Pros and cons of auto-response software in the call center
Auto-response software often gets mixed reviews from both call center professionals and customers. Learn the pros and cons of using auto-answer and auto-response software in the call center from expert Donna Fluss. Continue Reading
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Answer
26 Jul 2007
How to evaluate call center quality analyst performance
Expert Donna Fluss provides some guidelines for evaluating the performance of a call center's quality coach, and offers suggestions on training a quality coach. Continue Reading
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Answer
12 Jan 2007
How do you define flow out calls?
Call center expert Lori Bocklund answers a reader who's using Avaya reports and is wondering about flow out calls, and whether they are the sum of abandoned and blocked calls. Continue Reading