The top 5 technologies to deliver a unified CX

The customer engagement centre (CEC) and contact centre (CC) have been integrating in silos for decades, with limited sharing of customer interaction channel functionality and data. This has resulted in a fragmented customer experience (CX), leaving customers to guess which channel will yield the best and fastest answer, reports Gartner. The analyst firm says its latest Gartner Hype Cycle for Customer Service and Support Technologies describes the most critical technologies for supporting customers as they seek answers, advice and resolutions to problems, either through a variety of interaction channels or by enabling customer-facing employees to deliver resolution and advice. "Combining the formerly separate yet closely related Hype Cycle for CRM customer service and customer engagement and Hype Cycle for contact centre infrastructure, this new Hype Cycle encourages customer service and support leaders to combine CEC and CC systems to create a broader technology ecosystem," says Drew Kraus, vice president in Gartner's Customer Service & Support practice. "In doing so, they can leverage consistent analytics and knowledge tools for gathering, analysing and sharing critical information and recommendations to both customers and employees."