CMSWire.com

The leading community of customer experience practitioners. Sister to @GetReworked and @vktrnow.

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Do Your Contact Center Agents Want to Help Customers? https://t.co/lWy3M4pkwf #CustomerService #AgentEmpowerment

[CMSWire.com @cmswire]

Five9 Raises Full-Year AI Outlook to 60% Growth After Strong Q2 by @domnicastro https://t.co/9qrWvyj6MQ #AI #ContactCenter

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CarMax handed its inbound sales calls to Sierra's voice AI in May and says resolution rates are climbing. It's the latest marquee win in a conversational AI land grab already claiming NiCE, SoundHound and https://t.co/YUhcqbSqUW as the market races toward a projected $78.9 billion by 2033.

https://t.co/7IlSiqGQbD

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Five9 found 96 percent of CX leaders believe their AI handoffs preserve context. Eighty-three percent of customers say they still repeat themselves. CMSWire EIC Dom Nicastro breaks down why the cheapest fix is not new AI. It is a visible human option.

https://t.co/dwe75VGsfq

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Sierra Lands CarMax as Conversational AI's Enterprise Land Grab Widens by @domnicastro https://t.co/p5PwR7T47e #ConversationalAI #VoiceAI

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NiCE landed its biggest CXone and Cognigy deal yet, an eight-figure win with the British government, and beat its own Q2 guidance. Investors still sent the stock down on renewal discounts and slowing AI growth for the second straight quarter.

https://t.co/TlMwndl94X

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Avaya tapped Jeff Clarke as CEO on Aug 3. ASAPP named Katie Stein CEO the next day. Two contact center vendors, two new chiefs, one day apart. Clarke once ran Kodak, which has analysts debating if that is an omen or an asset. It is CX's seventh CEO change since 2025.

https://t.co/BdPxoDwppp

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"Our customers don't owe us anything."

That's not a conference cliché. That's the CDO philosophy Justin Racine brought back to Geriatric Medical and DDP Medical Supply after six years on the consulting side.

He's CMSWire’s four-time Contributor of the Year and four weeks into his new role as Chief Digital Officer, he sat down with Dom Nicastro on The Digital Experience to talk about what happens when someone who's been writing about CX for years finally has to live it.

"We're in a transactional business. People need to order medical products. But how do we allow them to feel the experience, not just use it?"

His answer: start with the customer, not the technology. The rest follows.

What does earning your customers' business every single day look like in your org?

Watch the episode 📺: https://t.co/8PI7GnyZcs

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A $1.9 billion SoftBank and PayPay stake in 7-Eleven's Japan stores is not just a loyalty play. CMSWire EIC Dom Nicastro connects it to Home Depot, Bank of America and Virgin Atlantic, all treating physical and digital CX as one system this year.

https://t.co/SVmJA887Ji

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What Are Customer Journey Management Platforms? https://t.co/JOmIHmXT4F #CustomerJourney #CustomerExperience

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Virgin Atlantic skipped the if-then-else script for its AI Concierge. CMSWire Contributor Adrian Swinscoe explains how the airline trained its holiday agent to surface just seven contextual preferences through plain conversation and why that approach is winning bigger baskets.

https://t.co/Ri3EG2mRuP

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https://t.co/8dsCEuqgtq Lands $13M Series A for Voice AI by @domnicastro https://t.co/MSzpGmkDkX #VoiceAI #ArtificialIntelligence

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Post-AI marketing will not look like campaign marketing with AI bolted on. CMSWire Contributor David M. Raab explains why real-time data demands, touchpoint versus central orchestration and shrinking channel manager roles will reshape the org chart.

https://t.co/uTxz5YcsP9

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Design Startup Paper Raises $34M to Take on Figma in the AI Agent Era by @msophiahawley https://t.co/vlI55MUS0d #Startup #Funding

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NPS and CSAT rarely move a CFO. CMSWire Contributor Pierre Raymond breaks down four financial metrics, lifetime value, churn rate, cost to serve and ARPU, that translate customer experience into the language finance leaders actually track.

https://t.co/hl0hwocDo5

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Deflection used to be the trophy metric in contact centers. Turns out routing someone away from help isn't the same as helping them.

That distinction is finally showing up in how CX leaders measure AI performance. The shift (resolution rate, not deflection rate) is becoming the number that matters. Because a bot that gets a customer off the phone fast but doesn't solve anything just moves the problem, it doesn't remove it.

🔍 68% of consumers say they have to re-explain their issue at least half the time after a transfer, per Metrigy's Customer Experience Optimization research
⚡ Resolution-ready AI agents carry context across channels and handoffs, so the human agent isn't starting from zero
🤖 The best virtual agents now execute multi-step workflows (processing refunds, updating orders) within guardrails, not just answering questions about them

Cost savings still show up. They're just a byproduct now, not the point.

Read more 👉 https://t.co/xBGbiQjgh1

@Zoom | #SponsoredContent #CustomerExperience #ContactCenter #CustomerService

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PolyAI Debuts Dialog-RSN-1 Audio-Native Voice AI Model by @domnicastro https://t.co/8paGqsStb6 #VoiceAI #ArtificialIntelligence

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CMSWire Contributor Joseph G. DeRosa argues AI never fixes broken customer experience because it simply scales whatever alignment or dysfunction already exists across sales, marketing and support. Start with the emotion customers should feel, not the tech.

https://t.co/RSN3Dz5rmh

[CMSWire.com @cmswire]

He looked at 347 different names.

That's what it took to build the Dexian brand from seven companies. Months of checking urban dictionaries, Reddit threads and other languages, testing for offense no one saw coming.

Dom Nicastro sat down with Kip Havel, CMO of Dexian, on The CMO Circle. And 347 was just the beginning.

“I actually think of myself as a business person that practices marketing. Not the other way around.”

They also got into Kip’s concept of “purposeless innovation”: companies chasing AI without a real business strategy behind it and why the new CMO title might actually be Chief Collaboration Officer.

What percentage of your marketing strategy is really business strategy?

Watch The CMO Who Says Marketing Is Really About Collaboration 👉 https://t.co/aPcvxdoeLc

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Bank of America's Erica has logged 3.4 billion interactions since 2018 and just extended into EricaAssist for 18,000 employees. CMSWire EIC Dom Nicastro breaks down why treating AI as infrastructure instead of a feature is the real lesson for CX leaders.

https://t.co/zuSTdUB8tM