The arrival of Tuesday morning meant another day of discovery and innovation for the attendees of 2017’s Enterprise Connect conference. Executives from Twilio, Cisco, and AWS took to the keynote stage today, focusing on the idea of experience, for both the customers, and the employees or contact centre. It makes sense, since experience is basically the underlying factor that determines whether a service, product, or technology will find success in the current market.
Cisco’s Take on Experience
The first face on the keynote stage was Jens Meggers from Cisco, GM and SVP of the company’s group for Cloud Collaboration Technology. He noted that truly successful ventures in the world of technology, have emerged from people who have made their tech invisible, and seamless. He noted that businesses need to put experience first, then work back through the technology.
Meggers commented on the fact that Cisco has taken the best of Jabber, Meetings, and Video, to integrate an amazing experience for their customers. He then continued into a series of demonstrations that outlined the key experiences Cisco can offer through Spark. For instance, Cisco has integrated a virtual AI assistant into the Spark product line who answers to “Hey Spark”. Meggers demonstrated how this, and virtual reality could fit into a Spark room experience.
Meggers and a colleague even showed off how team members could collaborate within a virtual room, using a physical spark board in the real world. He concluded that all of these features come together to create a more powerful experience.
Twilio’s Take on Experiences
The next speaker on stage was the CEO, chairman, and founder of Twilio, Jeff Lawson. As he explained during his opening, one of the common side-effects of scaling technology companies, is the sudden dehumanisation of customers. However, in the millennial era, customers want a human experience more than ever. Lawson commented that the same technology that’s dehumanised the industry, also has the power to reverse the issue and solve the current problem. According to Lawson, the industry needs to focus on growing, and staying human at the same time.
As an example of where the current problem can be found, Lawson outlined the professional services offered by more traditional communication providers. He looked at why it is, after spending millions of dollars on deploying communication systems, that people are still unable to access the experience thy want. In his opinion, the answer could be linked back to the fact that the way of accessing communications is no longer agile or reliable.
According to Lawson, modern solutions for communication need to be low-risk, customisable, resilient, and fast-paced. He believes that this is the point where Twilio comes in. Lawson noted that companies need to create something that’s customisable to the goals of each customers. Because Twilio provides a set of proven and flexible APIs for video, voice, messaging, wireless, and authentication, he believes it can accomplish just that.
AWS’ Take on Experience
Finally, the last keynote speaker of the day was Amazon Web Services, who introduced a presentation lead by Gene Farrell, the VP of enterprise applications with AWS. Farrell began by discussing how AWS’s approach to innovation has been accelerating more rapidly as the company grows. He then introduced a colleague, Tom Weiland, the VP worldwide customer service professional at Amazon.com, who announced AWS’s entrance into contact centre solutions.
According to Weiland, Amazon is striving to be the most customer-centric company in the world. At the heart of that desire is a contact centre solution that’s reliable, simple, and capable of scaling with their needs. Using feedback from customers as a guide, Amazon took steps to deliver a solution that was capable of solving all of the challenges faced by its own contact centre, from cumbersome tools, to complex integrations, complex pricing, scalability, and reliability. The result was the brand-new “Amazon Connect“, a simple cloud-based contact centre.
With a focus on experience, AWS has developed an easy-to-use graphical interface that non-technical users can access to design contact flows, track performance, and manage agents. Complete integrations with workforce management, CRM, helpdesk offerings, and analytics can help to offer a more comprehensive experience for the applications that agents already use.
Amazon Connect comes with a per-minute pricing model, alongside additional charges for associated telephony services. As of today, it’s available in the U.S., and across 18 countries in Europe.
Wrapping up Tuesday
As attendees continue to explore Enterprise Connect 2017, excited for another day of information-packed sessions, they’re sure to be focusing more heavily on the idea that experience comes first. At the conclusion of Enterprise Connect on Thursday, it’s likely that we’ll be able to see that experience has become more of a key concern for every provider competing within today’s market.
