Three “Cool” Customer Interaction Technology Companies in North America

June 2010 | 11 pages | ID: T26B7DC4D25EN
Ovum

Abstracts

Although a small set of companies have dominated the customer interaction and contact center technology markets for many years, smaller companies have quietly created exciting new technologies designed to improve the customer experience or increase operational efficiency. Flying under the radar in many cases, the innovative technology these companies offer can give enterprises a competitive edge by improving the customer experience. This research describes just three of the many “cool” companies that haven’t yet registered on most contact centers’ radar screens. While by no means an exhaustive list, enterprises should use this research to begin the process of evaluating new ways or channels to provide customer service. Technology providers, on the other hand, need to start thinking about partner versus buy versus build when it comes to these new technologies.

Contents

Executive summary
In a nutshell
Ovum view
The “consumerization” of enterprise tools in customer interaction
Fonolo: improve the calling experience
Ovum’s view
Human resources drive operational improvement
FurstPerson: improve the customer experience through better people
Ovum’s view
Virtual assistants make real-world gains
VirtuOz: creating chat deflection and better chat routing
Ovum’s view
Recommendations
Recommendations for enterprises
Recommendations for vendors

List Of Tables

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: The “cool” factor explained

List Of Figures

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Fonolo’s deep dialing experience for mobile devices and the Web