Zoom unveils platform innovations to elevate customer experience

Barely two years after rising from almost nowhere to establish a leadership position in the videoconferencing market, and looking to develop services for work transformation, Zoom Video Communications has unveiled a range of innovations to its core platform.

The enhancements are designed to help businesses improve customer and employee experiences for the new work anywhere hybrid workforce, aiming to offer actionable insights for navigating the transformation and future of work.

Leading the slate is Zoom IQ for Sales, a conversation intelligence service for sales professionals, as well as Zoom Events and Webinar functionalities such as backstage and Webinar session branding. The offerings are designed to put engagement at the centre of the experience and transform the way we work, connect and collaborate.

Described as the company’s first step in conversation intelligence, Zoom IQ for Sales is an add-on for Zoom Meetings designed to turn customer interactions into meaningful and actionable insights, helping teams across marketing, sales and competitive intelligence improve crucial interactions with customers.

Stated benefits are said to include optimised efficiency by increasing seller productivity with automation for next steps and risk assessments, and quick search functionality; tight integration with Salesforce, leading calendars and Zoom Meetings to consolidate workstreams and provide an aggregated view into conversations and opportunities; a web interface to make it easy for admins to onboard users and manage their integrations; and on-demand scalability allowing businesses to add users as needed.

The offering is available as an add-on for Zoom Meetings customers, with support for Zoom Phone coming soon. Zoom IQ for Sales is the first iteration of Zoom’s conversation intelligence technology under the Zoom IQ umbrella, with potential future use cases by product, industry and use case.

As virtual and hybrid events are now crucial to a brand’s marketing strategy, allowing them to connect with customers and prospects on their terms, Zoom said one of the most requested features for its Events platform has been a gathering place for speakers before, during and after a session.

To meet this need, Zoom is now launching Backstage, a new feature that allows panellists, speakers and production crews to stay behind the scenes while viewing the live webinar feed, chatting with each other, answering attendees’ questions and practicing their presentations.

In addition, Zoom announced two more webinar innovations. Webinar Reactions allows attendees to use reactions – displayed in the bottom-right corner of the main webinar window – visible to the host, panellists and attendees. Hosts can also customise the appearance of the in-webinar experience by adding a wallpaper behind the video tiles, setting a common virtual background for all panellists and providing name tags for each panellist.

“Every interaction counts in a video-first world – whether it’s a call with a customer service agent, a video meeting with the sales team, or a hybrid event with customers and prospects,” said Oded Gal, chief product officer at Zoom Video Communications. World-class customer engagement is where competitive differentiation happens.

“Following our recent launch of Zoom Contact Center, Zoom IQ for Sales and our latest Zoom Events, these innovations mark further steps in Zoom’s journey to establish new heights for customer experiences and flexible collaboration across the workforce.”

Dave Michels, founder and principal analyst at research firm TalkingPointz, said: “These new innovations are yet another example of Zoom’s ability to bring new solutions to life quickly and seamlessly, based on the needs of its customers.

“With the introduction of Zoom Events, Zoom Contact Center, and now Zoom IQ for Sales, the Zoom platform is poised to make an impact on reimagining the customer experience, by expanding it to include the entire customer journey from marketing to sales to ongoing support – the total customer experience.”