U.S. Companies Are Wasting Millions of Dollars Each Year Paying Middle Managers to Do Low-Value Work, New Research Shows
SafetyCulture’s fifth Feedback from the Field report finds U.S. frontline middle managers lose an average of 33 days per year to low‑value tasks such as endless meetings and duplicate data entry. The wasted time translates to roughly $6,400 per manager, or an estimated $59.9 billion in lost productivity across the country. Construction and manufacturing bear the heaviest burden, accounting for $16.7 billion and $17.3 billion respectively. The study also reveals that while 85% of managers propose improvements, only 54% see those ideas enacted, highlighting a gap between insight and action.
47% of Consumers Hold Brands Responsible for Toxic and Spammy Comments, Respondology Report Finds
Respondology’s 2026 Business of Comments Report, based on 168.8 million comments across seven platforms, finds that 20% of comments contain spam, bots or abuse and only 47.3% carry positive sentiment. Nearly half of consumers (47%) hold brands accountable for toxic remarks,...
Why Your Customer Experience Looks Different Depending on Where Your Customer Lives
Most CX teams believe they understand the customer journey, but real‑world testing often occurs from a single office network. Geographic differences in ISP speed, CDN configuration, currency display, and third‑party script latency create hidden friction that only surfaces as churn...
Sinch Mailgun Report: Companies Are Leaving Email Performance on the Table
Sinch Mailgun’s Email Impact Report 2026, based on 400 billion emails and a survey of 1,200+ senders, reveals that 18% of messages fail to reach inboxes, jeopardizing up to a fifth of potential ROI. While 78% of respondents deem email critical, only...
Successful Fundraising: Beyond Persuasion
Fundraisers often blame weak decks or market conditions, but the real barrier is investors' hidden decision criteria. Prospective donors and venture backers evaluate opportunities against personal risk tolerances, values, and unconscious biases before hearing any pitch. By surfacing these criteria...
The AI Deployment Test: Capability or Identity Innovation?
Boards are pressuring firms to showcase AI deployments, yet success hinges on how the technology is classified. The article distinguishes between capability AI—internal tools that boost efficiency invisibly—and identity AI—customer‑facing systems that shape brand perception. Misapplying capability‑speed assumptions to identity...
TELUS Digital: Research Shows Enterprises Are Leaving Significant Revenue on the Table by Underutilizing CX Partnerships for Sales and Customer...
TELUS Digital released an IDC‑sponsored InfoBrief revealing that most enterprises limit CX partnerships to support and cost‑optimization functions, with only a minority outsourcing sales or customer‑acquisition roles. The survey shows 27% of firms outsource analytics while just 15% outsource acquisition,...
AI Sales Coaching Vs. Human Sales Coaching: The Hybrid Approach That Drives Results
Sales leaders face a coaching crisis: limited time, distributed teams, and complex cycles. A hybrid model that blends AI‑driven conversation analysis with human emotional intelligence is emerging as the solution. Research from ValueSelling and Aberdeen shows organizations using both achieve...
SurveyMonkey Launches Automated SMS Survey Invites Directly From Salesforce
SurveyMonkey announced the general availability of automated SMS survey invites within its Salesforce integration on the AppExchange. The new add‑on lets customer‑experience and support teams send personalized text‑message surveys automatically when trigger events—such as a closed case or completed transaction—occur...
As AI Collides with Legacy Contact Center Technology, TTEC Digital’s Latest Software Release Is Rewriting the Enterprise AI Playbook
TTEC Digital unveiled AI Gateway, a software layer that bridges modern generative‑AI models with existing contact‑center infrastructure. The solution lets enterprises plug in services from Amazon, Google, Microsoft and future partners like Anthropic and OpenAI without overhauling legacy systems. Integrated with...
Adjoe Names Matthew Freter U.S. Marketing Director as Global Growth Accelerates
adjoe named Matthew Freter as U.S. Marketing Director to drive its U.S. growth. The company, the largest rewarded‑ad network on iOS and Android, posted a 24% year‑over‑year revenue increase, far above the industry’s 6.7% growth. With 770 million users and over...
Why Voice Fraud Is CX’s Most Underestimated Problem
AI‑generated voice fraud is exploding, with deep‑fake scams rising 456% year‑over‑year and projected losses of $40 billion by 2027. Europe sees 13 spam calls per subscriber each month and a 15% fraud call rate in the UK, where victims lose an...
AppsFlyer New State of Subscriptions for Marketers Report Reveals Shifting Consumer Behaviour Reshaping Where and How People Pay for Apps
AppsFlyer’s State of Subscriptions for Marketers 2026 shows a dramatic shift toward paid Android installs, especially in emerging markets. Short‑Drama video apps surged 155% year‑over‑year, becoming one of the fastest‑growing subscription categories worldwide. Android now accounts for the majority of paid...
