By integrating contact center software with back-office apps, companies can improve employee productivity, customer satisfaction and ultimately their bottom line.

By now, many enterprise C-suite executives have abandoned the notion that contact centers are cost centers. Instead, the C-suite has embraced the contact center as a value center that drives revenue growth and operational efficiency.

However, for too many organizations, the contact center remains a silo disconnected from customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), service management, unified communications (UC) or other business-critical enterprise applications. This, clearly, is a mistake.

Seamless integration between the contact center and enterprise applications is a key characteristic of success for customer experience operations. Metrigy discovered this correlation in its global “Customer Experience Optimization (CXO): 2025-26” research study of 656 companies.

In this study, the majority of the most successful companies — based on achieving double-digit revenue growth, efficiency boosts and other improvements — have bridged the gap between the contact center and back-end enterprise systems. Unequivocally, this shows that seamless integration isn’t merely a nice-to-have, but it’s a foundational requirement for success.

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A real-world story of customer service gone wrong illustrates how and why good data maintenance is foundational to any CX journey.

As we’re wont to do when we have a bad experience with a company, we share our stories. Serendipitously, I suppose, a customer service snafu I feel inclined to write about fits right into my planned topic for this post: single source of truth (SSoT).

First, the story. Earlier this month, I ordered some cosmetics. I won’t name the brand, but it’s a fairly young company whose founder is well respected in the business. After placing the order, I quickly received a notification of order receipt and a heads-up that the package would ship within three to five business days. That same day, the shipment tracker showed my delivery already in progress. “That was speedy,” I thought. But then I waited, and waited, and waited… five, then 10, then 15 days and no change in status.

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IVR systems have been the bane of customer service for decades. Now AI is stepping in to save us all from menu purgatory with smart, conversational call routing.

I have never known a customer who calls a company and enjoys listening to a long menu asking them to “press 1 for sales, press 2 for service, press 3 for accounting….” and so on. Yet, for more than 40 years, businesses have embraced the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system.

Companies have misused and overused IVRs, leaving customers to pound the zero button or yell “agent” repeatedly for those that are voice-enabled.

A long-overdue change is looming, thanks to AI.

Already, 37.6% of companies plan to fully replace IVRs with AI triage agents, and 62.5% of Metrigy’s Research Success Group plan to do the same, according to Metrigy’s CX Optimization 2025-26 global study of 656 companies. (The Research Success Group comprises companies that have the highest measurable business metric improvements with AI, and they are historically a leading indicator of what’s to come.)

I made the prediction that the use of IVRs would be drastically reduced by 2030 and would be gone within the next decade during my session at the recent Salesforce Dreamforce. The audience of about 200 people had interesting reactions: Some shook their heads in enthusiastic agreement, while others grimaced with expressions that shouted, “Oh crap!”

After all, IVRs have been a stalwart in the contact center. They house the results of hours-long meetings to determine scripts that address high-level reasons customers call, along with sub-menus of detailed reasons. Get rid of IVRs? And then what happens?

What’s Next With Customer Triage?

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Generative AI is rapidly transforming collaboration by enabling capabilities such as summarization, workflow automation, translation and more. Generative AI offers the potential to fundamentally transform how teams and individuals collaborate and create, eliminating mundane activities and fostering innovation.

In this session, we’ll explore how Generative AI is changing the workplace collaboration landscape, including availability of tools within collaboration applications, third-party tools, and studios enabling custom AI tool creation. We’ll look at organizational strategies and share real-world examples of approaches that achieve measurable success. We’ll also look at security, compliance, and governance concerns to minimize risk.

Key Takeaways:

– Learn how to identify and implement the right Generative AI tools for your team’s specific needs, whether that means using built-in features in existing applications, integrating third-party solutions, or building custom tools for unique workflows.
– Understand how to create a foundational strategy for introducing Generative AI into your organization, including understanding which collaborative tasks can be automated to free up time for strategic work.
– Gain knowledge to evaluate and address security, compliance, and governance risks associated with Generative AI, enabling you to implement these tools responsibly and minimize potential liabilities.
– Discover how to measure the success of Generative AI initiatives by measuring before and after improvements resulting from implementation.

Webinar – Leveraging Generative AI to Improve Collaboration

Presented by: Irwin Lazar, President and Principal Analyst, Metrigy

October 14, 2025 at 11 AM EDT

In this podcast episode, Robin Gareiss and Devon Mychal discuss the evolution and impact of AI in contact centers, focusing on Cresta’s use of generative and agentic AI. They explore the definitions and distinctions between traditional AI and agentic AI, highlighting the proactive capabilities of agentic systems. The conversation delves into real-world applications, business value, and the future potential of AI in enhancing customer experience and operational efficiency.

Vinod Muthukrishnan, Cisco VP & COO, joins us to advise companies on how to get started, progress, and demonstrate compelling business improvements with AI in customer experience strategies.

Agentic AI will transform activities ranging from data search to activity management.

There has certainly been a lot of discussion around agentic AI over the last few years. While actual adoption is still low, Metrigy’s AI for Business Success: 2025-26 global study of more than 1,100 companies found adoption is already correlating with business success.

• 4% of participants say that agentic AI is leading to increases in revenue
• 4% say it it is reducing operating costs
• 2% say that it has improved employee productivity

Defining Agentic AI

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IT and CX leaders do their best to establish and execute on a sound CX strategy, but many are missing some key steps that result in consumer dissatisfaction. Through five consecutive studies, Metrigy has been tracking consumer satisfaction of customer experience and the technologies supporting it—identifying gaps and alignments between what businesses are delivering and what consumers want. This series covers:

• Real-world data and analysis on consumer concerns of customer experience, along with mismatched business perspectives
• How consumers feel about chatbots, voicebots, AI agents, AI assistants, and more
• What interaction channels are preferred and most successful
• Guidance from key providers on how to use technology to delight and not dismay consumers
• How conversation analytics and VoC programs are vital to delivering successful customer interactions

CX Expert Insights Series 3 – How to Map CX Delivery to Consumer Expectations

Presented by: Robin Gareiss, CEO and Principal Analyst, Metrigy
Oana Lungu Polanco, Sr. Director, Product Management, Salesforce
Fabrice Della Mea, VP of Product Management, Contact Center, Dialpad

On Demand

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