The News: Engagement and outreach leader Alvaria announced it will be deepening its partnership with contact center services provider Avaya to focus on delivering cloud-based, proactive customer outreach experiences. Read the full press release here.
New Avaya-Alvaria Partnership to Focus on Proactive Customer Experience, Outbound Engagement
Analyst Take: Proactive communication versus reactive communication: What’s better? Most companies know it is always better to err on the side of more proactive outreach. Companies that can use the pile of customer data they collect to predict their needs and proactively reach out are generally perceived as being more customer-focused and responsive. On the other hand, organizations that are reactive, and simply wait for customers to engage with them, are missing out on incremental sales revenue and the ability to improve customer experiences on their terms.
Most companies find themselves stuck in an endlessly reactive position. The sheer volume of customer inquiries and data, the prevalence of multiple inbound channels, and intertwining federal, state, and local regulations that govern company-to-customer communications has left some organizations unwilling or unable to effectively deploy and manage proactive outreach campaigns. This partnership between Avaya and Alvaria aims to change that.
The partnership itself is not new. Alvaria and Avaya have been working together via Avaya’s DevConnect Technology Partner program. What is new is a deeper focus on proactive customer outreach and a deeper partnership overall that aims to leverage the unique capabilities and strengths of each organization.
Together, Alvaria and Avaya plan to focus on driving more proactive customer engagement. Alvaria Cloud™ Outbound has a native integration with Avaya AXP, which the companies say will allow contact centers to move from “essential operations” to competitive advantage. The partnership will allow Avaya’s customers to enjoy advanced outbound abilities that reduce agent idle time and abandon rates, as well as the ability to run proactive and compliant campaigns for new customer acquisition and collection purposes.
Contact centers must be aware of and comply with a variety of outbound communication regulations, including the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Telemarketing Sales Rule and Fair Debt Collections Practices Act, and the California Consumer Privacy Act, among many others, which are far too broad and complex for individual contact center managers or even compliance officers to be familiar with, let alone manually manage. Alvaria’s patented tools permit outreach across multiple channels while adhering to the applicable regulations within the jurisdictions in which the company’s customers or prospects are located.
Organizations also will be better equipped to schedule outbound calls with “convenient time to call” capabilities. Instead of wasting agents’ time randomly reaching out to customers who are not available, engagements can be scheduled during a time when the customer is available.
Proactive communication, proactive business: Avaya filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in February of this year, securing some $780 million to restructure the business. Avaya announced just last month that it had successfully completed its financial restructuring, with a focus on growth-oriented capital. The company created a more streamlined product roadmap and has rolled out more than 150 new features throughout its portfolio since the start of 2023. This is an essential step Avaya needs to take to prevent its current customers from migrating to other CCaaS vendors that have been circling overhead since the announcement of the Chapter 11 filing.
Proactive communication, proactive business: The partnership agreement with Alvaria is clear evidence that Avaya realized it needed to offer its customers enhanced experience management tools that it did not have in-house, and was unlikely to be able to quickly develop and deploy. Avaya proactively sought to take on the challenge by seeking out a partner that could provide the tools that help organizations provide better, more proactive outreach with their customers and prospects.
In the highly competitive customer experience/contact center market, it would have been easy to simply admit defeat. Instead, the company decided to partner with a friend and fight to stay in the game. For customer engagement, any tools that allow organizations to leverage the customer journey information they already have and drive proactive, relevant, and timely interactions is a win, particularly when it comes to being able to anticipate small customer issues before they blow up, causing damage to the customer relationship, and the reputation of the company.
Again, this focus on partnership is something we are seeing across the board, with many tech-focused businesses beginning to realize technology is moving far too fast for any single company to do it all alone. What we love about this announcement is that Avaya is walking the walk. They don’t just believe in proactive communication, they are proactively working to turn their company around, and it is a win for corporate integrity.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
Daniel is the CEO of The Futurum Group. Living his life at the intersection of people and technology, Daniel works with the world’s largest technology brands exploring Digital Transformation and how it is influencing the enterprise.
From the leading edge of AI to global technology policy, Daniel makes the connections between business, people and tech that are required for companies to benefit most from their technology investments. Daniel is a top 5 globally ranked industry analyst and his ideas are regularly cited or shared in television appearances by CNBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and hundreds of other sites around the world.
A 7x Best-Selling Author including his most recent book “Human/Machine.” Daniel is also a Forbes and MarketWatch (Dow Jones) contributor.
An MBA and Former Graduate Adjunct Faculty, Daniel is an Austin Texas transplant after 40 years in Chicago. His speaking takes him around the world each year as he shares his vision of the role technology will play in our future.
Keith Kirkpatrick is VP & Research Director, Enterprise Software & Digital Workflows for The Futurum Group. Keith has over 25 years of experience in research, marketing, and consulting-based fields.
He has authored in-depth reports and market forecast studies covering artificial intelligence, biometrics, data analytics, robotics, high performance computing, and quantum computing, with a specific focus on the use of these technologies within large enterprise organizations and SMBs. He has also established strong working relationships with the international technology vendor community and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events.
In his career as a financial and technology journalist he has written for national and trade publications, including BusinessWeek, CNBC.com, Investment Dealers’ Digest, The Red Herring, The Communications of the ACM, and Mobile Computing & Communications, among others.
He is a member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP).
Keith holds dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Magazine Journalism and Sociology from Syracuse University.