Expanded MadCap Syndicate Intelligent Content Delivery Platform Brings Next-Level AI Enablement to Corporate Content
MadCap Software unveiled the Spring 2026 release of its Syndicate platform, adding AI‑powered semantic search, automated content classification, and customizable portals. The enhancements let enterprises semantically index and retrieve proprietary content, support retrieval‑augmented generation for more accurate AI chatbots, and detect...
Beyond Language: How Speaking Dialects Enhances the Power of AI Receptionists
A new study finds AI receptionists that speak specific dialects dramatically improve customer experience. Using a 7‑point Likert scale, dialect‑enabled agents scored higher on perceived warmth (5.42 vs 4.86), competence (5.05 vs 4.66) and social presence (5.15 vs 4.65). The...
Your Happiest Customers Want to Advocate for You — Here’s How to Make It Easy
B2B firms often have satisfied customers, but their advocacy remains invisible to prospects. Traditional reference programs and review‑site campaigns are limited, creating fatigue and offering little scalable proof. Recording customer conversations—as podcasts, videos, or long‑form testimonials—produces authentic, reusable assets that...
When Marketing Demand Moves Faster Than Team Structures Can Adapt
Marketing teams built for stable, annual planning now face demand that arrives in rapid, uneven bursts. Traditional hiring cycles cannot keep pace with these spikes, turning perceived headcount shortages into a volatility problem. Companies are shifting toward flexible workforce models—leveraging...
The Call to Transform Customer Experience Has Arrived: Flip Hires the Executive Team to Answer It
Flip, the enterprise Voice AI platform for retail, healthcare and transportation, announced the hiring of Amy McDonnell as Chief Customer Officer and Lee Nadler as Chief Marketing Officer. The appointments follow a $20 million Series A round in January and bring together deep CX and...
Cyara Launches Agentic Testing to Help Enterprises Deploy AI Agents With Confidence
Cyara unveiled a suite of agentic testing and AI governance tools designed to validate, monitor, and control autonomous AI agents across voice and digital channels. The offering adds AI Trust modules for compliance and bias detection, plus a recommendation engine...
The Enduring and Evolving ‘Craft’ of Customer Support – Interview with Nick Francis
Help Scout co‑founder Nick Francis stepped down as CEO in late 2025, becoming Chairman after 15 years leading the remote‑first support platform serving over 12,000 businesses. In a Punk CX podcast interview, he discussed the "craft" of customer support, the...
Why Startups Stall After MVP & What Drives Product Momentum
Early‑stage products often mistake rapid feature delivery for real progress, but sustainable growth hinges on user momentum—making a single core action easier, faster, and repeatable. Companies that concentrate on that core workflow can validate demand quickly, avoid premature hiring, and...
AI Is Killing Seat-Based Pricing. What CX Software Buyers Should Do Next
AI is eroding traditional seat‑based pricing in enterprise CX software, dropping its share from 21 % to 15 % within a year while hybrid models rose to 41 %. Vendors such as Intercom, Zendesk and Sierra are experimenting with outcome‑based pricing tied to...
The Six Structural Shifts in B2B Buying & The Strategy for Sales & Marketing Leaders
AI is fundamentally reshaping B2B buying, with 89% of buyers now leveraging generative AI throughout the purchase journey. Six structural shifts—autonomous discovery, vendor expansion, compressed cycles, pricing transparency, evolving sales‑rep value, and a vendor readiness gap—are forcing CROs and CMOs...
Komerz Acquires Pathformance to Build the Commercial Growth Operating System for Global Brands
Komerz Ltd., a global commercial growth firm, announced the acquisition of Pathformance, a marketing measurement and attribution specialist, in a deal that values Komerz at $330 million post‑transaction. The merger combines Komerz’s end‑to‑end commerce platform with Pathformance’s unified measurement capabilities, creating...
Navsoft to Showcase Innovative Enterprise AI Solutions – Computer Vision, Conversational BI, and BidBuddy at the 33rd Convergence India Expo...
Navsoft will showcase three production‑ready AI solutions at the 33rd Convergence India Expo in New Delhi from March 23‑25, 2026. The lineup includes a Computer Vision system that monitors CCTV for safety violations and worker fatigue, BidBuddy that compresses government tender preparation...
Sales Is Not A Prospecting Tool
Sharon Drew argues that conventional sales is a solution‑placement model, not a prospecting engine. She differentiates the "Sell Side"—presenting features—from the "Buy Side," which guides buyers through risk assessment and decision‑team alignment. Drew proposes a Buying Facilitation® framework that seeks...
9 Reasons To Step Away From Customer Experience (CX)
The article outlines nine warning signs that customer‑experience (CX) professionals should consider stepping away or taking a break, ranging from home‑life strain to loss of empathy. It adapts Joseph Lalonde’s leadership burnout framework to the CX field, emphasizing how chronic...
