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Michael Fauscette
CEO & Chief Analyst at Arion Research LLC
Remote, United States
Michael is an experienced high-tech leader, board member, software industry analyst, podcast host and consultant. He is a thought leader and published author on emerging trends in business software, CRM and customer experience strategies and technology, automation, AI and generative AI, and building a digital first enterprise. As a senior market researcher and leader Michael has deep experience in business software market research, starting new tech businesses and go-to-market models in large and small software companies.
Currently Michael is the Founder, CEO and Chief Analyst at Arion Research, a global cloud advisory firm; and an advisor to G2 and Board Chairman at LocatorX. He Co-Hosts the show In the Hot Seat on PPN and hosts the Disambiguation Podcast. Formerly the chief research officer at G2, he was responsible for helping software and services buyers use the crowdsourced insights, data, and community in the G2 marketplace. Prior to joining G2, Mr. Fauscette led IDC’s worldwide enterprise software application research group for almost ten years. He also held executive roles with seven software vendors including Autodesk, Inc. and PeopleSoft, Inc. and five VC-backed technology startups.
Michael partners with technology vendors and brands providing thought leadership content development, custom research, keynotes, podcasting and consulting. He often works with technology startups and enterprise vendors on business strategy, go to market strategies, customer advocacy strategies, product led growth, subscription business models and operations, product market positioning, competitive intelligence, leadership development, and product roadmaps.
Available For: Advising, Authoring, Consulting, Speaking Travels From: Philadelphia Speaking Topics: digital first strategy, technology trends, customer experience strategies, AI strategies
Business Adoption and Use of Artificial Intelligence
Arion Research LLC
August 07, 2023
The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in business is no longer a vision of the future, but a present reality that is rapidly transforming the global commercial landscape. As companies of all sizes recognize the immense potential of AI, its integration across sectors is experiencing exponential growth. In the modern business environment, AI is instrumental in driving efficiencies, automating repetitive tasks, aiding decision-making, predicting trends, and enhancing customer experiences.
The report “Business Adoption and Use of Artificial Intelligence” is based on a survey in August 2023 of 402 respondents in North America. It looks broadly across the business use and adoption of AI, as well as the challenges and biggest concerns.
Consumer Communication Preferences for Sales, Marketing and Customer Service
Arion Research LLC
July 19, 2023
When it comes to interacting with your customers’ for sales, marketing and customer service consumers are clear, they want what they want, when and how they choose. That’s not a new concept, but is a map to improved customer experiences. Offering the channel that a prospect or customers trusts and prefers is much more likely to lead to a positive outcome for the interaction.
Earlier this year Sendbird approached us about sponsoring a global study on consumer communication preferences. The survey, conducted in February was built around the prompt: “what communication channels do consumers trust, which do they distrust, which do they prefer for a variety of online activities and what happens when you do, and don’t meet them where they are?” To answer those questions we ask 1200 consumers in all three major geographic regions. The second report from the study is available to download.
Consumer Channel Preferences for Communicating with Businesses
Arion Research
May 16, 2023
Your customers’ want what they want, when and how they choose. That’s not a revolutionary concept, but needs repeating from time to time. It is easy, apparently, for you to project your desires on your prospect or customer. It doesn’t work now…maybe (with a few exceptions) it never worked. This is particularly true of communication with your prospects and customers.
Earlier this year Sendbird approached us about sponsoring a global study on consumer communication preferences. The survey, conducted in February was built around the prompt: “what communication channels do consumers trust, which do they distrust, which do they prefer for a variety of online activities and what happens when you do, and don’t meet them where they are?” To answer those questions we ask 1200 consumers in all three major geographic regions.
Optimizing the Sales Discovery Process
Arion Research
July 13, 2022
Focusing on quotas, fiscal quarters and "closing the deal" leads to a transactional culture, not one of building strong, ongoing relationships with customers. The shotgun approach to prospecting was never particularly effective, but with the level of access control afforded prospects by technology, it is easier than ever to ignore unwelcome and irrelevant sales outreach. Customer expectations have changed. It’s no longer enough for sales reps to reach out with generic offerings and messaging. To gain attention and create interest, sales reps need to create real value in each customer interaction – and the way to do that is to help the customer think about their needs more holistically.
Subscriber Experience
Arion Research LLC
June 15, 2022
With the growth of subscription and the wide variety of products and services available in a subscription model, customer expectations of the subscription experience is setting the bar higher for vendors, similar to the general shift of customer expectations that has manifest over the past 15+ years. To better understand these expectations, Arion Research conducted a survey of 394 employed adults in North America that was completed in May 2022.
Tags: Customer Experience, Digital Transformation, Startups
Accelerating Revenue with Sales Technology
Arion Research
May 06, 2022
Sales acceleration platforms create a digital support structure that combine AI, on-demand content and crowd sourced intelligence to and increase productivity of existing sales reps, ensure new reps onboard quickly, come up to speed and meet performance targets sooner, while reducing the ‘friction’ that is creating the low job satisfaction and turnover.
The Sales Productivity Crisis
Arion Research
March 25, 2022
The “new normal” for sales: a dangerous combination of long ramp times, decreasing performance, low job satisfaction and reduced tenure from rapidly rising turnover. Sales teams need a new approach that meets the challenges of the current environment.
