Metrigy recently published our annual study on workplace collaboration and employee engagement, based on data gathered from ~400 end-user organizations. In this webinar we’ll share the characteristics of successful organizations in meeting the need for hybrid and flexible work. Attendees will learn:

Optimizing Employee Engagement

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

Date: November 12, 2024
Time: 11:00 am ET

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Let’s face it: We’re doing things much faster (for the most part) because of AI. Simply using generative AI to code faster has resulted in quicker time to market for many products and services in the customer experience (CX) space. This rapidly increasing pace of innovation not only affects technology vendors; it also affects businesses that buy the technology.

Metrigy’s Customer Experience Optimization 2024-25 global research study of 544 companies provides insights into how companies perceive and respond to the pace of innovation.

The State of Innovation

Most research participants (64%) said the pace of innovation is “just right,” while 22.5% said things are moving too quickly and they can’t keep up. Only 13.5% said the pace is too slow for them—these are the companies whose DNA values technology and allocates the budget to prove it.

Of course, one of the problems is that consumers aren’t quite keeping pace with innovation. For example, only 12.7% of consumers prefer using chatbots, 40% avoid them, and 47% use them selectively.

AI: A Catalyst for Innovation

A significant takeaway from the study is the role of AI in accelerating innovation. Nearly two-thirds of IT and CX leaders say AI-based products are speeding up their own CX innovation—reflecting a broader trend of AI being a transformative force that improves business metrics.

Successful companies have embraced the rapid pace of innovation: 80% of Metrigy’s research success group attribute at least some of their progress to the integration of AI innovation, while only 55% of companies in the non-success group report the same benefit. This discrepancy highlights a clear advantage for those who are leveraging AI. The success group has much higher measurable business metric improvements than the non-success group.

Decision-Making Trends: From Deep Dives to High-Level Insights

Though innovations are speeding up, most IT and CX leaders prefer to have a detailed understanding of them, vs. a high-level understanding, though that is slowly changing. Nearly 64% of companies say they prefer to have an in-depth understanding of all technologies before deciding what to buy to solve business problems and opportunities. On the flipside, 35% say they prefer to have a high-level understanding of technology, present problems/opportunities to their technology partners, and trust their recommendations. Slightly more cited the latter as their preference in August 2024 compared to January 2024, saying the pace of change in CX technologies is too fast to keep up.

Trusting recommendations from partners allows businesses to make informed decisions without getting bogged down in the minutiae of every technological development.

In the ever-evolving landscape of customer experience, organizations are constantly striving to improve their interactions with clients. Metrigy’s recent Customer Experience Optimization 2024-25 research study sheds light on the state of customer interactions and reveals key factors that differentiate successful companies from those lagging behind.

Metrigy asks all research participants a series of quantitative questions that measure the success of companies when they use various CX technologies. For example, how did the use of virtual agents affect customer satisfaction or revenue? If it increased or decreased either, by what percentage? Companies with the most measurable success were placed in a research success group, while those with the lowest measurable success were placed in a research non-success group. This enables us to compare behaviors of both groups.

Based on that analysis, here are a few areas CX leaders should consider to drive more success in business metrics.

People vs. Technology: Striking the Right Balance

One of the key takeaways from the study is the debate between the importance of people and technology in delivering successful customer service. The majority of companies still prioritize people over technology, with 77% saying the former is more important. However, the success group was more favorable toward technology. About 45% of the success group said technology plays a crucial role, while only 18% of the non-success group said the same. The top technology that helps to improve customer service is AI, underscoring the measurable value successful companies are already realizing with the technology.

Agents Need a Break!

Another area of focus for the success group when it comes to improving customer service is being attentive to agent experience. One of the big things the success group does is leverage AI to identify when agents need breaks during the day. Overall, 43.9% of companies are addressing the increased complexity of agent interactions by providing more 15-minute breaks each day. The success group is giving four more 15-minute breaks per day (in an eight-hour shift), compared to the non-success group, which is providing two more breaks. Adequate breaks not only prevent burnout but also ensure agents remain attentive and effective. Without these mental breaks, companies see higher turnover rates—and that affects customer service overall with fewer, experienced agents and more newly (and often inadequately) trained agents.

Transforming Customer Experience

The technologies and operational practices to manage an effective CX organization are ever-changing. That’s why so many companies are regularly engaged in CX transformation projects. We define CX transformation as the application of new or existing technologies to improve the agent and/or customer experience, ultimately driving measurable business value.

More than 60% of companies have completed, are in the process of completing, or plan to start a CX transformation project in 2024. Among those already finished, 61% say their projects were successful. The projects generally fall into three buckets: Apps and channels, foundational projects, and worker-focused projects. The research success group not only has completed more transformations than the non-success group, it’s also 83% more likely to have a successful outcome of their project.

Successful companies are focusing on the following projects significantly more than the non-success group: Adding or improving agent assist applications; adding or improving voice of the customer programs; improving CX security; moving functions to carrier networks; moving from on-premises to cloud platforms; improving agent hardware; and automating scheduling and capacity planning.

