RingCentral’s brand-new addition to its contact center capabilities is Zendesk Talk Partner Edition for RingEX, which integrates Zendesk’s customer contact platform with RingCentral’s RingEX employee communications platform. The offer leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to provide greater detail and insight regarding customer calls. While the new launch marks progress for RingCentral on the contact center front, it is only a small step, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
Gregg Willsky, Principal Analyst, Enterprise Technology & Services at GlobalData, comments: “RingCentral continues to build momentum in expanding its contact center capabilities. This latest offer furthers that tradition with a host of useful functionality.”
One positive feature is that a caller’s incoming phone number and contact details are instantly matched to their existing call records making for deeply personalized interaction. Another useful feature is that trouble tickets are created automatically when a call arrives and can be populated with call details; centralizing information in this way allows for faster decision-making and follow-up.
The most intriguing aspect of the offer is that contact center capabilities are extended to employees who sit outside the contact center such as sales and marketing, enabling a broader base within an organization to positively influence the customer experience.
Willsky continues: “Looking at Zendesk Talk Partner Edition for RingEX at a macro level reveals that RingCentral is hewing closely with two important trends. The first trend is that, virtually overnight, AI has become an integral component of contact centers. AI enables dynamic self-service capabilities, allows for anticipation of customer needs, and equips agents with knowledge required to resolve complex inquiries.
“The second trend involves the concept of a ‘contact center’ yielding to the broader concept of ‘customer experience’. Contact centers are converting from agent-centric to including self-service, from reactive to proactive, from transaction-oriented to relationship-oriented, and from generic to deeply personalized.”
Willsky concludes: “Zendesk Talk Partner Edition for RingEX offers useful functionality but is not a game changer as it covers only a narrow slice of customer interaction. Still, RingCentral’s methodical build out of its contact center capabilities is noteworthy.”
