Cisco Furthers Customer Experience Momentum with New Offerings That Extend Customer Value

Rhea-AI Summary

Cisco announces new offerings within its Webex cloud customer experience solutions, including Webex Customer Experience Essentials for customer-facing employees and enhancements to the Cisco AI Assistant for Webex Contact Center. The company aims to empower contact center agents, reduce turnover, and enhance customer satisfaction scores through AI-driven solutions.

Market Research Analyst

The recent announcement by Cisco regarding the general availability of Webex Customer Experience Essentials and enhancements to their AI Assistant for Webex Contact Center can be seen as a strategic move to capture more market share in the customer experience (CX) space. The integration of quality management and CRM capabilities directly addresses the growing demand for streamlined customer service operations. By including these features in the seat price, Cisco is positioning itself as a cost-effective solution, potentially increasing its competitiveness against other CX providers.

From a market perspective, the emphasis on AI and analytics indicates Cisco's commitment to innovation in a market where customer data is increasingly valuable. The use of AI to provide conversation summaries and detect agent burnout could lead to higher efficiency and employee satisfaction, which is critical in an industry known for high turnover rates. The early feedback from First Horizon Bank, noting improvements in customer satisfaction and handling times, serves as a testament to the potential impact of these tools on operational performance.

However, it is important to monitor how Cisco's pricing strategy will affect its margins and whether the increased value provided can justify potential decreases in per-unit revenue. Additionally, the success of these integrations will depend on the ease of implementation and the actual performance improvements observed by a broader customer base beyond the initial beta testers.

Financial Analyst

For investors, Cisco's announcement could be indicative of future revenue growth within its collaboration segment, which has been a key focus area post-pandemic. By bundling core functionalities and CRM integrations into the Webex Contact Center's pricing model, Cisco may see an uptick in adoption rates, particularly among small to medium-sized businesses looking for cost-effective CX solutions.

The reported 4x improvement in handling customer inquiries and the increase in customer satisfaction scores from 4.8 to 4.9, as mentioned by First Horizon Bank, may resonate well with potential customers. If these results are consistent across Cisco's customer base, they could lead to increased customer retention and higher lifetime value per customer, both of which are important metrics for investors.

However, it's important to consider the level of investment required for these enhancements and whether the return justifies the spend. Investors should look for future earnings calls and financial statements for indicators of how these investments are translating into financial performance. The anticipated integrations with major CRM providers in summer 2024 also suggest a timeline for when these features will start impacting the company's financials.

Customer Experience Specialist

The enhancements to Cisco's Webex offerings reflect a broader industry trend towards comprehensive, AI-driven customer experience platforms. The inclusion of AI Assistant features such as automatic customer satisfaction scoring and agent burnout detection aligns with the current focus on not only customer satisfaction but also employee well-being. These features could lead to a differentiated offering in the CX market, potentially attracting businesses that prioritize agent experience as a driver for customer satisfaction.

Furthermore, the integration of CRM systems is a significant development, as it allows for a more seamless experience for agents, who can access customer information and history without switching between applications. This can lead to more personalized customer interactions and faster resolution times. The impact on business operations can be substantial, as improved efficiency and customer satisfaction are key drivers of customer loyalty and repeat business.

It's important to note that the actual impact of these offerings will depend on their adoption and the user experience they deliver. If Cisco's solutions can effectively meet the needs of both agents and customers, they could set a new standard for what businesses expect from their customer experience platforms.

News summary:

• Webex by Cisco helps agents deliver exceptional experiences, enhanced by AI with Cisco AI Assistant.
• Webex delivers a turnkey solution at a lower price to empower customer-facing employees outside the contact center with Webex Customer Experience Essentials. 
• Webex Contact Center customers will see even more value with core quality management functionality and out-of-the-box CRM integrations included in the seat price.

ORLANDO, Fla., March 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) at Enterprise Connect today announced new offerings within its Webex cloud customer experience solutions. Efficiently delivering a standout, connected customer experience across all channels and interactions is a business imperative, and organizations are increasingly looking to solutions that enable them to modernize the customer experience without disrupting their business.

In today's competitive, customer-obsessed climate, organizations must support every customer facing employee and every contact center agent as they seek guidance and support to resolve issues quickly. Today, they lack the right tools at the right price point to enable this. To address this, Cisco is unveiling general availability of the all-new Webex Customer Experience Essentials for customer-facing employees who are not traditional contact center agents. Cisco is also announcing new innovations in the Cisco AI Assistant for Webex Contact Center, quality management functionality and CRM integrations.

