Aisera Integrates Its Service Experience Solution with Zendesk’s Sunshine Platform
Aisera has announced its service experience solution is now available via a new app integration on Zendesk’s Sunshine Conversations Marketplaces. Customers of Zendesk will now be able to use Aisera’s AI and Automation platform by allowing integrations to Zendesk tickets, knowledge base, and messaging capabilities.
Benefits of this integration include enabling self-service in native Zendesk supported channels such as webchat, email, social, and SMS as well as workflow automation to end-users. Agents will be able to leverage Aisera’s multilingual conversational intelligence that includes an industry-aware taxonomy of over 5 billion intents and 1 trillion phrases across over 100 languages. It can also learn from past tickets, interactions, user and agent activities, and knowledge base articles.
“In today’s world where organizations are facing financial headwinds, AI and Automation are essential to keep costs down,” says Muddu Sudhakar, Aisera CEO and co-founder. “Aisera’s AI Service Experience (AISX) platform accurately detects users’ intent and empowers them with instant and autonomous resolutions to their requests through self-help and automation. Agents can better focus on solving complex issues and get proactive support from the AI virtual assistant. We are thrilled to work with Zendesk and deliver exceptional improvements in customer satisfaction, agent productivity and boost cost savings.”
Five9 Announces New Digital Self-Service, AI Design, and Analytics Capabilities
Five9, Inc. has introduced several new features into its platform. These improvements include rich media for digital and voice channels, multi-modal engagement abilities, real-time language translation, enhanced developer tools for Five9 IVA Studio users, and integrated analytics to enhance interactions. New capabilities include:
- Using rich media controls, users can send and receive digital content such as images; documents; video; audio; and buttons to link, reply, post back, and add a location when using Five9 digital experiences powered by Five9 Digital IVA and Five9 Messenger. Additionally, companies can now have the ability to make self-service on the voice channel multi-modal.
- More collaborative functionality for Five9 IVA Studio.
- Improved programming tools, including support for JavaScript and the ability to control Studio through APIs.
- Support for more natural language processing (NLP) engines. Additionally, Five9 has expanded its partnership with LumenVox and added open transcription from its speech recognition platform powered by deep neural networks.
- Five9 Analytics can integrate business intelligence and operational data to create a contact center intelligence platform. This new release enables the simplification of custom report creation, dashboards, and metrics to measure KPIs that are unique to each business’ success.
“This release further extends our approach of embedding AI into the core Five9 platform,” says Callan Schebella, EVP, Product Management, Five9. “The integration of Five9 IVA Studio and the Five9 Intelligent Cloud Contact Center enhances collaborative intelligence, a unique integration created by Five9 that combines and amplifies the abilities of contact center workers, AI, and business intelligence to improve the service experience for customers and agents. Our latest innovations make adding, expanding, and integrating channels easier and less resource-intensive with unified deployment, interaction handling, and real-time analytics across every channel.”
Genesys Announces Partnerships with Sitel Group and Lumen
Sitel Group and Genesys announced a strategic relationship to help brands’ digital transformation, allowing for the rapid building and deployment of omnichannel contact center solutions in the cloud. Products and services from both experience providers can now be more easily combined.
“This is a landmark partnership for the customer experience industry and one that will empower brands to deliver seamless CX and develop deeper relationships with customers,” says Olivier Camino, Global Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of Sitel Group. “Working alongside Genesys helps brands offer fluid, effortless interactions that are faster, smarter, and more personalized, all via an easy-to-use proven cloud product.”
“Growth in digital engagement, employee experience expectations, and work-from-anywhere models are transforming contact centers globally,” says ML Maco, EVP, Global Sales and Field Operations, Genesys. “The continuous deployment of new features and functionality on Genesys gives Sitel Group ongoing access to the latest innovations to remain competitive and deliver experiences where customers are remembered, heard, and understood.”
Genesys also deepened a partnership with Lumen Technologies that has resulted in the introduction of Lumen Solutions for Contact Center – Genesys Cloud. This is a contact center as a service (CCaaS), total solution for enterprise and public-sector gradecommunications, collaboration, and customer experience management (CXM). The platform offers a range of omnichannel options, built-in employee experience, ready to use AI, and end-to-end journey optimization.
“Moving from older contact center infrastructure to the latest technologies is a major change for companies, but the massive improvements to efficiency and effectiveness make it worth the effort,” says Craig Richter, senior director of UC&C product management for Lumen. “Legacy platforms are capital intensive, while newer cloud-based or hybrid solutions are much more flexible and cost effective.”
