With much fanfare, Verint announced an Open CCaaS platform at its hallmark Engage 2023 event.
Many rushed to celebrate how the innovation will open up contact centers to the broader business, enable more integrations, and allow service teams to leverage a new partner ecosystem.
Yet, in doing so, they skipped past the true differentiator of the solution.
"What I find really interesting is the solution starts with workflows and moves into other operational systems," says Liz Miller, VP & Principal Analyst at Constellation Research. "Whereas all other providers have started with the systems and tried to accommodate work.
That is a noble pursuit and one that has to happen.
"Yet, in of itself, that can be really hard. Having to take that telephony backbone and make it fit for agents, supervisors, and leaders that could be an awkward expansion and transition."
Nonetheless, contact centers often look to Verint as THE expert in tying contact center workflows together. As such, Miller suggests that it is perhaps the best-placed vendor to lead the conversation.
"It’ll be really interesting to see if that people-centric core stays or if they shift to how everyone else builds their tools," she concludes.
That is perhaps the worry. Verint’s mission should not be to lead a competition of who can be the most open, with all vendors shouting: "It’s me! It’s me!"
Instead, it should start with the workflows and work back from there to leverage the benefits of a bring-your-own-carrier (BYOC) model.
Of course, that is much easier said than done, as mobility is still an issue with BYOC offerings.
Yet, telephony vendors are making progress in this regard. For instance, Ericsson – with Vonage – aims to manage the entire network experience to enhance the performance of over-the-top (OTT) communications applications.
In doing so, it may deliver the next-level mobility that will make Verint’s Open CCaaS model tick.
If it does tick, Verint may shake up the entire CCaaS space, which is a much more compelling conversation than: "Look at how many shiny integrations we have."
Are Contact Centers Ready for This Conversation?
With Verint Open CCaaS, contact centers can kick down the door to new-fangled workflows that reimagine customer and agent experience.
These workflows may also increase the connection between contact centers and other departments and open up opportunities for service leaders to drop AI and automation into contact center experiences more easily.