"Our Webex Customer Experience business continues to see rapid growth," said Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President & General Manager, Security & Collaboration "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."

Some customers are already benefitting from Cisco AI Assistant for Webex Contact Center capabilities in beta. These capabilities include conversation summaries for dropped calls and virtual agent interactions; agent burnout detection; automatically generated customer satisfaction scores; and topic analytics capabilities that help improve business outcomes. Early feedback from a customer using AI Assistant for Webex Contact Center saw a 4x improvement in time spent handling customer inquiries and have reported last mile improvements in customer satisfaction scores from 4.8 to 4.9 on a 1-5 scale – all within a two-month period.

"As First Horizon continues to find ways to improve our clients' experiences, we also look at the agent experience. Happy agents lead to better engagement with our clients. To that end, we have started testing Cisco AI Assistant's call drop summaries," Jason O'Dell, Vice President, Voice Services Manager at First Horizon Bank. "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. We are excited to be a part of AI Assistant's beta group and see positive results. We will continue to work closely with the Cisco team to fine tune the solution further to cater to specific banking use cases."

The self-learning, AI-powered Webex Contact Center enables businesses to connect customer experiences across all the ways customers want to engage—proactive messaging, self-service and human-assisted engagement—and ensures that agents have context and intelligence across the entire customer journey. Webex Customer Experience Essentials provides core agent and supervisor functionality, including analytics and reporting. The solution is priced to support customer-facing employees and teams, powering organizations with teams as small as 10 employees up to 50,000.

Cisco is also announcing core quality management features from its Webex Workforce Optimization solution that will be part of the new Webex Contact Center license. Additionally, as part of Webex's focus on delivering a steady stream of innovation to customers, new, deeper integrations with leading CRM providers will be available in the summer of 2024. These integrations with Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and ServiceNow will seamlessly enable agents to process customer information without delay and manage advanced call related tasks directly from an integrated desktop. This ultimately simplifies workflows and improves overall efficiency.

More information about Webex Contact Center is here and learn more about today's announcement here. To hear how our customers are already leveraging Cisco AI Assistant for Webex Contact Center across industries, visit here.

About Cisco

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide technology leader that securely connects everything to make anything possible. Our purpose is to power an inclusive future for all by helping our customers reimagine their applications, power hybrid work, secure their enterprise, transform their infrastructure, and meet their sustainability goals. Discover more on The Newsroom and follow us on X at @Cisco.

Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco's trademarks can be found at www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.

About Webex by Cisco

Webex is a leading provider of cloud-based collaboration solutions which includes video meetings, calling, messaging, events, customer experience solutions like contact center and purpose-built collaboration devices. At Webex, we start with people and their experiences first. This focus on delivering inclusive collaboration experiences fuels our innovation, which leverages AI and Machine Learning, to remove the barriers of geography, language, personality, and familiarity with technology. Our solutions are underpinned with security and privacy by design. We work with the world's leading business and productivity apps – delivered through a single application and interface. Learn more at webex.com.

 

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SOURCE Cisco Systems, Inc.

What did Cisco announce at Enterprise Connect?

Cisco announced new offerings within its Webex cloud customer experience solutions, including Webex Customer Experience Essentials for customer-facing employees and enhancements to the Cisco AI Assistant for Webex Contact Center.

How does Webex Customer Experience Essentials empower customer-facing employees?

Webex Customer Experience Essentials provides core agent and supervisor functionality, including analytics and reporting, to empower customer-facing employees outside the contact center.

What benefits can customers expect from the Cisco AI Assistant for Webex Contact Center?

Customers can benefit from conversation summaries for dropped calls and virtual agent interactions, agent burnout detection, automatically generated customer satisfaction scores, and topic analytics capabilities that improve business outcomes.

What improvements did a customer experience using AI Assistant for Webex Contact Center see?

A customer reported a 4x improvement in time spent handling customer inquiries and an increase in customer satisfaction scores from 4.8 to 4.9 on a 1-5 scale within a two-month period.

What core quality management features are included in the new Webex Contact Center license?

Core quality management features from Webex Workforce Optimization solution will be part of the new Webex Contact Center license.

When will new integrations with leading CRM providers be available?

New, deeper integrations with leading CRM providers like Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and ServiceNow will be available in the summer of 2024.