Keith Dawson's Analyst Perspectives

We are happy to share some insights about NICE drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.

Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Contact Center in the Cloud 2021, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. It is an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings will address buyers’ requirements for CCaaS platforms. The index is structured to replicate an RFI/RFP process by incorporating all criteria needed to evaluate, select, utilize and maintain technology, and maintain relationships with vendors.

In all of our Value Indexes we utilize a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for analytics and business intelligence. We evaluated NICE and 13 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and on data derived from our Benchmark Research on analytics and business intelligence.

NICE is a well-established global provider of contact center technology. Ranking first overall, NICE was categorized as an Exemplary Vendor, and is the overall Value Index Leader within all seven evaluated categories of Customer and Product Experience.

NICE inContact CXone is a broad-based suite that incorporates interaction handling and routing across virtually every channel. The company was early to explore advanced analytics in and beyond the contact center, and to robotic process automation. Its Capability ranking was excellent across the board, with evidence in our research that its investments are both fundamental (WFO) and cutting edge (AI and interdepartmental workflow automation). The company makes it relatively easy for buyers to understand the product, its benefits and TCO/ROI, and provides role-based user experiences.

There is no evident gap in NICE’s offering. NICE was only second in Usability and Adaptability where it will need to continue to invest into its advancements. NICE inContact CXone is one of the most complete and effective contact center platforms available in the market today.

This assessment was based on NICE’s analytics products available at end of March in 2021. The Spring release of CXone included several notable enhancements, including an agent guidance capability built atop NICE’s Enlighten AI platform, and APIs that enable users to add custom contact channels which present the same as native channels. NICE cites an organization’s mobile app as an example of this kind of customization. NICE also released a new CXone Expert module, a knowledge management application based on the company’s recent acquisition of MindTouch.

When cloud contact centers first emerged a decade ago, the focus for many was on finding the lowest cost provider. Today’s CCaaS buyers should consider a broader range of criteria in their selection process, which we outline in this Value Index. A modern contact center requires a technology base that provides continuous innovation, flexibility and open integrations. This will help future-proof operations, and better connect centers to the goals of their parent organizations. With this in mind, when buyers begin the process of evaluating their CCaaS plans, they should explore the options on offer from NICE inContact.

This research-based index is the most comprehensive assessment of contact center in the cloud software in the industry. Technology buyers can learn more about how to use our Value Index by clicking here and included vendors that wish to learn more can click here. Read the report here.

Regards,

Keith Dawson