From Idea to Innovation: Harnessing the Power of AI in Product Development
Arion Research LLC
September 25, 2023
In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly crucial for businesses looking to stay competitive and innovate in product development. AI has the potential to revolutionize the entire product design process, from ideation to market launch. By leveraging AI technologies such as generative AI and digital twins, companies can streamline their workflows, optimize designs, and create products that are more intuitive, efficient, and tailored to customer needs.
Salesforce to Acquire Airkit.ai
Arion Research LLC
September 22, 2023
In a move that demonstrates its commitment to providing a broad AI toolkit to its customers, Salesforce recently announced a definitive agreement to acquire Airkit.ai. This strategic acquisition will enhance its customer service platform by integrating Airkit.ai's low-code technology and AI-powered customer service agents. With this acquisition, Salesforce continues to expand its portfolio of AI enabled customer experience focused solutions.
From Retail to Finance: Exploring the Diverse Applications of Generative AI in Industry Verticals
Arion Research LLC
September 20, 2023
Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) can create novel content, including images, text, music, and code. By learning from extensive datasets, gen AI models can generate new outputs that resemble the patterns and style of the training data. The advancements and real-time applications of Gen AI have exploded over the past year, and its potential in various industry verticals such as retail, financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, media and entertainment, high tech, and logistics is becoming clearer. To better understand these use cases, it is useful to understand the underlying mechanisms of Gen AI, focusing on Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and Variational Autoencoders (VAEs) as well as the challenges faced in the adoption of Gen AI.
ChatGPT Plugins
Arion Research LLC
September 17, 2023
As artificial intelligence continues its rapid evolution, OpenAI's ChatGPT has emerged as one of the most popular AI chatbots. With its latest version, ChatGPT 4, and the introduction of ChatGPT plugins, the language model opened up new possibilities for users. ChatGPT plugins are tools designed to enhance the capabilities of ChatGPT’s language model. The plugins serve various purposes, catering to different user needs. In this post we’ll take a look at ChatGPT plugins, some of the more useful ones from a business perspective, and how they can enhance and expand your use of generative AI.
How Generative AI is Transforming Customer Service: Unlocking the Potential of AI in Business
Arion Research LLC
September 09, 2023
Businesses have the opportunity to enhance customer service (CS) by incorporating generative AI in their customer service systems. Powerful large language models (LLMs) can enable businesses to provide next-level customer experiences (CX) while improving CS agent performance and job satisfaction. Let’s look at the transformative potential of generative AI for enhancing CX.
The Business Leaders Guide to Generative AI
Arion Research LLC
September 05, 2023
Unless you live under a rock, you’re hearing about generative AI and its capabilities to generate text, images, audio, and video content everywhere you turn. As a business leader, it is crucial to understand the current and potential impact of generative AI and how to leverage its power. This guide provides a business-focused overview of generative AI and offers insights into how it can be integrated into your organization's strategy.
Writing More Effective Generative AI Prompts
Arion Research LLC
September 03, 2023
Generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude are becoming increasingly popular for businesses, but getting the output you want is not intuitive and often misses the mark. Large Language Models (LLM) can assist in a variety of tasks, including writing emails, creating social media campaigns, summarizing reports, and even accelerating customer service interactions. The quality of the prompt directly influences the accuracy and relevance of the AI-generated output. Knowing how to get the most out of them is a skill that is increasingly in demand. Crafting effective prompts is the key to unlocking the full potential of these GenAI tools.
How Generative AI Can Boost Productivity & Enhance Project Outcomes for Project Managers
Arion Research LLC
September 02, 2023
Generative AI is a rapidly evolving technology with the potential to significantly enhance project management. By automating tasks, identifying risks, and generating insights, generative AI can help project managers (PMs) save time, improve efficiency, and deliver better results.
Here are some of the ways generative AI is being used in project management today:
Automating tasks: Generative AI can be used to automate repetitive tasks, such as identifying resources, scheduling tasks, tracking progress, and generating reports. This frees up PMs to focus on more strategic and value-added activities.
Identifying risks: Generative AI can be used to identify potential risks and issues early on in the project lifecycle. This helps PMs take steps to mitigate these risks and avoid costly delays or failures.
Generating insights: Generative AI can be used to generate insights from data, such as identifying trends, patterns, and relationships. This helps PMs make better decisions and improve the overall project outcomes.
Human-Machine Collaboration
Arion Research LLC
August 29, 2023
Human-machine collaboration refers to the synergistic partnership between humans and machines, leveraging the strengths of both to achieve better results than either could alone. The idea behind this collaboration is to combine human intuition, creativity, and flexibility with machine precision, speed, and the ability to handle vast amounts of data.
Twilio Signal 2023 - Generative AI and Customer Experiences
Arion Research LLC
August 26, 2023
At the recent SIGNAL 2023 event, Twilio gave a glimpse into its view of the future of AI-powered customer engagement with the introduction of an assortment of new AI capabilities under the CustomerAI banner. The combination of the power of large language models (LLMs) with real-time customer data from Twilio’s customer data platform (CDP) Segment can offer companies a set of tools designed to improve and enhance customer interactions.
