Oracle Service Cloud 2018 All-Star

stzJOmI

It was we great honour and delight that I received the news. For the second year running, Oracle has named me “Oracle Service Cloud 2018 All-Star“, for my expertise and being one of the leaders within the Oracle Service Cloud community, but above all for being willing to share my knowledge.

I’m again part of a fantastic group of people that use this great technology platform to enable better customer service and customer experiences. I’m very thankful to Erica Anderson, who is the main driving force behind this fantastic community.

Read full blog and list of 2018 All-Stars here: http://communities.rightnow.com/posts/751f0f02ee?

Let’s celebrate “CX Day”

Tuesday, 3rd October 2017, is CX Day, a global celebration of everyone (companies and professionals) that strive to create and deliver great experiences for their customers. It is organised by the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA), and you can see all about it in cxday.org.

CX Day will be celebrated all around the world, with various online events (see here), and c. 30 local events (I will be in London, see others here), which will have different topics of discussion (in London we will have “What is in the Heart of a Successful CX Strategy“).

But the fun will also be at our companies, with usual company celebrations (see here a few examples and ideas – adhere and share your pictures). As well as at the 2017 Impact Awards (see here the judges, the finalists and past winners). It is also very worth to check the fantastic blog posts at the Blog Carnival.

I look forward to celebrate the CX Day, with me fellow CX-zealots in London, in particular as it will be the first one celebration, as a member of CXPA and qualified CCXP.

Service Cloud Customer Advocacy Programme

The Oracle Service Cloud Customer Advocacy Programme is one of the most important pieces of the Oracle Service Cloud community, as it helps users of the platform to showcase and celebrate their success.

The programme also allows customers to talk to industry and thought leaders, influencers, and research companies. Customers can even become Champions, be nominated and (who knows!) win, at the prestigious annual Oracle Service Cloud Awards gala.

Listen to Jeff Wartgow (Director of Outbound Product Management) and Stephanie Kaleva (Senior Manager Customer and Employee Advocacy) to know more about the programme and how to get involved.

What happens in Vegas, needs to be shared

Last week I was in Las Vegas, for the second year in a row, representing Capventis at the Modern Customer Experience conference organised by Oracle. Once more, it was great to have the opportunity to hear from, share with, and meet so many thought leaders, innovators and industry specialists. A fantastic event, really worth attending, with great key notes, sessions and hands-on workshops.

Oracle Service Cloud Focus

My focus was on the Modern Service Experience (MSE) track and Oracle Service Cloud (OSvC), starting very early in the morning of the first day, with a deep dive workshop “Supercharge your Agents – A Guide to Advanced Desktop Automation” where the Product Development team shared some tips and tricks around automating processes using workspace rules, JavaScript API, Agent Scripts and Desktop Workflows.

From that moment until the end of the conference it was 3 days with back-to-back meetings and sessions. The MSE agenda had plenty other great hands-on workshops, with beginner and advanced sessions around extensions and APIs, analytics or customer portal. The Oracle Product Management and Product Development teams shared, in several breakout sessions, not only insight but some great news re. the product strategic direction and roadmap. And roundtable discussions, as well as “fireside” chats, were also very popular and insightful.

Customer Success Stories

One of the highlights of this conference are the sessions where Oracle customers share their stories, and the ways they are using technology as an enabler, to innovate, become more efficient, and thus more successful. Two great examples were presented by Kohl’s and Toshiba Medical Systems (TMS). Both companies implemented OSvC, to transform a vision and desire to improve customer service and experience into reality.

Asked about the reasons to have chosen OSvC, Sebastiaan Dammann, Senior Business Consultant at TMS, said… “Cloud. Easier to collaborate across value chain, and increase CX (…) Completeness of vision. CX, Field Service, planning, back-office (…) Highly configurable and flexible solution. Support Vanilla approach”.

Oracle Service Cloud Roadmap

The most interesting news (at least for us OSvC advocates) always come from the roadmap sessions. And there were some great news shared by the Product Management team. As usual it was all subject to the Safe Harbour Statement, but here it is…

The Aug 2017 release will include significant changes to the Business Rules, with a new interface, and enhanced engine to support custom objects (meaning that you don’t need to write code to create automation in custom objects).
After the WeChat integration, available since Feb 2017 release, Oracle will publish the Facebook Messenger integration, in the Aug 2017 release (allowing customers to chat / text with agents via that Facebook facility/app).
Video chat will also be released in Aug 2017, even though it will only be available for companies in the USA (first agent-side video will be available with customer-side video being introduced at a later stage).
Oracle will release a release manager, with versioning capability. An absolute game-changer for administrators and developers, allowing to package configurations/customisations from one interface/instance to export/import into another interface/instance (avoiding the need to re-key or manually replicate configurations). The Aug 2017 release will include a limited number of components (e.g. workspaces, reports) and others will become available over the next few releases.
External data virtualisation is also something that Oracle is working on and preparing to make available in the next few releases. It will use Odata and Open API Initiative, enabling custom objects to have reference to external data, allowing the surfacing and/or virtualisation of external data within OSvC.