Metrigy’s research underscores the evolving nature of customer interactions and highlights the need for companies to regularly adapt their strategies. By addressing the aforementioned areas, businesses can increase their likelihood of driving more success, whether in the form of higher revenue, better customer satisfaction, or lower costs.

Technologies like agent analytics, video conferencing, collaboration tools, workforce management applications and cloud software can help manage remote contact centers.

A few key technology implementations can make all the difference between successful and unsuccessful remote contact center agent management.

As work-from-home has become widely accepted in contact centers, a solid technology strategy is crucial to easing the burden on contact center supervisors. In particular, AI capabilities embedded in workforce engagement management suites, along with integrated communication platforms, should be on any company’s must-have list when operating a remote contact center.

How has contact center management changed?

Continue reading at techtarget.com.

With its AI capabilities, Microsoft Copilot provides several enhancements to Microsoft Teams functionality, including meeting summaries and action item follow-up.

Copilot for Microsoft 365 presents several productivity possibilities to users of the Microsoft 365 application suite, especially Microsoft Teams. Given its price of $30 per user, per month, business and IT leaders must understand the potential benefits of Copilot – and how best to implement it — before investing in the AI-powered tool.

What are the features of Copilot in Teams?

Continue reading at techtarget.com.

Zoom Docs is latest entry, as Metrigy data shows rising adoption. Business leaders need to assure they understand corporate policy and responsible use.

With this month’s addition of Zoom Docs to the Zoom Workplace collaboration platform, Zoom becomes the latest vendor to deliver an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered connected workspace that brings together the tools an employee needs to accomplish, communicate about, collaborate on, and manage their work.

In Zoom’s case, Zoom Docs brings content collaboration, project tracking, and knowledge bases/wiki features to the Zoom collaboration environment, each powered by the AI assistance capabilities of Zoom AI Companion. Employees using Zoom Docs will be able to do things like convert meeting action items into documents that team members can collaborate on over time, share documents in a video meeting for live co-editing, and get writing assistance when creating reports and other content.

As I wrote in my previous post, “Connected Workspaces Getting Smarter and Smarter,” AI is quickly becoming a checklist requirement for connected workspace apps. Metrigy’s new “Connected Workspace & Collaborative Work Management: 2024-25” research study, conducted with 157 companies, shows the potential.

Continue reading at nojitter.com.

At many companies, connected workspace applications are playing a pivotal role in helping individual end users and teams collaborate on, manage, and complete work tasks, as shown in Metrigy’s recently published Connected Workspace & Collaborative Work Management: 2024-25 research study with 157 companies in North America. But with initial use for most companies starting at the team or departmental level, IT hasn’t often been in the loop… but that is starting to change.

Of companies already using connected workspace technology, less than 40% started with a companywide deployment, whereas nearly 53% started with one or more teams or departments. Today, however, 68% of companies report companywide use, with a pattern having emerged: As employees on different teams or in departments get exposed to these tools through joint work, use grows and IT gets more involved.

Use is widespread, even if not entirely across a company: Nearly 80% of companies still using at the team level have seen an increase in the number of teams using a connected workspace app. Additionally, 68.1% of a company’s employees, on average, are using a connected workspace app. There is a gotcha, however: Tool choice may vary team by team. In fact, nearly 58% of companies report having more than one of these apps in use.

Nearly 56% of companies that haven’t implemented a connected workspace app companywide attribute their more limited deployments to budgeting. For these companies, connected workspace apps are funded at the team or departmental level, rather than IT—a situation that can lead to less than optimal spending overall. In part to optimize costs, most companies that have multiple connected workspace apps are looking to standardize on a single one while also putting IT in control.

Further exploring budgeting, a significant majority of organizations (87.5%) have allocated a dedicated budget for connected workspace technology. This budget is either fully dedicated (54.4%) or allows for some ad-hoc spending (33.1%). When it comes to managing a dedicated budget, IT is typically at the helm—particularly if deployed companywide—assuring that investment in connected workspace apps align with overall IT strategies. When IT doesn’t control the dedicated budget, the project management office does for 22.9% of companies and department heads for 18.6%.

An impetus for elevating budgeting out of departments or eliminating ad-hoc spending on these apps is a projected upward spending trajectory through 2025, expected for over half of the companies using connected workspace apps today. This increase is primarily driven by the anticipated need to purchase additional licenses and price hikes, each cited by two-thirds of companies.

Additionally, slightly more than 28% of organizations are planning to upgrade to higher-tier licenses. The top reason for this shift, for nearly 67% of companies, is to gain access to advanced AI functionality. Already, AI has become an integral part of connected workspace technology budgets, with 65.3% of companies including AI-related expenditures in their monthly budgets.

As companies continue to broaden their use of connected workspace apps, understanding these trends and planning accordingly will be crucial for optimizing investment and maximizing the benefits of these essential tools.