Nextiva and Spurs Sports & Entertainment Announce Partnership
Conversation platform Nextiva will deploy its business communications technology to power the fan experience of Spurs Sports & Entertainment (SS&E), which owns and operates three sports teams, including the professional basketball team the San Antonio Spurs. The two companies are joining forces in an official partnership to level up the experience for SS&E fans through Nextiva’s phone and contact center service.
“Going to a San Antonio Spurs, Austin Spurs, or San Antonio FC game is more than just watching a sport. It’s a rich experience rooted in community and connection,” says Tracy Conrad, Nextiva co-founder and chief amazing officer. “The teams want to give their all for the fans, and the fans are right there supporting and celebrating at every moment of the journey. Nextiva is proud to become part of SS&E’s winning story and play a role in these meaningful experiences.”
Joe Loomis, senior vice president of finance, technology & culinary operations at SS&E, says the company is excited about the partnership. “Working with Nextiva was a no-brainer for us, as we’re dedicated to providing the best brand experiences for our fans, players, and business partners,” Loomis adds.
Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, Nextiva powers conversations across cloud business phone systems, test and team messaging, and video meetings. The company was valued at $2.7 billion by its first and latest financing round in late 2021. With its recent acquisition of AI customer experience platform Simplify360, Nextiva says the company is accelerating its roadmap and working to integrate social media, reputation management, live chat, and helpdesk customer relationship management (CRM) into its platform in the coming months.
Based in San Antonio, Texas, SS&E is a community-centric sports and entertainment company that provides premier live and global digital experiences for fans through a portfolio of three teams and two venues. Aside from the San Antonio Spurs, which competes in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league’s Western Conference Southwest Division, SS&E owns and operates the Austin Spurs, a basketball team in the G League, the official minor league organization of the NBA; and the San Antonio FC, a professional soccer club that competes in the United Soccer League (USL). SS&E also manages the day-to-day operations of the AT&T Center/Toyota Field and STAR Complex.
Amperity Is Palace Resorts’ Choice to Fuel First-Party Data Strategy
Amperity, the Seattle-based enterprise customer data platform (CDP) for consumer brands, has been selected by Palace Resorts to integrate the first-party data strategy of the luxury vacation provider and enhance its guest experiences.
Through Amperity’s 360-degree view of the customer, Palace Resorts will be able to unify data from digital channels and offline transactions across its various properties in Mexico and Jamaica, allowing the resort to gain a comprehensive understanding of guest preferences and behaviors, regardless of which property guests are visiting.
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With 10 oceanfront resorts and large in-room accommodations, Palace Resorts had faced significant challenges when it sought to understand the preferences of new and repeat guests, not knowing whether guests preferred a relaxing spa vacation or a golf excursion, or which guests might be receptive to its timeshare program. The lack of clean data kept the resort from creating a personalized experience that the travel industry believes is critical to driving guest loyalty and repeat business.
Possessing the data in one central location enables the resort to create a more engaging experience for guests and to build stronger customer relationships to drive business success, Palace Resorts executives say. Amperity, using patented AI and ML methods, stitches together all customer interactions to build a unified view that connects to marketing and technology tools.
“Data plays a critical role in enhancing and personalizing the guest experience. With Amperity, we have a real-time view of our guests that allows us to be more efficient and more effective,” says Ivan Hernandez Villafan, IT project director at Palace Resorts. “Amperity gives us the confidence in the data we need to deliver truly memorable moments for our guests.”
Amperity CEO Barry Padgett says the travel industry is highly competitive and comes with enormous customer expectations. “Palace Resorts is committed to delivering a smooth and seamless experience to each and every guest. That requires personalized, relevant communications both pre- and post-booking. With Amperity, Palace Resorts has the confidence that they have a complete picture of each guest that is interacting with their brand.”
LiveVox Pairs Up With OTD Americas to Optimize Customer Engagement
San Francisco-based LiveVox is the new provider of a contact center platform for global business process outsourcing (BPO) company OTD Americas. The nearshore subsidiary for parent company OneTouch Direct, OTDAmericas will deploy the LiveVox platform for use throughout the customer journey of its large customer base, which includes many Fortune 500 US and global brands.
Yvonne Torrijos, chief client officer at OTD Americas, says the company chose LiveVox because of the platform’s workflow automation, collaboration capabilities, and flexibility for meeting various use cases, ranging from originations, customer loyalty and retention, to customer care, accounts receivable management, and the multi-language customer base of its global clients. “Deploying the LiveVox platform will boost agent efficiency and productivity, significantly improving the quality of customer support,” Torrijos adds.
John DiLullo, CEO at LiveVox, concurs, saying the partnership will enhance the CX and quality management of OTD Americas clients. “Working together, we’re providing fully integrated AI, automation, and multilingual collaboration tools that enhance customer engagement, boost agent productivity, empower their managers and back-office personnel, and maximize the success their clients achieve,” he says.
LiveVox, a contact center as a service (CCaaS) platform, is designed for businesses to automate customer support across channels and incorporates blended omnichannel communications with workforce engagement capabilities that help enhance agent experience and performance.
