Market Perspectives

We are happy to share some insights about InterSystems drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.

We are happy to share some insights about Verint drawn from our latest Value Index research, the 2023 Ventana Research Value Index: Customer Experience Management, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.

Workers and customers are interacting across a variety of channels as cloud digital communications continue to expand with new potential for every organization. Phone, email, text, video and messaging are some of the ways people communicate in, and outside of, an organization. Implementing contemporary technology can improve day-to-day conversations to increase customer satisfaction and decrease employee turnover rates.

We are happy to share some insights about Oracle drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.

We are happy to share some insights about Zoho drawn from our latest Value Index research, the 2023 Ventana Research Value Index: Customer Experience Management, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.

We are happy to share some insights about Salesforce drawn from our latest Value Index research, the 2023 Ventana Research Value Index: Customer Experience Management, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.

Ventana Research analysts participate in many meetings throughout the year to learn about software vendors’ plans and product updates. We recently attended a meeting with SugarCRM to learn about its new management and direction. Founded in 2004 as an open-source project, the company has recently focused on becoming a full-service customer relationship management vendor.

We are happy to share some insights about IBM drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.

The workforce has gone through several major shifts in the past three years. The COVID-19 pandemic led to a transformation from working in an office to often hybrid or totally remote work. In what has been described as the Great Resignation, employees – often feeling unappreciated by their employers – resigned in droves. Organizations have taken several measures to deal with these challenges, including updating human capital management software.

Many small to midsize manufacturing and product-centric organizations have struggled with the limitations imposed by on-premises platforms designed for an unrelated industry or subvertical. Others try to cobble together processes and data from multiple systems and spreadsheets. While these organizations have many of the same requirements as larger enterprises, resources are not comparable, especially for technology support. Purpose-built software can meet specific industry requirements while streamlining processes. A cloud deployment is particularly attractive for rapidly growing organizations because resources can remain focused on operations rather than managing technology, minimizing administrative overhead.

The customer experience (CX) market is made up of a very diverse array of point solutions and suites designed to solve very specific but interlocking problems. They all focus on the difficulty organizations have in communicating effectively with their customers, either in response to customer inquiries or for proactive outreach purposes. Customer contacts have changed a great deal in the last decade; they now take place in fits and starts, on various channels, and are overseen by people across departments, not all of whom have the same agenda.

The ever-evolving hybrid workforce requires cloud communication tools that meet the needs of digital businesses. This transition has forced organizations to reevaluate existing digital communication services to ensure they meet the demands of today’s workers and customers.

Every year, billions of digital interactions occur online. Artificial intelligence and machine learning become smarter. Organizations find new ways to efficiently handle customers and requests using automated self-service and the underlying technology it runs on: conversational AI. What used to be a niche capability is now at the forefront of today’s chatbot and automated customer service agent. To keep up with the rising usage of digital channels and interactions, organizations must enable intelligent self-service to enhance and provide a great customer experience.

The corporate workforce has been scattered into all types of work environments, from the comfort of a formal home office to cubicles in a glass building. These new options were inevitably created by the 2019 COVID pandemic. As a result, organizations have struggled to accommodate the digital communications needs of the now-established hybrid workforce to ensure seamless operations and business continuity. Organizations that want a comprehensive approach to digital communications will need to employ software that can meet the needs of workers who choose to work remotely or in-person, to promote inclusivity in the workplace culture.

Contact center infrastructure is continuing to shift to the cloud, and with it comes more innovation and more agent capabilities. Increased customer service expectations require faster response through a variety of channels. Agent interactions have also become more complex as automated self-service applications complete most of the simple interactions agents would otherwise support. Plus, agents are increasingly empowered to make proactive decisions to help customers, and must synthesize more information coming from multiple sources. That they have to do so in real time, often from home without peers or supervisors around to give them guidance, adds to the challenge. This evolution to more complex tasks means agents require better support from contact center technology.