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The synergies between cloud-based contact center and cloud-based experience management.

Sheila McGee-Smith

October 15, 2010

1 Min Read
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The synergies between cloud-based contact center and cloud-based experience management.

Earlier this week I wrote about how cloud-based services were a major theme at this year's Interactive Intelligence Partner conference. In the second half of the week, I attended RightNow's annual user conference. In 2007, RightNow made the decision to stop offering perpetual licenses and concentrate on being a software-as-a-service provider. Known then as a CRM vendor, today CEO Greg Gianforte prefers the term Customer Experience software company. The company has solutions for web, social and contact center experience management.

With the attention that on-demand contact center solutions are getting, it’s not surprising that vendors in that space are quickly partnering with RightNow and its competitors, like salesforce.com, to offer consolidated software-as a-service story. On the heels of exhorting his partners to talk to customers about CaaS for every deal, Interactive Intelligence CEO Don Brown left his meeting to fly to the RightNow conference to be one of its keynote speakers.

Interactive Intelligence is not alone in thinking that customers who are have already made a SaaS-based CRM choice might be prime prospects for SaaS-based contact center solutions. Other on-demand and outsource contact center solution providers sponsoring the RightNow Summit included Convergys, five9, Teleperformance, Transera and LiveOps.

In the video below Paul Lang SVP of LiveOps talks about why his company was a sponsor of RightNow's conference and what he believes the synergies are between cloud-based contact center and cloud-based experience management.

About the Author

Sheila McGee-Smith

Sheila McGee-Smith, who founded McGee-Smith Analytics in 2001, is a leading communications industry analyst and strategic consultant focused on the contact center and enterprise communications markets. She has a proven track record of accomplishment in new product development, competitive assessment, market research, and sales strategies for communications solutions and services.

McGee-Smith Analytics works with companies ranging in size from the Fortune 100 to start-ups, examining the competitive environment for communications products and services. Sheila's expertise includes product assessment, sales force training, and content creation for white papers, eBooks, and webinars. Her professional accomplishments include authoring multi-client market research studies in the areas of contact centers, enterprise telephony, data networking, and the wireless market. She is a frequent speaker at industry conferences, user group and sales meetings, as well as an oft-quoted authority on news and trends in the communications market.

Sheila has spent 30 years in the communications industry, including 12 years as an industry analyst with The Pelorus Group. Early in her career, she held sales management, market research and product management positions at AT&T, Timeplex, and Dun & Bradstreet. Sheila serves as the Contact Center Track Chair for Enterprise Connect.