Automation to Increase Sales Team Performance
Arion Research LLC
August 23, 2023
In recent years, the productivity of sales teams has experienced a noticeable decline, posing challenges for businesses attempting to hit their financial targets. Automation and generative AI, which have advanced a great deal over the past year or so, do offer some potential for helping turn this trend around. These technological advancements could potentially revolutionize sales team performance and rejuvenate their productivity. By streamlining repetitive tasks, providing valuable insights, and enabling personalized interactions, automation and generative AI have the power to enhance sales team performance.
Flipping the Classroom with Generative AI
Arion Research LLC
August 20, 2023
"Flipping the classroom" is an educational approach where students first encounter new material outside of class, typically through video lectures or reading assignments, and then use class time to work on problem-solving, discussions, or other active learning strategies. Generative AI can play a significant role in facilitating and enhancing this approach in various ways:
The Importance of Data Preparation in Developing AI Models
Arion Research LLC
August 16, 2023
AI technology has revolutionized the way we approach data analysis and modeling. For these applications to be successful, though, the data must be properly prepped. Data preparation is the process of organizing data into a format that can be used to create effective AI models. Without proper data preparation, AI models will not be able to effectively analyze and interpret data. As technology advances, artificial intelligence (AI) models and algorithms are becoming increasingly important for businesses and organizations around the world. However, the success of these AI models and algorithms is dependent on how well the data is prepared. Data preparation is essential for ensuring that AI models and algorithms are accurate, reliable, and effective.
How Generative AI Can Enhance Your Cloud-Based Services
Arion Research LLC
August 14, 2023
Generative AI has revolutionized the way we think about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its applications. By incorporating generative AI into a cloud-based platform, you can unlock an unprecedented level of efficiency and innovation for your applications. With generative AI, you can leverage advanced AI technologies to create intelligent solutions tailored to your specific needs. In this post we’ll explore how generative AI can enhance the services of a cloud-based platform and increase the effectiveness of applications built on the cloud platform.
Generative AI Adoption
Arion Research LLC
August 04, 2023
Since last fall there has been a rapidly growing obsession with generative AI and particularly OpenAI’s ChatGPT. There are a number of open and closed large language models (LLM) from a variety of startups gaining users at a whirlwind pace, as well as several cloud providers offering open integrations and LLMs of their own. The buzz on generative AI started mostly positive but as with most technology there quickly emerges a darker side as well. For generative AI this ranges from the capability to generate overwhelming misinformation campaigns to security and privacy challenges.
Salesforce Starter - Small Business CRM
Arion Research LLC
August 03, 2023
In a recent announcement, Salesforce unveiled its new all-in-one CRM solution, “Starter”, designed with the needs of small and growing businesses in mind. Starter combines the functionalities of sales, service, and marketing in a single solution and is the next iteration of Salesforce Easy, which was launched last year as Salesforce’s first product led growth (PLG) offering. By bringing these capabilities together in a simpler package, Salesforce believes that it can provide important capabilities to these businesses for managing customer relationships, centralizing critical data, and fostering efficient growth. The solution provides an easy-to-use user interface (UI) featuring guided onboarding, reporting templates, unified customer data, built-in AI, and pre-built dashboards.
Predict, Prevent, Protect: AI’s Triple 'P' in CyberSecurity
Arion Research LLC
July 21, 2023
The digital landscape has rapidly evolved over the years, with technology like Artificial Intelligence (AI) finding itself at the forefront of innovation. However, these advancements aren't solely beneficial. The dark underbelly of this progress is that malicious entities are leveraging these tools to conduct highly sophisticated cyberattacks. The increasing risk of security hacks, data breaches, and other forms of cybercrime is an escalating concern for businesses and organizations worldwide. By harnessing the power of AI, hackers can automate their attacks, resulting in more frequent, rapid, and complex cyber threats. It's not just the scale but also the severity of these attacks that have increased, with high-value targets like financial institutions and government agencies bearing the brunt.
Meta Announces Llama 2 and Two New Partnerships
Arion Research LLC
July 19, 2023
Meta announced a new version of Llama (Large Language Model Meta AI), Llama 2, and made it open source. Meta believes an open source approach fosters collaboration, iteration and transparency, which is important for new technologies like large language models. Providing access to tools and computing power can create opportunities for businesses, startups, and researchers. Llama 2 was trained on 40% more data than the original Llama model. In addition the announcement included two important partnerships with Microsoft and Qualcomm.
Salesforce Increasing Prices by 9%
Arion Research LLC
July 12, 2023
Yesterday Salesforce announced a broad price increase for Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Industries and Tableau of on average 9%, starting Aug 1st, 2023. This is the first broad price increase since 2016, although a lot has changed over that 7 years; particularly in the addition of several high profile acquisitions to the product portfolio, and in product packaging, which has changed fairly often over that time period.
