| | JULY 20176CIOReviewConsumers, being equipped with digital devices and perpetual connectivity, are seeking newer ways of interacting with the businesses. The conversations are no longer limited to the traditional voice; instead, customers expect the engagements to be seamless across multiple channels including chat, email, video, and social media. Identifying the need, the contact centers too are changing in form and purpose. They are evolving into interactive engagement centers where customers are serviced across integrated digital and telephony channels. This also marks the shift of contact centers from their traditional objective of "reduce cost to serve or sell" to "engage more with customers to deepen relationship, increase advocacy and gain competitive advantage." The contact centers are now customer experience or customer engagement centers. The transition to an interactive customer engagement center empowers businesses to communicate with customers on their own terms and better meet the changing needs. It leads to faster resolution of issues and lower operational cost, enhances cross-sell and upsell, and drive customer loyalty and satisfaction--all of which ultimately boosts the bottom line. To keep pace with the transformation, businesses are infusing their contact centers with robust SMAC--social, mobile, analytics, and cloud--technologies. For instance, ubiquitous smartphone access will equip the contact center agents with real-time contextual information. Investing in web analytics and customer intelligence will provide better intelligence to enable cross and up sell. And finally, adoption of cloud-based contact center solutions will help businesses offer round the clock support, lower initial and ongoing costs, and enhance flexibility, along with seamless integration to third-party CRM platforms to drive better customer experience. In this scenario, our goal with this special edition to highlight best-of-breed contact center solution providers who can help transform contact center operations. This edition blends thought leadership from subject matter experts with real stories on what selected vendors are doing for their clients, including exclusive insights from CIOs and CXOs. Send us your thoughts.Jeevan George Managing Editoreditor@cioreview.comCopyright © 2017 ValleyMedia Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part of any text, photography or illustrations without written permission from the publisher is prohibited. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs or illustrations. Views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the magazine and accordingly, no liability is assumed by the publisher thereof.CIOReviewJULY - 13 - 2017Mailing AddressCIOReview44790 S. Grimmer Blvd Suite 202, Fremont, CA 94538T:510.402.1463, F:510-894-8405 JULY - 13 - 2017, Vol 06 SE 53 Published by ValleyMedia Inc.To subscribe to CIOReviewVisit www.cioreview.com CONTACT CENTER TECHNOLOGY SPECIALCIOReviewEditorial StaffSalesT: 510.683.5022 Jason Thomas Kathy Arnold Shashikanth PeetlaSarah FernandezVivian MurrayPhilip Paulphilip@cioreview.comVisualizersStephen ThomasRenukesha GangurManaging EditorJeevan GeorgeEditorialTransforming Customer ExperiencesAaron Pierce
< Page 5 | Page 7 >