CaféX's victory is putting true omnichannel communication into the hands of customers, claims Dave Phillips, Managing Director for EMEA and Asia, who is at the vanguard of the company's just-launched UK channel expansion campaign.
CaféX is no ordinary young up-and-comer. Founded in mid-2013 and unburdened by past practices the firm is fuelled by enough innovation to set the pace in meeting customer demands for omnichannel engagement. At the helm of the US-based company's push into the UK market is newly appointed Managing Director Dave Phillips who is in total lockstep with the march of CaféX's growth ambitions, which are based on its Live Assist solution and a well advanced channel strategy.
Live Assist enables enterprises to offer customers a seamless omnichannel engagement experience encompassing voice, video, mobile, web, self-service and other communication channels without the rip-and-replace of existing systems and platforms. A quick look at Phillips' past experience shows that he is the man for the job. "I delivered multi-channel customer solutions for retail and automotive sector clients as long ago as 1999," he said. "These capabilities have reached maturity level and customer expectations are driving demand."
The litmus test of any means of communication is whether it communicates efficiently, and CaféX passes the test with flying colours. A key element of the Live Assist solution is the melding of customer history and context from each service platform among all of the available engagement channels to ensure a smooth transition and a positive customer experience, regardless of which or how many channels a customer chooses to use. "Live Assist can be added to most mobile apps or websites with minimal effort, providing one or two-way in-app video without the need for plugins or downloads, and offering true co-browsing with rich annotation and document push capabilities, along with real-time contextual communications," explained Phillips.
Developing and nurturing communications channels, as well as creating synergies with next generation customer experience providers, will form the cornerstone of CaféX's growth strategies. Alongside its partners the company will initially target medium and large sized businesses that rely heavily on customer service. "We have the solutions and deep understanding of the UK market to be successful," stated Phillips, who has spent many years working on customer experience transformation. "Our partners know this market and have a solution that will resonate with businesses that are struggling to keep up with increasing consumer demands for omnichannel engagement."
CaféX plans to force a fundamental re-imagining of the end user experience and become the standard-bearer for omnichannel communication, according to Phillips. He believes that the value proposition of digital customer engagement has not been well understood, and aims to enthuse multitudes with CaféX's clarity of vision and straightforward propositions.
"Everyone agrees that digital customer engagement is a business imperative but in practice there is often little execution, mainly because the barrier to entry has been too high," he added. "CaféX has changed that. The overarching message is that it doesn't have to be hard. We have a proven methodology that brings the significant benefits of rich digital interaction to clients while leveraging existing assets.
"One of our biggest objectives this year is to release a wizard that helps developers and customers create their own best-of-breed WebRTC-based customer engagement solution. We have worked hard in the past to streamline these processes and plan to release new tools that will simplify development even further. This capability will be well received by both enterprise customers and developers."
CaféX provides a number of tools and development kits to ease the deployment of Live Assist in mobile apps running on iOS and Android platforms as well as all major web browsers. Integration with existing enterprise collaboration infrastructure also ensures that existing investments are protected. A priority for CaféX is to also simplify the consumption model for partners and customers.
"We are focused on delivering packaged offerings that enable companies to procure and overlay our technology quickly and cost-effectively," commented Phillips. "This model is particularly relevant for the commercial market where repeatable, high volume offers that leverage economies of scale are more attractive. Of course, we will continue to support the custom requirements of large enterprises through flexible solutions optimised for heterogeneous environments."
CaféX, which was established by CEO Rami Musallam and CTO David Jodoin as a spin-off of Thrupoint's software business, was founded with a mission to create the advanced business transforming software solutions already discussed. And, as we have also seen, the company believes it is necessary for companies to harness the opportunity sooner rather than later in order to gain a competitive advantage.
"The homogenisation of companies means they must differentiate through servicing," explained Phillips. "Companies of all shapes and sizes are looking at how they can do this, and many realise that it involves large scale transformation. Together with our partners, CaféX shines the light for these companies, guiding them through a faster, more results focused path to reach their goals."
CaféX employs over 90 people spread across locations in the US and UK where it works with a number of resellers and service integrators, as well as in Japan. Remarkably for a company in the flush of youth, in March last year the Live Assist solution was named Product of the Year at Enterprise Connect in Orlando, Florida, and has achieved similar recognition from the likes of Gartner and Frost & Sullivan.
Such high praise recognises CaféX's solutions that have been deployed in trial or live environments across many of the world's largest banks, several top US insurance providers and other Forbes Global 2000 companies. CaféX has also formed strategic partnerships with three of the leading contact centre equipment vendors with access to up to 75 per cent of all agent seats globally, claims the firm.
According to Phillips, the surface has barely been scratched. "From banking and insurance to blue light services and healthcare, none have truly harnessed services that reflect the move that has already happened," he said. "That gives CaféX and our partners a huge opportunity. On the ground, we see the successful resellers acting as advisors to their clients, with CaféX software as the tip of their spear enabling them to quickly impact the business, and in doing so establish relevance and credibility beyond their traditional sphere of influence.
"Brands are looking to bring together their traditional and digital channels to create a cohesive customer experience. Resellers have the opportunity to position themselves as the much-needed bridge between those two worlds. Even better, this is a replicable model."
CaféX has evolved into a consultative sales organisation to better serve partners. Resellers also have no choice but to evolve to meet market demand, according to Phillips. "This is a critical point," he said. "Changing customer requirements drive innovation, and savvy resellers have taken this philosophy to heart and are positioning themselves as consultants that guide businesses through the labyrinth of new technology, as opposed to just selling products. There are no short cuts in this process. We have to really understand the business context in order to meet the specific needs of individual customers."
As well as consultancy, the continued growth of smartphone adoption is also fuelling CaféX's expansion. Consumers now have more choices to engage with their preferred business and service providers, and the overwhelming majority of these companies do not have the technology in place to efficiently manage these divergent communications channels.
"CaféX allows organisations to add full collaboration capabilities to their current infrastructure, enabling them to serve evolving consumer demands without having to make substantial investments in new technology," affirmed Phillips. "We have a strong foundation, a dedicated team and field tested solutions. All of the necessary ingredients are there - now it's up to us to execute."