Digital Experience Management
Arion Research LLC
July 09, 2023
Customer journey mapping is dead. Okay, a little blunt, I suppose I should say it as “the exercise of building static journeys for prospects and customers is no longer the best approach to understand and interact with customers”. All the research I’ve done on buyer behavior shines a light on how ineffective the process and concept is today. Maybe it never was the most useful exercise, but at least in a pre-smartphone world it was reasonable to assume that your company was an important source of information on your products and services, and how a purchaser could use them to their benefit. Once the prospects had access to the entirety of the Internet’s information in their pockets, the buying process changed. Gone is the need for the vendor to be the only source of information on their products and services. Buyers can research, read reviews online for almost anything they want to purchase; connect with others that have experience with the potential solutions, in their industry, and with similar challenges; and generally eliminate the need to interact with a vendor until the decision to purchase is nearly decided, or is already made... The answer to these issues is dynamic customer journeys; or using technology to create personalized and adaptable paths that drive interactions with customers based on real time behavioral feedback.
Intelligent Chatbots and Artificial Empathy
Arion Research LLC
July 05, 2023
If you told me 20 years ago that I’d be writing an article that had the phrase “artificial empathy” in the title I’d probably have hurt myself laughing…yet here we are. The use of chatbots, particularly in customer service and support (call center) activities continues to increase rapidly. Customer expectations for “good” digital experiences are high, and the past 3+ years has seen record numbers of people online and using digital channels. In addition to the consumer behavioral changes businesses have faced several challenges including difficulty hiring and retaining qualified employees, friction with employees over working from home or returning to the office, and very difficult economic pressures, all of which created a resource constrained work environment. This is a considerable challenge for many businesses that has resulted in wider deployment of automation, specifically chatbots to reduce the burden on employees.
IBM to Acquire Apptio for $4.6B
Arion Research LLC
June 26, 2023
Today IBM announced the intent to purchase Apptio, a cloud-based financial and operational IT management and optimization solution (FinOps) for $4.6 billion from Vista Equity Partners. Vista paid $1.94B to take Apptio private in 2018. This move signifies IBM’s strategic push to bolster its cloud and enterprise offerings, as it integrates Apptio's unique expertise and portfolio into its ecosystem.
Generative AI for Sales and Marketing
Arion Research LLC
June 15, 2023
As technology evolves at an exponential pace, businesses must adapt to stay competitive. One of the most exciting developments in recent years is Generative AI, which can generate new data that is similar to the data it has been trained on. There is a lot of “hype” around AI and generative AI recently but let’s look beyond the hype at how Generative AI can be a competitive advantage for sales and marketing teams looking to enhance their strategies and drive more revenue.
AI Here, AI There, Everywhere There’s AI?
Arion Research LLC
June 08, 2023
Everywhere you look (or listen) lately you will see some new article on AI, large language models like ChatGTP, robotics and automation in general. Don’t misunderstand me though, it is exciting and there are lot’s of new use cases that offer some real world business value. AI isn’t new of course, its history goes back decades to the early 1950’s. What has changed the evolution of the technology though is a combination of the Internet’s impact on the creation, collection and distribution of data and a massively scaleable compute infrastructure. The other shift that fuels this “hype” is the openness of businesses and institutions to choose to invest in automation and AI. There are a number of reasons for that, including the business disruption and changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath including labor shortages, broad shifts to remote work, the subsequent noise of “return to office”, inflation and the rapid increase of interest rates, threats of a recession, and the threat of the US debt default (mischief managed, at least for now). In other words, businesses are feeling pressured from many fronts to change and adapt in order to stay competitive and healthy.
Generative AI in Higher Education
Arion Research
May 31, 2023
Earlier this year I co-hosted an episode of In the Hot Seat looking at Generative AI in higher education. I was lucky to be joined by Dr. Ali Green from the University of West Florida and Keeley Meentze from The Keeley Company, along with my co-host Professor Stephen LeMay, also from the University of West Florida. Artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative AI using large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, has sent shockwaves through various sectors including higher education. Along with a great deal of controversy, the discussion of generative AI in education, at least among a subset of educators, has shown a strong potential as a pivotal tool in reshaping and improving higher education. Built upon frameworks such as GPT-4 from OpenAI, generative AI can analyze vast amounts of data, learn patterns, and generate new content autonomously. This capability has far-reaching implications for higher education, offering transformative possibilities that promise to revolutionize teaching, learning, and administrative tasks.
Business Adoption and Use of Artificial Intelligence
Arion Research LLC
August 05, 2023
Arion Research conducted a survey of 402 people in North America on AI adoption in August 2023. This infographic presents some of the preliminary finding and a small sample of some of the high level data from that survey.
BIG CX News – The Latest on Microsoft Sales Copilot, Salesforce AI Cloud, and Zoom In WFM
CX Today
August 11, 2023
CX Today’s Charlie Mitchell presents the latest trending news from the customer experience world.
He’s joined by five prominent CX analysts to dissect the latest stories from the space – including news from Microsoft, Salesforce, and Zoom.
In this edition, our CX experts include:
Liz Miller, VP & Principal Analyst at Constellation Research
Rebecca Wetteman, Principal at Valoir
Michael Fauscette, Founder, CEO & Chief Analyst at Arion Research
Shelly Kramer, Principal Analyst at V3B
Martin Schneider, Head of Research at Annuitas Research
BIG CX News – The Latest on Verint’s CCaaS Move & the Genesys Experience Index
CX Today
July 11, 2023
CX Today’s Charlie Mitchell presents the latest trending news from the customer experience world. He’s joined by three prominent CX analysts to dissect the latest stories from the space – including news from Verint and Genesys.