For its part, OTD Americas is a contact center outsourcing company that provides contact solutions from operations in Colombia, Mexico, Asia, and Eastern Europe. It offers integrated omnichannel customer engagement for customer service, collections, back-office support, and custom technology solutions, with a global delivery model that offers flexible onshore, nearshore, offshore, and work-at-home agent (WAHA) service options.
8×8 Solution Deployed by Southwest Transplant Alliance to Help Save Lives
8×8, the integrated cloud communications platform provider headquartered in Campbell, California, announced that its 8×8 Experience Communications as a Service (XCaaS) platform is being deployed across the entire organization of the Southwest Transplant Alliance (STA), including customer service, to ensure uninterrupted support in the recovery of donated organs and tissues for transplant.
STA, a nonprofit organization based in Texas with 10 hospital transplant centers and more than 270 hospitals, is part of a nationwide network of agencies that aims to save lives through organ and tissue donation and transplantation. Since its founding, the organization has recovered more than 35,000 organs.
Operating with a remote and hybrid workforce spread across the country, STA needed an integrated cloud contact center and unified communications platform to meet the needs of its 24/7 inbound call center. Upon the advice of IT consultant Softchoice, STA chose 8×8 XCaaS to simplify communications and customer engagement among its teams, donors, clients, and hospitals. With 8×8 XCaaS providing Microsoft Teams Phone, a solution-certified contact center, and quality analytics and reporting capabilities, STA is able to maintain the familiar Teams user interface while ensuring resilience, consistency, and business continuity.
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“When we say that the phone ringing is the difference between a life-or-death situation, we’re not exaggerating,“ says Alex Headley, donor services manager at STA. “Calls require immediate action, organizing transplants and donations. In choosing 8×8, we have a cloud contact center and communications solution that offers the capabilities, flexibility, and resiliency we need to quickly manage life-giving interactions for donors, families, hospitals, and our care team around the country. Additionally, 8×8’s reporting and analytics, along with its customizable reporting capabilities, really stands out as a differentiator among other vendors, helping us to accurately determine service levels.”
Hunter Middleton, chief product officer at 8×8, says it is imperative for STA to have a reliable cloud contact center and communications platform to ensure that its team can manage calls for organ donations and transplants quickly, without worrying about having to troubleshoot the technology. “With 8×8 XCaaS, Southwest Transplant Alliance can rest assured, knowing they have the seamless, consistent communications they need so that they can focus the attention on donor care, family support, and response during life-saving emergencies.”
8×8 XCaaS is built on a secure platform and includes integrated cloud contact center, business phone, video meetings, team chat, and SMS capabilities in a single-vendor solution.
French Provider Quadient to Help PacificSource Elevate Member Communications
French-based CX management and automation provider Quadient is teaming up with multistate US health insurer PacificSource Health Plans to enhance the CX for its more than 600,000 members. Using Inspire, Quadient’s customer communications management software solution, PacificSource plans to reduce manual processes and IT resources required for developing and maintaining membership renewals, member plan materials, and related communications. Quadient, based in Bagneux, a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, can increase the speed of creating and managing thousands of blocks and templates of content through automation.
Since implementing the solution, PacificSource has reduced plan content blocks by 60%, from nearly 20,000 blocks of content to less than 8,000, reducing IT time spent on research and troubleshooting as well as cutting the time spent on updating content. Founded in 1933, PacificSource is an independent, not-for-profit community health plan serving more than 600,000 individuals in Idaho, Oregon, Montana, and Washington.
Martin Martinez, vice president of IT enterprise systems at PacificSource, says the company sees Quadient as a long-term partner in helping achieve its objectives. “Our mission is to be the lifelong, trusted partner of our members, helping to improve their health and well-being, their overall health care experience and providing access to affordable care. Our plan materials and member letters are a critical part of this experience.”
Chris Hartigan, chief solution officer for intelligent communication automation at Quadient, expresses thanks to PacificSource for trusting Quadient. “PacificSource is transforming its member communication processes, and we look forward for them to leverage our advanced technology to continue elevating their end-to-end membership experience.”
Author Information
Alex is responsible for writing about trends and changes that are impacting the customer experience market. He had served as Principal Editor at Village Intelligence, a Los Angeles-based consultancy on technology impacting healthcare and healthcare-related industries. Alex was also Associate Director for Content Management at Omdia and Informa Tech, where he produced white papers, executive summaries, market insights, blogs, and other key content assets. His areas of coverage spanned the sectors grouped under the technology vertical, including semiconductors, smart technologies, enterprise & IT, media, displays, mobile, power, healthcare, China research, industrial and IoT, automotive, and transformative technologies.
At IHS Markit, he was Managing Editor of the company’s flagship IHS Quarterly, covering aerospace & defense, economics & country risk, chemicals, oil & gas, and other IHS verticals. He was Principal Editor of analyst output at iSuppli Corp. and Managing Editor of Market Watch, a fortnightly newsletter highlighting significant analyst report findings for pitching to the media. He started his career in writing as an Editor-Reporter for The Associated Press.