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[Research Round-Up] B2B Marketing Benchmarks, a CMO Outlook, and How Humans Decide
Benchmarkit’s 2026 Brand vs Demand Benchmark shows B2B tech marketers currently devote 70 % of budgets to demand generation but would prefer a 50/40 split with brand spending. NielsenIQ’s CMO Outlook reports a decline in CEO/CFO confidence in long‑term brand value...
How Executives Can Turn Fragmented CX Efforts Into Enterprise-Wide Customer Obsession – Interview with Ray Gerber
Ray Gerber, co‑founder of the Institute for Journey Management, outlines a nine‑stage roadmap that moves companies from fragmented CX projects to enterprise‑wide customer obsession. He explains how the initial Awareness stage often emerges from failed, siloed initiatives and why the...
How Customer Experience Promises Threaten Manufacturer Growth
Manufacturers are losing large accounts not because of product flaws but due to a gap between the customer‑experience promise and the ability to deliver it consistently across sites. Inconsistent handoffs, siloed operations, and unclear terminology erode trust, leading to attrition...
How Top Sellers Turn Discovery Into Business Value (and Why Finding “Pain” Isn’t Enough)
Top‑performing sellers move beyond surface‑level pain discovery to connect operational problems with strategic business issues that drive measurable value. By framing conversations around business outcomes, firms like GHD Digital achieved a 450% increase in annual recurring revenue and a 32%...
Decision Making
Business decisions often rely on untested assumptions, leading to costly failures such as Kodak’s film focus and Microsoft’s mobile misstep. The article stresses the need to explicitly define, test, and continuously verify assumptions using customer feedback, market research, and real‑time...
From Journeys to Systems
Channel99 launched Paid Search Optimization, an AI‑driven feature that shifts B2B paid‑search measurement from clicks and CPC to cost‑per‑target‑account engaged. The capability surfaces waste, scores keywords and ad groups, and recommends budget reallocations, giving marketers and finance leaders clearer ROI....
Overlooked Steps in Decision Making: How to Avoid Resistance and Encourage Buy-In
The article highlights three often‑ignored early stages of decision making that can prevent resistance and ensure lasting buy‑in. First, leaders must assemble every stakeholder who experiences the problem and will use the solution, securing complete data and ownership. Second, they...
Contextual Segmentation: Why Context Explains Customer Behavior Better than Clicks Alone
Traditional segmentation relies on clicks, pageviews, and on‑site actions, but those signals often miss the underlying why behind a purchase. An experiment at Online Plastics Group linked sales to public housing data—energy labels and building permits—to uncover real‑world contexts driving...
Dreaming Faster Than We Can Build: Fixing the Strategy-Execution Gap
Marketing teams are fast at defining strategy but stumble during execution, with 64% rating strategic planning as quick versus only 42% feeling the same about cross‑functional rollout. The gap creates strategic debt as ideas lose relevance while waiting for manual...
Beyond the Honeymoon: Why Map Communications Bets on Zoho for a Decluttered Tech Stack
Map Communications, an employee‑owned virtual receptionist firm, has adopted Zoho’s suite to manage its customer lifecycle while keeping its proprietary real‑time operations separate. The company embraced an 80/20 approach, using Zoho Contracts, CRM, Desk and Data Bridge to meet most...
Why Shopify Print Businesses Are Rethinking Customization Workflows
Shopify print merchants are moving from basic design add‑ons to full‑scale customization platforms that support collaboration, branding, and performance. Traditional integrations cause slow page loads, lengthy approvals, and pricing errors, prompting a shift toward link‑based design reviews and conditional script...
Pragmatic AI: Solving Real Problems in a World of Hype
The article warns that AI is currently perched on the Gartner Hype Cycle’s Peak of Inflated Expectations, where lofty promises outpace real capabilities. It highlights how over‑hyped features—especially language‑specific nuances—often miss the mark, likening them to the short‑lived teardrop phones...
How to Build a Customer Journey Map That Works in 2026
Research shows firms that map customer journeys see a 54% lift in marketing ROI and 18% faster sales cycles. The guide outlines a ten‑step process—from defining objectives and assembling cross‑functional teams to plotting touchpoints, emotions, and internal actions. It stresses...
The Illusion of Value: Why Salesforce’s Agentic Work Unit Is the New “Bad Query” Of the AI Era
Salesforce unveiled the Agentic Work Unit (AWU) on its Feb 25, 2026 earnings call, defining it as a single AI‑driven task that converts raw intelligence into actionable work. The company reported processing over 19 trillion AI tokens into 2.4 billion AWUs, with 771 million delivered...
B Contact Center WFM Maturity Assessment Framework
The B Contact Center WFM Maturity Assessment Framework provides a structured, evidence‑based method to gauge workforce management capabilities across ten weighted domains. It combines a multi‑rater scoring model, configurable domain and assessor weights, and a five‑point rubric to generate a...