In this edition, our CX experts include:
Liz Miller, VP & Principal Analyst at Constellation Research
Rebecca Wetteman, Principal at Valoir
Michael Fauscette, Founder, CEO & Chief Analyst at Arion Research
The Latest on Zoom’s AI Assistant, Twilio’s Losses, & a Possible RingCentral-8×8 Merger
CX Today
June 02, 2023
CX Today’s Charlie Mitchell presents the latest trending news from the customer experience world.
He’s joined by four prominent CX analysts to dissect the latest stories from the space – including news from Zoom, Twilio, Lifesize, RingCentral, and 8×8.
In this edition, our CX experts include:
Dave Michaels, Lead Analyst at TalkingPointz.com
Liz Miller, VP & Principal Analyst at Constellation Research
Rebecca Wetteman, Principal at Valoir
Michael Fauscette, Founder, CEO & Chief Analyst at Arion Research
Just like Coffee - Digital Transformation is not ONE and done
Digital Evolution Forum
March 14, 2022
Companies are now focussing on the digital experience they provide to their customers and their staff. When digitally transforming it is important to understand it is not a one and done. In order to become a fully digitised business, you must look at all of your operations in a new light. CEO & Chief Analyst, Arion Research, Michael Fauscette explains digital transformation is all about the people, not the technology and how to shift towards a digital-first mindset.
Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Digital Transformation
Ep. 24 - Business Innovation And Technology Research with Michael Fauscette
YouTube
November 04, 2021
This episode of the Success Fundamentals Podcast features Michael Fauscette, CEO & Chief Analyst of Arion Research and Advisor to G2 and Entercom.io. A career in tech is not dependent on your educational background.
Michael's story of success found him in many different fields trying many things out before he found his way to tech. His background in music lent a different way of learning but his natural curiosity is what drove him forward.
After a decade of experience in engineering and software while in the Navy, Michael adapted post-Navy to a life in tech. He shares that you define your success and passion is the only reason you should be doing it.
He shares his thoughts on money as a tool and power as best wielded by servant leaders. Finally, Michael shares his current initiatives like an upcoming book and his role in Arion Research.
Curiosity Doesn't Kill the Cat with Michael Fauscette
Success Fundamentals
November 04, 2021
This episode of the Success Fundamentals Podcast features Michael Fauscette, CEO & Chief Analyst of Arion Research and Advisor to G2 and Entercom.io. A career in tech is not dependent on your educational background.
Tags: Digital Disruption, Startups, Entrepreneurship
CRM Playaz Weekly with Mike Fauscette
YouTube
April 08, 2021
Advisor, Board Chair, Influence, Analyst, Thought Leader, Jazz Aficionado and Expert Photographer Mike Fauscette joins us to shoot the stuff about whatever comes to our mind....
CRMKonvo #25 Michael Fauscette on CX Trends Analysts and photography
YouTube
December 02, 2020
We will discuss 2021 trends, views on the best and worst buzzwords on the market, the role of CDPs and an actually usable AI.
Michael is a renowned analyst and author, with more than 20 years of experience in and around the CRM industry. He is the Chief Research Officer at G2, an analyst firm that bases its analyses on customer feedback. Our discussion topics will include the role of analysts — whether they are serving their purpose well and what could be improved, the meaning of CX, trends and, of course, the worst industry buzzwords of the year.
And some photography.
As usual - it is a conversation and might lead different directions.
How to get the right technology to power mobile marketing success
MarketingSherpa
January 15, 2019
To truly leverage mobile marketing, it takes three crucial elements — the right plan, the right technology to power that plan, and great creative ideas to make use of that technology for the customer’s benefit.
We sat down with Michael Fauscette, Chief Research Officer, G2 Crowd, to give you ideas for your brand’s mobile marketing strategy — discussing everything from AR and beacons to single view of the customer to data-driven marketing to vendor selection.
Competitive Advantage: It’s Not Just About the Technology, It’s About the Frame of Reference
CxOTalk
October 09, 2015
Creating the right environment to connect with customers, employees and partners is not just about doing the same thing we have always done. If we do more of the same thing we don’t have the right frame of reference. The Business Modernization framework is a way to look at all aspects of the business and identify what the new way to operate should be, identify the technology that can enable that, then identify the culture shifts and the change that needs to happen to enable the business to be effective in today's environment.
Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Digital Transformation
Customer Edge TV: The Modern Customer Journey Map CRM
Customer Edge TV
October 03, 2014
Mike Fauscette, Group VP of Software Business Solutions at IDC discusses modernizing customer journey mapping and building customer experience models. He takes us through the stages of buying: Need, Brand Awareness, Education, Evaluation, Decision, Purchase, Advocate. They also touch upon how mobile changes this model.
#14: CXOTalk with Michael Fauscette
YouTube
June 14, 2013
CXO-Talk brings you live conversations on leadership, innovation, and transformation with people shaping the future. Your hosts are Michael Krigsman and Vala Afshar.
Community for a Complete Customer Experience Strategy: IDC's Michael Fauscette
YouTube
January 09, 2013
Your customers have adapted to the social age—they're tech savvy with lots of options and short attention spans. Your business must adapt along with them if you want to capture their attention and earn their loyalty. Michael Fauscette, Group VP of IDC's Software Business Solutions, discusses about the best way for companies to engage, interact, and provide a positive experience at every point in the customer lifecycle.