A big investment and development effort has been put into the Browser UI (BUI) and its Extensibility Framework, where Oracle is hoping to have the majority of agent-facing functionality (currently available in the Dynamic Agent Desktop – .NET console) by the end of 2017.

The BUI Extensibility Framework will enable automation, integration and extension of the BUI. And the next few releases will make available the following extensibility types…

Console – e.g. extension areas on Global or Sidebars (e.g. CTI media-bars); additional widgets on Status Bar; new items on Main Menu; modal and pop-up windows.
Workspace – e.g. buttons that trigger actions (e.g. set fields), rules or integrations; browser extensions to show other web-based applications.
Analytics – e.g. define virtual schemas and tables to display data from external systems, and allow read and write.

The add-in manager, as well as the add-ins area in the workspace designer, will have a specific section for BUI extensions and add-ins, alongside the one currently available for DAD add-ins.

If you are already excited about it, and feel like jumping straight onto it, know that the BUI Extensibility Framework requires knowledge on the below technologies, and that answer id 5169 is available on the community with documentation.

JavaScript
HTML
CSS
JSON

All Stars and Heros

But the icing on the cake, at this year’s conference, was the OSvC All Star and CX Hero status, areas and activities (see photo below)…

The Hero Hub booth, where we were able to hang-out with other OSvC heroes, join the Justice League of Customer Service, and have some fun.
The CX Hero Lounge, where we could meet fellow CX advocates, do some work during breaks, as well as relax and have a bite to eat.
The All Star Appreciation Event, where we got together with the OSvC crew, for some drinks, food and great conversations.

A big thank you to: Keith McFarlane, Stephen Fioretti, Shon Wedde, Jens Lundell, Jeff Wartgow, Vimal Chopra, Susie Boyer, Kent Swartz and Daniel Foppen.

And a very special mention and huge thank you to Erica Leep and Danette Beal for organising all of this, for being absolutely tireless, and for spoiling us with treats.

I’m already looking forward to next year’s conference!

Modern Customer Experience 2017 kick-off

The “Modern Customer Experience 2017” event has started in Las Vegas, at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, and I’m looking forward to meet all the CX and Oracle Service Cloud specialists, advocates and heros… as well as to attend a number of fantastic workshops and sessions (my agenda is full, and I’m not able to go to all the sessions I wanted!). I will be there the whole week representing Capventis, so feel free to reach out if you want to meet up.

18118965_10154530191326914_5784131045646337573_n

Let’s meet up in Las Vegas again!

Only 4 weeks to go for Oracle’s Modern Customer Experience conference. For the third year in a row, this fantastic event – where 3,000 attendees network, learn and share experiences – is going to happen in Las Vegas.

The conference has 4 main tracks: Commerce, Marketing, Sales, and Service. The latter is all focused around Oracle Service Cloud and what the platform can do to enable business transformation and deliver better customer experience.

As always, there will be different events to attend and things to do:

Sessions where Oracle’s customers share success stories. How they implemented and use Oracle Service Cloud. What they did to differentiate themselves and innovate. And what business results they achieved.
Sessions where special guests share thought leadership. Business leaders, research analysis, subject matter experts and Oracle Product Managers will share forward-thinking ideas, trends, drivers and a vision for the future.
1-to-1 “Ask the Expert” sessions. A great opportunity to discuss with Oracle experts, and get the answer to particular questions or guidance to resolve any challenges that might be specific to your business.
Demos in the show room. Oracle and some partners will be showing Oracle Service Cloud and it’s new and more relevant features. As well as showcase scenarios where Oracle Service Cloud was or is being used to improve business performance.

I will be in Las Vegas, and look forward to meet all the specialists, experts, advocates and enthusiasts of Oracle Service Cloud.

I will also be available to meet anyone that would like to share an experience or ask any question. So if you would like to meet up, please request a meeting here, and I will be more than happy to arrange a face-to-face, where we can chat over a break, a coffee or drink.

