Cisco Releases a New CCaaS Package, Claims Contact Center Momentum

Cisco has announced the general availability of “Webex Customer Experience Essentials” at Enterprise Connect 2024.

The Essentials offering targets organizations that have a formal contact center operation but want employees from across the business to chip in and engage with customers from time to time.

Whether it’s to share subject matter expertise or offer a helping hand when customer demand surges – Webex Customer Experience Essentials bridges the contact center and the broader business.

Yet, these “informal agents” don’t need all the bells and whistles of a deep CCaaS offering.

So, the Essentials offering provides them with a lite version of the Webex Contact Center – which comes at a lower price point.

As a result, businesses can extend their contact center more cost-efficiently and spread customer communications tools across their business.

Aside from handling incoming contacts, these tools also give field service personnel, store associates, sales teams, and other departments the power to reach out directly to customers.

In preview, the Webex Customer Experience Essentials offering generated lots of interest, with Zoom the only other market vendor to release such a package.

Now, Jeetu Patel, EVP & GM of Security & Collaboration at Cisco, believes the move will help accelerate Cisco’s momentum in the customer experience space.

“Our Webex Customer Experience business continues to see rapid growth,” he said.

Organizations of all sizes are working with Cisco to empower contact center agents, reduce turnover, and protect their brands. We offer them value at a price that’s best in class.

Cisco’s recent earnings results support Patel’s comments, underlining how a rise in its contact center business has pulled the Webex portfolio back to growth.

Other Enhancements to the Webex Contact Center

In addition, the vendor announced AI Assistant, workforce optimization (WFO), and CRM integration updates at Enterprise Connect 2024.

The AI Assistant for Webex Contact Center supports agents in their everyday work.

For now, it’s in beta, with features including suggested responses and call summaries for live agent conversations, automated interactions, and dropped calls.

Sharing his experience with the latter, early-adopter Jason O’Dell, Voice Services Manager at First Horizon Bank, stated:

The summaries are concise, providing the important context of a customer’s earlier interaction during repeat calls. These can be leveraged by our virtual bankers to avoid repeat conversations and improve customer experience.

Meanwhile, Cisco shared other capabilities to assist supervisors and managers that are also in beta. These include coaching highlights, agent burnout detection, and code generation for customer journey orchestration.

Earlier this week, Pete Brown, a CX & Customer Engagement Expert at Cisco, teased some of these capabilities in conversation with CX Today.

After presenting these innovations, Cisco noted that core quality management (QM) features from its Webex Workforce Optimization solution will soon come part and parcel with the new Webex Contact Center license.

Finally, the enterprise tech juggernaut revealed new CRM integrations for Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Dynamics 365 will launch before July 2024. Cisco expects to include these within the Webex Contact Center seat price.

The integrations promise to present an integrated desktop, more quickly process customer information, and simplify workflows between the systems.

Elsewhere, Cisco recently completed its $28BN Splunk acquisition following EU antitrust approval. The move promises to help businesses bolster their data management, AI, and security strategies.