The Disambiguation Podcast: AI and Content Marketing
Arion Research LLC
September 22, 2023
In this week's episode I'm joined by Nicole France, Director of Content Marketing and evangelist at Contentful for a discussion on the impact of generative AI on content marketing. Nicole shares her insights on the best ways to integrate generative AI tools into a content strategy and successfully use those tools to increase the productivity of the team and the effectiveness of the content.
The Disambiguation Podcast - Salesforce Dreamforce 2023 Special
Arion Research LLC
September 15, 2023
In this week's special episode we look at the Salesforce Dreamforce 2023 conference, provide an overview of the major announcements and talk with three guests about Salesforce's AI offerings. I'm joined by Rob Katz, VP of Product - Responsible AI and Tech; Avanthika Ramesh, Director, Product - Salesforce AI; and Bobby Brill, Sr Director, Product - Salesforce Einstein Discovery.
Disambiguation Podcast EP 5 - Intelligent Chatbots
Arion Research LLC
September 08, 2023
In this episode I chat with Tim Handorf, EVP and GM of G2 Labs about the use of generative AI for intelligent chatbots. His team launched several chatbots this year on the G2 website to assist both software buyers and software sellers on the marketplace. The bots have provided a significant enhancement to the customer experience while using the G2 platform.
Disambiguation Podcast Ep 4 - No-Code AI Platforms
Arion Research LLC
September 01, 2023
In this episode I chat with Nathaniel Mahowald and Mike Gioia from Pickaxe, a no-code AI platform. We covered a wide variety of topics including the use cases of no-code AI platforms, some real examples from their customers, prompt tips and tricks and a few other topics. You can check out their platform and Pickaxe Builder at beta.pickaxeproject.com
Disambiguation Podcast - Balancing Privacy with AI Adoption
Arion Research LLC
August 25, 2023
In our show today I’m joined by Soribel Feliz, a thought leader in the fields of Responsible AI and emerging tech, and we look at balancing the use of new AI enabled solutions, particularly generative AI, with privacy and regulatory compliance challenges.
Disambiguation Podcast Ep 2: AI and the Salesforce Ecosystem
Arion Research LLC
August 18, 2023
In Episode 2 I talk with Jakub Stefaniak, VP of technology strategy and innovation from Aquiva Labs about understanding what AI solutions and innovations are available from the salesforce ecosystem today to assist sales and marketing in increasing productivity. We discuss a variety of topics including some advice for companies looking to implement an AI project.
In The Hot Seat #20 - Does geography have an impact on Customer Experience?
Playaz Productions Network
July 17, 2023
Join us for a special extended episode of In The Hot Seat to discuss:What is most important to the customer (i.e. speed of response, formal vs. informal response, human vs. bot, etc)How do customers want to interact with a company for support (text, social, email, phone, chat)What are the largest CX challenges in a specific region (both from a customer and company perspective)What impact has LLM and Generative AI tools had on CX?How do you see CX changing in the next few years?Michael Fauscette and Jody Spencer are joined by CX leaders from all around the globe to provide you with some great insights. Panelists include: Jesús Hoyos, Bill Price, Michelle Batt, Fabian Littau, Vaishali Dialani, Georges Essama, and Tom Pringle. This is an episode you don’t want to miss. Hope you can join us.
In The Hot Seat Ep #19 - Combining AI and Innovative Tech to Drive CX / EX
Playaz Productions Network
June 19, 2023
To say AI is everywhere is an understatement. Regardless if it is leveraged for internal or external applications, driving efficiency and enhanced experiences are two consistent desired outcomes.
G2, the widely regarded software and services review marketplace, has been implementing several AI automation projects before it became a standard. They leveraged RPA, ChatGPT and chatbots for both ends of the marketplace (assist buyers, assist new vendor clients) as well as a few other projects to achieve these exact outcomes. Did they achieve their goals?
Join hosts Michael Fauscette and Stephen LeMay as they put G2’s SVP of product R&D operations Marty Duffy and Sr Director of Product R&D operations Kevin Long in the hot seat to find out. We are diving into the successes and lessons learned on how they improved experiences for both the buyers and providers on the marketplace as well as automated mundane and repetitive functions for their internal employees.
In The Hot Seat Ep 17 - The Impact of Capitalism on Corporate Culture, EX and CX
Playaz Production Network
May 22, 2023
Capitalism, in its most basic form is fairly simple, the methods and resources of production are owned by private individuals not governments. In its current and most modern form though, it can be much more complex from both the governmental / regulatory role and from the impact of shareholder in public markets. Growth at any costs can be the driving force for business. There are exceptions to this focus on hyper-growth, some companies are approaching capitalism with empathy and social awareness. Across the various incarnations of capitalism, what is the impact of capitalism on the customer experience - and on employee experience? Does the employee experience affect the customer experience? Common wisdom said yes: “Happy employees create happy customers”.
In The Hot Seat Ep 15 - AI and Large Language Models in B2B
Playaz Production Network
April 25, 2023
Join the “In The Hot Seat” crew for episode 2 of a 4 part series on #AI, #ChatGPT and other #LargeLanguageModels as they look at the privacy and data security challenges of integrating with existing enterprise systems to enable many #B2B use cases. This episode in our AI series features guest Soribel F. Feliz.