“Our expanded partnership with Lumen will offer customers a way to orchestrate end-to-end journeys,” says Marc Donnelly, vice president of partner and alliances at Genesys. “This solution enables them to listen to and understand their customers and employees, predict actions, and shape what comes next to drive meaningful business outcomes.”
In other Genesys news, the company announced two executive leadership appointments. Olivier Jouve has transitioned to Chief Product Officer (CPO) from Executive Vice President and General Manager of Genesys Cloud CX. Barbara Holzapfel joined the company as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). The company also shared that revenue for its Genesys Cloud CX platform has grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 100% in the last five years and now supports more than 800,000 agents at over 4,000 organizations.
LivePerson Boosts Conversational AI Capabilities
LivePerson has enhanced its Conversational AI with four new AI-powered capabilities include AI Search, On-Demand Recommendations, “Small Talk” NLU, and Repeat Intent Rate measurement.
- AI Search supports customer engagement by providing accurate answers to customer questions relying on knowledge base content. Deep learning is leveraged to understand intent, the background of the query, and phrasing. Best answers are delivered either right to the customer, through a self-service bot or to support agents in the form of recommended answers.
- On Demand Recommendations simplifies and eases agent effort by allowing them to search for bots and content and then instantly use them.
- Small Talk NLU enables bots to respond to conversational messages with more natural responses, including greetings, goodbyes, and confirmations.
- Repeat Intent Rate Measurement is a unique metric that measures how and when a customer follows up on intent that was previously stated. It helps companies determine if a repeat interaction is positive or negative, and can automate and adjust how the issue is handled.
“As we head into 2023, brands are looking to do more with less. AI and automation will only become more important as they seek to increase customer loyalty while reducing operational costs,” says Rob LoCascio, founder and CEO of LivePerson. “Our latest research shows that 98% of brands say AI is important to their customer engagement strategy, but only 28% say they’re realizing its full potential. With the capabilities we’re announcing today, they can start leveraging automation and AI faster than ever to provide even better digital experiences.”
NICE Introduces Enlighten AutoSummary
NICE has introduced an AI contact center solutions that can automatically create contact center summaries of each customer interaction with an agent. Enlighten AutoSummary removes manual notetaking, allowing agents to focus on the customer issue more fully. Information such as customer contact reasons, actions, and outcomes are generated and immediately available to the next agent a customer might interact with.
The feature continuously improves its understanding of specific customer and agent behaviors, using machine learning for better informed interactions.
According to Barry Cooper, President, CX Division, NICE, “Our latest out-of-the-box solution automatically identifies contact reasons and outcomes with high accuracy– allowing the agents to focus on the customer at the present moment. And, whether the last interaction was five minutes or five months ago, Enlighten AutoSummary provides the next agent and the supervisor with everything they need to know for more personalized, seamless customer service every time.”
Zoho Introduces Blended Conversations for Zoho Desk
Zoho Corporation has launched new features for Zoho Desk, the key application in Zoho’s customer service platform. Blended Conversations for Zoho Desk is a combination of human-driven and bot-powered conversational service experiences. The new feature takes a lot of the manual and transactional tasks from agents and shifts them to bots. The interaction can switch between human and bot agents depending on complexity. Zoho also announced an overhaul of the user interface, making it easier to use, faster, and more accessible to customers with different needs. This includes options for cognitive and dyslexia challenges, visual impairments, animation reduction for those with seizure disorders, and customization abilities for color blindness.
“During these challenging economic times, the best companies are doubling down on customer retention while simultaneously trying to do more with less,” says Mani Vembu, Chief Operating Officer, Zoho. “Great service experiences address this by forming the bedrock of sustainability through economic downturns. Blended Conversations in Zoho Desk addresses exactly this outcome by cleverly combining human and bot agents while also reducing friction, frustration, and costs-to-serve.”
Author Information
As a detail-oriented researcher, Sherril is expert at discovering, gathering and compiling industry and market data to create clear, actionable market and competitive intelligence. With deep experience in market analysis and segmentation she is a consummate collaborator with strong communication skills adept at supporting and forming relationships with cross-functional teams in all levels of organizations.
She brings more than 20 years of experience in technology research and marketing; prior to her current role, she was a Research Analyst at Omdia, authoring market and ecosystem reports on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and User Interface technologies. Sherril was previously Manager of Market Research at Intrado Life and Safety, providing competitive analysis and intelligence, business development support, and analyst relations.
Sherril holds a Master of Business Administration in Marketing from University of Colorado, Boulder and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Rutgers University.
