News Bits

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News Bits

By TMC  |  May 23, 2016

Verint Buys Another Self-Service Outfit

Self-service is getting a lot of attention lately. For example, Verint Systems in February announced it has acquired Contact Solutions, which provides self-service solutions in the mobility and voice realms. The deal will help Verint expand its omnichannel portfolio. And in August Verint, a $1 billion market leader in customer experience and related solutions, bought self-service company Telligent from Zimbra. (Self-service was also a prevalent theme of Support.com’s recent webinar “From Product Fixes to Customer Success: The Key is Connected Support,” which is now available on demand at this link (http://tinyurl.com/ztl4fty.)

BroadSoft (News - Alert) Buys Transera

Unified communications solutions provider BroadSoft Inc. has snapped up contact center software company Transera for an undisclosed sum. Both companies offer their products on an as-a-service basis. Adding the Transera’s analytics-driven and omnichannel cloud contact center solutions to the BroadSoft portfolio, the company says, will strengthen its financial position and help it improve customer outcomes. BroadSoft CEO Michael Tessler commented: “The multi-billion dollar contact center market is ripe for cloud disruption, and we now offer service providers a single stack solution with the flexibility to scale from SMB to large enterprise.”

CaféX Introduces Live Virtual Coaching Solution 

Supervisor Assist is a new live coaching solution from CaféX Communications that enables contact center supervisors to listen to, observe, and interact with agents in real time during customer calls directly from any web browser. That allows for faster and easier onboarding of new agents and enables organizations to provide ongoing mentoring for those agents, even in situations in which these workers are remotely located. And it works not just with voice, but also on the desktop.

NICE Launches TVOC

The new Total Voice of the Customer solution from NICE enables enterprises to listen to and register what their customers are saying in calls, chats, emails, on the web and in any other channel and to analyze those interactions. NICE TVOC adds voice recordings, social engagement, chat logs, and other digital channels to surveys to provide a more complete picture of customer disposition.

LiveHive Integrates with Microsoft (News - Alert) Dynamics

LiveHive has integrated its sales acceleration platform with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The company says that will help expedite the prospecting and qualification processes for businesses that leverage these platforms. “Our platform gives sales managers a single, unified view into buyer-side behaviors and improves a sales rep’s productivity by automatically synchronizing with the CRM,” said LiveHive CEO Suresh Balasubramanian. “With LiveHive’s powerful engagement analytics, managers using the Dynamics CRM can see and evaluate team performance in real-time to quickly adjust behaviors and sales processes.”

Wipro Builds Sweet New Practice 

Consulting company Wipro is establishing a new SugarCRM practice within its CRM service line. The company is also building a SugarCRM Center of Excellence with SugarCRM-trained and certified employees who can serve customers worldwide.

Kayne Provides OpenMethods with New Funding

OpenMethods has secured $5 million in new financing from Kayne NewRoad Ventures Fund II, L.P.  The company provides contact centers with a SaaS (News - Alert) solution that integrates CRM and telephony platforms. “OpenMethods is elegantly tackling the fundamental problems that contact centers face in trying to create an omnichannel experience for their customers,” said David Walsh, a managing partner for Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, L.P. “We look forward to working with the team as they scale.”

Adobe Unveils New Development Tool 

The new Adobe Experience Manager Mobile aims to simplify the process of building and managing visually appealing enterprise applications. Developers can also use the platform to extend the functionality of their apps by connecting them to CRM, ERP, and other business data and systems. Black Diamond, DuPont USA, Hartford Funds, and Under Armour are among the first users of this solution.

Jive Targets LoB, Health Care

Jive has unleashed a new set of packaged solutions designed to solve business pain points for verticals like the health care industry, and business units like human resources and marketing. Package options now include Jive for Healthcare Collaboration, Jive for Employee Engagement, and Jive for Customer Engagement. The first of the three aims to help U.S. health systems improve care coordination and physician productivity, significantly reducing clinical costs while ensuring compliance with federal regulations. It is designed to do that by allowing health care workers to connect in real time and securely exchange patient information; providing physicians with the Jive Daily mobile app to feed them critical communications from their network of health systems; and supporting e-health record implementations and mergers by providing blogging, Q&A, video capabilities so everyone involved can be kept up to date.

Most Call Center Outsourcing Contracts Aren’t Renewed

The Everest Group, with support from TELUS International, has issued a new white paper indicating that more than half of call center outsourcing contracts were not renewed over the last two years. It attributes that primarily to buyer-supplier relationships failing to deliver enough value. “The global BPO industry, which has grown to $150 billion today, has evolved significantly over the years. For most buyers, it’s no longer just a cost optimization play. As a result, the BPO value chain is driving more strategic partnerships,” according to Katrina Menzigian, vice president of research at Everest Group, and the lead analyst on the study discussed in the paper “Achieving Maximum BPO Value: How Smart Buyers Structure Contact Center Relationships.”

Alorica, Atento Named BPO Leaders

Gartner (News - Alert) has named Alorica and Atento S.A. leaders in its 2015 Magic Quadrant for Customer Service Management Contact Center BPO. The former designation comes a year after Alorica acquired West Corp. (News - Alert) “Leaders demonstrate market-defining vision and the ability to execute against that vision through CM contact center BPO services, a superior market share (among the top 10 providers in regions where they compete), and solid references for CM contact center BPO services worldwide, including a cross section of vertical industries,” Gartner explained.




Edited by Stefania Viscusi
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