In The Hot Seat ep 14 - ChatGPT, Bard and More: Is It Time for Academia to Panic?
Playaz Production Network
April 10, 2023
In The Hot Seat is kicking off a new series #AI: Friend or Foe? In this three part series we will explore both sides of the AI debate in the world of Academics, #B2B and #B2C. The first episode will focus on how AI is impacting academia.
Dr. Ali Green from the University of West Florida and Keeley Meetze from The Keeley Company will be in the hot seat as we get their take on how instructors should deal with tools such as #ChatGPT and other #LargeLanguageModels. Is it a cheat, a tool, or something of each?
In the Hotseat Ep #10: The Widening Gap between Digital & Analog Buyers
Playaz Production Network
February 13, 2023
Join us for episode 10 of In The Hot Seat as we discuss the widening gap between digital buyers and analog sellers. Join co-hosts Michael Fauscette and Stephen LeMay as they put Jon Flynn, Data & #AI Nerd at Microsoft, In the Hot Seat!
Selling to enterprise businesses has never been “easy”, and the changes in buyer behavior along with the challenges of virtual and hybrid selling have only made selling more difficult. The behavior of the buyer half of a B2B transaction has changed in ways that make traditional selling processes more difficult. Where buyers look for information, what and who they trust and how they want to interact with a provider have all shifted over the past ten years. Today, for a lot of companies and sales teams, there’s a gap between what they think the buyer wants and does, and how the buyer actually behaves. This gap creates bad or incorrect behaviors for the sellers, and creates friction and poor experiences for buyers.
ITHS Ep #9: Enterprise Sales, Garbage In / Garbage Out
Playaz Production Network
January 30, 2023
Join us on 1/30 for the first episode of our series on #enterprisesales, where we’ll take a deep dive into the challenges with #customerdata quality and data availability, while exploring some of the ways companies can improve their customer data picture.
Co-hosted by Michael Fauscette and Pete Smith.
About our guest: Todd Kozikowski: Currently the #CRO at Pivotal Analytics. He is accomplished in building purpose-driven organizations, focusing on customer goals, disruptive technologies, and making an impact on industries and markets. He seeks to build and solve problems with the scrappiest, most curious, and boldest teams. His background includes leading enterprise software organizations, scaling hyper-growth enterprise companies globally, helping raise over $60M in funding, and participating in the creation of $5 billion in market value for these companies.
ITHS Ep #8: Meet the Co-Hosts
Playaz Production Network
January 16, 2023
Join five members of the In The Hot Seat (#ITHS) team as we talk through 2023 as we see it, from top trends as identified in the industry to the trends that each of us see shaping up in this coming year. Then we'll take a look at the year ahead for ITHS, including three major series comprising exciting and controversial topics. This episode will feature Michael Fauscette, Jody Spencer, Thomas Wieberneit, Kristy Tupper and Pete Smith. Tune in Monday, 1/16/2023 at 1 pm ET.
ITHS Ep #7: Blurred Lines
Playaz Production Network (PPN)
December 19, 2022
The expectation line has blurred for B2C and B2B customer experience. It is now the same– everyone wants easy-to-use, intuitive products that mask any complexity from the user experience. The explosion of self-service sites, mobile apps and low-code/no-code solutions have not only changed the way customers interact with products but have also increased the difficulty of delivering a positive experience. How can you ensure products are designed to deliver the best user experience possible? Join us on 12/19 to find out. #cx
Guests
James W. (Nuvolo) & Sara Watling (JALI Research Inc.)
Tags: CRM, Customer Experience, Digital Transformation
ITHS Ep 3: Experience the Engagement - The Battle for CX Ownership
Playaz Production Network
October 24, 2022
Join this week’s hosts, Michael Fauscette and Kristy Tupper, in The Battle Over CX Ownership as we continue our Experience the Engagement series. This week, our guests include #ITHS’s very own Jody Spencer and Thomas Wieberneit along with guest Anthony Younes of RapDev. We will explore different perspectives on where CX ownership and accountability lie, where the customer account lives and how that differs between product and services companies. Join us for some great discourse on these perspectives and more!
In The Hot Seat - Episode #1 Experience the Engagement: Silo Wars
YouTube
September 26, 2022
Join Michael Fauscette and Stephen LeMay, our hosts for this episode, as we put Adrian Swinscoe in the Hot Seat to debate the impact of silos on customer engagement and CX. Adrian's extensive experience as a CX advisor, writer, and speaker will fuel a discussion about why organizations still have silos and why they squabble over credit and blame.
Regaining Trust Through Connected Selling
Customer Gauge
March 12, 2019
In 2019, it’s time to ask the pertinent questions: Where are your customers going? What are they doing? And, most importantly, how will you meet them where they are? Using data from over 2 million B2B buyers per month, G2 Crowd’s Chief Research Officer, Michael Fauscette, discusses what clients are saying it takes for them to make a buying decision in today’s market.
How to communicate with mobile consumers to increase sales and loyal customers
Techcrunch
July 26, 2023
This time a survey of global consumers about channel preferences for communicating with businesses.
