Max Ball
Principal analyst at Forrester Research
Max Ball is on Forrester Research's digital customer and collaboration team serving customer service and technology leaders focused on transforming customer service engagement. He brings more than 30 years of industry experience in product management and product marketing in the areas of omnichannel contact center platforms, speech recognition and interactive voice response (IVR), mobile, social, chat, and WebRTC. His research focuses on the full breadth of contact center solutions ranging from self- and assisted-service applications to AI-driven digital customer experiences.
Prior to joining Forrester, Ball worked for several contact center and enterprise collaboration vendors. He worked most recently at RingCentral, where he was director of product marketing for contact center. While there, he helped launch Engage Digital and Engage Voice, the first contact center offerings fully owned by RingCentral. Prior to that, he held product management and marketing roles at technology vendors 8x8, Genesys, and Edify.
Articles by
Max Ball
System integration is always a challenge, but with customization it can become a real hairy mess.
Posted November 07, 2024
Generative AI has a lot of potential uses in customer service, including answering questions that might not come up as often.
Posted September 06, 2024
My gut says the number of agents will be reduced, but I can't say that for sure.
Posted June 27, 2024
I've worked with some DMVs, and their contact center challenges are real.
Posted May 10, 2024
A few high-profile AI flubs show there's still work to be done.
Posted March 15, 2024
Good customer service does lead to increased revenue, customer loyalty, and brand advocacy.
Posted January 26, 2024
Customer service reps today need to be more like a Tuscan waiter:able to read the room, anticipate needs, and bring the goods when it's time.
Posted November 03, 2023
If you don't adapt, your team will not last long in this world.
Posted October 06, 2023
Generative AI and large language models are far different from the inventions of the past. This time, they're for real.
Posted August 18, 2023
As call center and unified communications platforms merge, companies need to consider the rest of the technology stack.
Posted July 13, 2023
There aren't many use cases in contact centers just yet, but the next two years will see lots of activity.
Posted May 25, 2023
AI is greatly expanding what contact center quality management solutions can do.
Posted April 14, 2023
Unlike in marketing, customers don't find personalization in the contact center to be creepy.
Posted March 03, 2023
There are better ways for companies to cut costs and keep quality customer service during a looming recession.
Posted December 23, 2022
The value of the contact center to the overall customer experience is growing, and it's going to take an organized approach to make sense of it.
Posted October 13, 2022
Customer insights can be the key to improving contact center and company operations.
Posted August 18, 2022