NextCon 2017: Nextiva Releases NextOS

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — On day one of its second annual user conference, Nextiva, a provider of cloud-based communications technologies, extended beyond its VoIP roots and introduced NextOS, a platform designed to help businesses of all sizes change the ways they “communicate, adapt, and analyze.”  

According to Nextiva’s CEO, Tomas Gorny, who unveiled the new technology to the crowd of 600 partners and customers in attendance for his morning keynote, the platform “will revolutionize the way we connect and engage with our customers.”

“Voice is to Nextiva what books were to Amazon in their early days,” Gorny said. “It’s just the starting point. Nextiva is merging and unifying business communication, team collaboration, customer engagement, and analytics on one modern platform. We are taking full accountability for the end-to-end customer experience.”

Gorny said that, on average, companies use 10 to 15 applications to communicate within their businesses, which leaves data in silos and gives companies an incomplete view of their customers. 

NextOS aims to solve that. It is a single-sign-on operating system that includes three main components designed to adapt and evolve with organizations of all sizes: NextDB, a database that stores customer and employee data, provides a view of their interactions across various touchpoints, integrates with third-party systems, and is customizable according to industry; NextIQ, which leverages natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) capabilities to predict future customer behaviors; and NextStep, which is designed to automate processes and carry out actions based on these predictions.

At the core of NextOS is Nextiva Analytics, which enables users to view, analyze, and act on business data in real time. End users can create reports, share dashboards, and leverage trend analysis tools as well as gamification to create employee engagement.

NextOS includes native applications for unified communications (UC) collaboration, customer communication, and engagement. Users can manage conversations from voice, email, and social media in one place. The platform includes a browser-based chat component for customer-facing website communications, which can also be used for internal purposes as a replacement for team chat applications like Slack or Trello. It also contains a survey tool that enables users to create and send customer surveys to gauge customer sentiments. 

According to Gorny, the platform can be used to meet common business needs, including increasing revenue, extending customer lifetime value, reducing customer churn, increasing efficiency, and creating transparency within an organization. It can be used by professionals at different levels of a business to be more productive and accomplish these goals, he said.

For instance, a customer service agent can use NextOS to quickly help customers via the channels they prefer to use and quickly toggle between channels when necessary, while viewing the customer history and sentiments in the same window. Operations managers can make it easier for their agents to see what is working best for customers, so they can adjust and streamline the way agents approach each channel and improve their productivity. Sales and marketing pros can assess sentiment in real time to figure out how to nurture prospects and sell more to existing customers. Business analysts can determine how to use data to help their companies make better decisions according to customer health and satisfaction scores. 

According to Brent Leary, cofounder of CRM Essentials, most of Nextiva’s customers are small to midsize businesses (SMBs) who have been using its VoIP technologies. The release represents a move to try to eventually compete with companies such as Zendesk, which offers comparable solution sets to customer service organizations.

Related Articles

NextCon 2017: Companies Must Cultivate Customer Service Cultures

Strong reputations are created inside an organization and extend outwards, speakers agreed.

Medallia Integrates Medallia for Digital with Its Experience Cloud

The integration aims to help companies unite online and offline customer data and feedback for a more complete view of their customers.

Jive Launches Jive Contact Center

Jive Contact Center is a cloud-based application designed to increase efficiencies for incoming calls.

Zoho Remakes its CRM System, Introducing SalesInbox and Launching Zoho Marketplace

Zoho gives its CRM interface a makeover, unveils new sales efficiency tools, and opens its app store.