Highlights
1. The channels consumers prefer to communicate with businesses vary depending on the type of activity, level of trust and perceived personal risk
2. Email and phone top the list for trust, while SMS and social media are the least trusted channels for communicating with businesses
3. Businesses that over communicate through any channel will face negative consequences
4. Consumers prefer to communicate in real-time with businesses when seeking support
5. Retention, attention and advocacy are high value outcomes directly related to full spectrum communication strategy
Communication Channel Preferences for Mobile Consumers
Sendbird
May 10, 2023
Arion Research surveyed 1200 global consumers who use mobile apps about their communication channel preferences for interacting with businesses. The survey asked consumers 18 years and older from 14 countries around the world which channels they use, prefer, trust and pay attention to when interacting with businesses. The survey reveals that not all channels are equal for consumer trust and attention when it comes to different types of business communication.
*Why mobile apps matter as a channel to connect with customers
* Consumer preferences for push notifications from mobile apps
* How consumer experiences with SMS have changed in the past 12 months
* Consequences for poor business communication practices
Tags: CRM, Customer Experience, Digital Transformation
Gamification in the Workplace Webinar with Michael Fauscette
YouTube
September 16, 2013
This is an exclusive Webinar with IDC's VP of Software Business Solutions, Michael Fauscette.
In this webinar, Michael discusses how business gamification creates a more successful and engaging community experience for customers, employees and partners.
Develop thought leadership content - blog, article or eBook
Location: virtual Date Available:
July 18th, 2022 Fees: To be negotiated based on content t
Submission Date:
July 18th, 2022 Service Type: Service Offered
Develop thought leadership content in the form of a blog post, an article or an eBook. Subjects include customer experience, subscriber experience, digital first, digital transformation, CRM, project based ERP, sales tech, subscription management, customer advocacy, etc. (See profile for areas of expertise).
Location: virtual Date Available:
July 18th, 2022 Fees: fee, equity or a blend of both tbd
Submission Date:
July 18th, 2022 Service Type: Service Offered
Senior leader with executive level experience in business software, services management, starting new businesses and business models in large and small software companies, and business turn-a-round. Direct experience leading all facets of technology companies including strategy, market intelligence, data analysis and visualization, consulting, research, product marketing, and services.
Experience:
-31+ years in high tech
-26+ years of executive leadership
-Executive at 5 venture backed technology startups including unicorn G2
-International Management Experience
-17 years advising tech companies on strategy, go to market, competitors, product market fit, PLG
-16+ years leading market analysts, delivering strategy consulting and market intelligence
-Deep vertical industry expertise in high technology and services industries
-Board director, board chairman, advisor
Location: virtual Date Available:
July 18th, 2022 Fees: $12,000 for client and up to 4 comp
Submission Date:
July 18th, 2022 Service Type: Service Offered
Develop a market analysis report and presentation for technology company product. Study includes a SWOT analysis of client and up to 4 competitors (additional competitors can be added for an additional fee) and an executive briefing (virtual)
Join Thinkers360 for free! Are you a Reader/Writer, Thought Leader/Influencer (looking to increase your earnings), or an Enterprise User (looking to work with experts)?
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Consumer Communication Preferences for Sales, Marketing and Customer Service
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Subscriber Experience
Accelerating Revenue with Sales Technology
The Sales Productivity Crisis
From Idea to Innovation: Harnessing the Power of AI in Product Development
Salesforce to Acquire Airkit.ai
From Retail to Finance: Exploring the Diverse Applications of Generative AI in Industry Verticals
ChatGPT Plugins
How Generative AI is Transforming Customer Service: Unlocking the Potential of AI in Business
The Business Leaders Guide to Generative AI
Writing More Effective Generative AI Prompts
How Generative AI Can Boost Productivity & Enhance Project Outcomes for Project Managers
Human-Machine Collaboration
Twilio Signal 2023 - Generative AI and Customer Experiences
Automation to Increase Sales Team Performance
Flipping the Classroom with Generative AI
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How Generative AI Can Enhance Your Cloud-Based Services
Generative AI Adoption
Salesforce Starter - Small Business CRM
Predict, Prevent, Protect: AI’s Triple 'P' in CyberSecurity
Meta Announces Llama 2 and Two New Partnerships
Salesforce Increasing Prices by 9%
Digital Experience Management
Intelligent Chatbots and Artificial Empathy
IBM to Acquire Apptio for $4.6B
Generative AI for Sales and Marketing
AI Here, AI There, Everywhere There’s AI?
Generative AI in Higher Education
Arion Research LLC
Business Adoption and Use of Artificial Intelligence
Curiosity Doesn't Kill the Cat with Michael Fauscette
The Disambiguation Podcast: AI and Content Marketing
The Disambiguation Podcast - Salesforce Dreamforce 2023 Special
Disambiguation Podcast EP 5 - Intelligent Chatbots
Disambiguation Podcast Ep 4 - No-Code AI Platforms
Disambiguation Podcast - Balancing Privacy with AI Adoption
Disambiguation Podcast Ep 2: AI and the Salesforce Ecosystem
Regaining Trust Through Connected Selling
Communication Channel Preferences for Mobile Consumers
Develop thought leadership content - blog, article or eBook
Board Director / Advisory Board Member
B2B Reviews and Customer Advocacy Programs
Competitive Market Analysis
