Kate Leggett

Automation and AI now impact every job — including every customer service job. AI handles, with increased confidence, repetitive work, allowing customer service agents to focus on tasks of greater value to the company. And customer service robots — which we define as semi- or fully autonomous physical machines that perform services to augment humans or automate tasks — […]

In my last post, I highlighted the top five ways that CRM suites are evolving today. CRM suites today (1) support different business models and organizational sizes; (2) operationalize intelligence to impact outcomes; (3) offer vertical editions; (4) expose platform services; and (5) invest in ecosystems of value (AKA, application exchanges). Read more about this […]

Even though core CRM products are mature, CRM vendors are still evolving their products. Technologies like AI introduce new efficiencies into CRM processes, and acquisitions such as configure-price-quote (CPQ) and eCommerce expand the footprint of CRM. We find that CRM suites are evolving across five dimensions. They now: Support select business models and organizational sizes. The […]

Automation and AI are changing the nature of work. Every company job — including every front-office job — will be impacted. Always-available commerce and intelligent guided-selling solutions erode field sales teams. Automated self-service obsoletes generalists and Tier 1 customer service agents. This means that inside sales teams are now handling more highly considered purchases. Customer service agents […]

Great customer service helps control costs as companies squeeze out operational efficiencies. It also fuels sustainable top-line revenue growth by providing differentiated experiences that keep customers loyal to your brand. We just finished assessing 20 of the most important technologies in customer service in terms of their maturity and business value. Here are some of […]

Three announcements affecting CRM came out of SAP’s SAPPHIRE NOW annual conference, held in Orlando on June 5–7: A renewed focus on CRM in order for SAP to be considered a viable player in the $45 billion CRM market. SAP’s cloud CRM (formerly known as SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer) is renamed SAP C/4HANA. The […]

I recently went to Verint’s Engage18 conference, held in Dallas from May 14 to 17. It’s not a big conference; it was attended by about 1,500 people who use one or more of the company’s customer service products: workforce engagement, self-service, voice of the customer, and fraud and compliance. What it lacks in size, it makes […]

I recently went to Verint’s Engage18 conference, held in Dallas from May 14 to 17. It’s not a big conference; it was attended by about 1,500 people who use one or more of the company’s customer service products: workforce engagement, self-service, voice of the customer, and fraud and compliance. What it lacks in size, it makes […]

I attended ServiceNow’s Knowledge18 conference, held in Las Vegas on May 7–10. It’s a well-attended conference, by 18,000 people who use one or more of the company’s cloud service management, HR, security, and customer service products, which are all built on an enterprise-grade platform. At the conference, there was a lot of emotion spent talking […]

Chatting, by definition, is meaningless, trivial talk – but web “chatting” is anything but; it is starting to transform digital customer experiences. And it works. Customers want to use chat. Forty-five percent have used it to interact with a live agent in 2017. The companies that get it are moving towards a holistic chat strategy […]

On March 12, Salesforce announced its intent to acquire CloudCraze, a B2B eCommerce application. This savvy and long-anticipated move nicely rounds out its broad CRM portfolio and supports B2B customers through their engagement journey. This eCommerce application is a fundamentally different one than Salesforce’s  B2C eCommerce acquisition of Demandware. This is because B2C engagement is […]

Great customer service is not just about cutting costs or making operations more efficient. Instead, it’s a systematic reinvention of established technology, data, and operations — leveraging automation, data, and agents together to exploit each of their unique strengths. This year, I see 3 broad customer service trends that organizations must consider as they fundamentally […]

You need a CRM vision to gather momentum around such a large – and potentially strategic initiative. The first CRM vendor that gave us the tools to do so was Oracle with their CX vision.  Oracle’s point of view was that CRM enabled companies to support their customers in their end to end journey – […]

Modern CRM is about better serving and supporting customers during their journey. It empowers companies to form an emotional bond with their customers by looking out for their best interests. It empowers customer-facing employees with the right data and information about their customers at the right time so that they can focus on nurturing relationships. Here’s […]

CRM is more than two decades old. Companies initially used it to provide “inside-out” efficiencies – operational efficiencies for sales, marketing, and customer service organizations. Companies would easily argue its’ business benefits by measuring operational metrics that were important to them – like reducing marketing costs, better forecasting or pipeline reporting, or decreasing service resolution […]

In the age of the customer, consumers have more information, more choices, more access, and more power. But they don’t have more time. That’s why the companies that attract, win and retain customers focus on delivering the tenets of great experiences: make it easy, make it effective, and build an emotional connection. But, customer service […]

Customers use an exploding number of communication channels to interact with a company, moving between them dependent on their context and preferences. They also use several channels at the same time – like web and phone – if it makes sense to do so. We know that customers use self service as a first point […]

AI will change the nature of work. Look at the rise of driverless cars and ridesharing — two services that are fueled by AI. Customer service for these services is going to look much different than it does now. AI today is still in its infancy; AI applications span discrete capabilities, all of which are […]

AI improves the economics and capabilities of everything around us. Amazon and Netflix recommend products based on our history, Yahoo and Facebook tag photos, Waze and Google get us to our destination more effectively, Lyft and Uber precisely communicate arrival times of our drivers. Consumers are starting to expect intelligent experiences – personal, contextual to […]