Interview at the Oracle CX event in Vegas

As you know I have attended the Modern Service Experience 2016 in Las Vegas back in April this year. It was a pleasure to have met so many Oracle Service Cloud specialists once again, and some of them for the first time. I look forward to next year’s event. Below is my testimonial. Thank you to Stephanie Kaleva (Oracle’s Manager for Executive Programs Customer Advocacy) who invited me to do this.

Modern Service Experience 2016

Processed with MOLDIV

This week I had the chance to be at the Modern Service Experience conference in Las Vegas, where great news were announced by Oracle, with regards to the (near) future of Oracle Service Cloud. Oracle is building their own Video Chat and integration with the leading messaging apps in the market – WhatsApp, WeChat and Facebook Messenger – moving customer service to the next level and allowing companies to keep up with the needs of their customers.

Great sessions and workshops took place in the MGM Conference Centre, where Oracle specialists from the Product Development and Product Management teams shared their knowledge, and customers shared their experiences with Oracle Service Cloud. Their challenges but also their successes, with the implementation and usage of the platform.

Some sessions were particularly interesting:

“Cross-Channel Contact Centre: Customer Showcase” moderated by Susie Boyer, where three customers (Elsevier, SiriusXM, Academy Sports+Outdoors) showed three completely different ways of using Oracle Service Cloud on a contact centre.
“Automating your desktop” moderated by Jens Lundell, where WageWorks showed how the company improved efficiency and increased all key indicators using Workspace Rules, Desktop Workflows and Agent Scripts.
“Customer Portal: Advanced Framework Techniques” where Chris Fellows and Jeremy Campbell, both from Oracle, shared a few tips and tricks on how to use, configure and develop the Customer Portal.
“Recipes from the Analytics Cookbook” where Kenny Tietz from Oracle, presented the Analytics Cookbook that is now available on the Oracle Service Cloud community.
“Customer Roundtable: Service Email” driven by Susie Boyer and Keri Jenkin, where many customers asked for clarification and insight on how to go about using the email features and functionalities, like Message Templates and Business Rules to better manage the email interactions.

The Modern Service Experience conference was also a great opportunity to review some “old” faces from the Oracle Service Cloud community – Susie Boyer, Christopher Patterson, Roderick Peace from Oracle; Rhianna Albert from eVerge; Kaarina Kvaavik and Lucia Kash from Language I/O; Paul Graham from Ideqa – and meet others – Stephanie Kaleva, Erica Leep, Keri Jenkin, Maureen Meeds, Jens Lundell, Nate Hossner, Jeff Wartgow from Oracle; Mig Ponce from Eventus; Rupal Patel from Infolexa.

There was also some time to take a sneak peek to some of the sessions on the Modern Sales Experience conference and Modern Marketing Experience conference, as well as meet some experts on Oracle Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud.

Looking forward to next year’s event!

CX WebCasts presented by Oracle and CapVentis

CapricornVentis and Oracle will deliver, in the next few weeks, a series of free webcasts around Customer Experience. To attend, go to CapricornVentis website and register.

These will be very short (c. 30 minutes) webcasts with different topics, addressing best practices for using modern technologies to increase customer retention & acquisition rates, and reduce costs of customer engagement.

Here is the calendar:

Get Social, Get your Customers

Thursday, May 29th @ 15h00. Delivered by Louise Holmes

Empower your agents, Know your customers, Measure your performance

Thursday, June 5th @ 15h00. Delivered by Luke Brennan

Serve Me, Here, Now

Wednesday, June 11th @ 15h00. Delivered by David Lopes

Online chat – How can this help your business?

Thursday, June 19th @ 15h00. Delivered by Luis Melo

CX Workshop: Great speakers and excellent turnout

A great CX workshop, delivered by Oracle and CapricornVentis, last Thursday in London. An excellent turnout with almost 40 people attending. Among those, some of the most interesting and innovative companies in the MSE space.

The event kicked-off with an excellent introduction from John Glennane, Founder and Director at CapricornVentis, that showed some recent, surprising and real-world cases that prove the importance of Customer Experience in the digital world.

The featured speakers were amazing. Graham Hardy talked about the Customer Experience and his experience as Head of Customer Care at Boots UK. John Mihill delivered an outstanding presentation around User Experience and his daily work as Head of Customer Service at TM Lewin.

David Lopes, Oracle’s CX Strategist, was once more brilliant not only speaking about the importance of Customer Experience but also delivering a Fast & Furious version of a CX Journey Mapping Session, supported by Simon Miles, Oracle’s Senior Solutions Consultant.

In the last session of the day, I had the pleasure of delivering a presentation on how technology can enable CX, followed by a RightNow demo where I touched on Analytics, Customer and Interaction Management, Customer Engagement, Web Self-Service and Live Chat functionalities.