Every new release brings a range of features, but what really matters is how they benefit your teams and customers.
The latest ElasticCX (ECX) release introduces updates across business communications, campaigns, reporting, AI and digital channels. We’ve explored how these enhancements address everyday challenges and where they can make a difference.
Here are some of the key developments and why they matter.
Business calling shouldn’t depend on having a browser open
Customer conversations don’t begin and end in the contact centre. Sales teams, back-office colleagues and other business users all need to be reachable, often across different locations and devices.
The new Business User / UC experience addresses that with dedicated desktop and mobile applications across Windows, macOS, iOS and Android. Calls, SMS, voicemail, history and contacts are brought into one place, with automatic registration, reconnection and background operation helping users stay available.
Users can also ring all registered devices or use round-robin ringing.
Extending communications beyond the contact centre only works if it’s straightforward for the people using it. Removing the dependency on the admin portal and browser makes ECX a much more practical option for colleagues elsewhere in the business, while giving them one place to manage their day-to-day communications.
Small improvements to dialler campaigns can remove a lot of manual work
Some of the most useful platform changes aren’t necessarily the most eye-catching. They’re the ones that remove repetitive tasks from the working day.
The latest dialler updates are a good example. Caller ID can now be tailored by contact within a single campaign, while duplicate numbers can be automatically split across lists rather than discarded.
Preparing a campaign shouldn’t involve unnecessary workarounds or manual data manipulation. These changes give teams better control over how campaigns are presented while reducing some of the preparation needed before they can run.
Individually, they might sound like relatively small changes. For teams regularly building and managing campaigns, however, that saved effort can quickly add up.
Reporting is most useful when consistency doesn’t create extra work
As contact centres grow or become more complex, keeping reporting consistent can become surprisingly difficult. Recreating reports across different contact centres or maintaining them individually adds administrative work and makes it harder to establish a common view of performance.
ECX now allows report templates to be reused across contact centres and report ordering to be kept in sync. Teams can also count interactions or linked values and track additional operational metrics.
The value isn’t simply in having additional reporting functionality. It’s in being able to establish a useful approach once and apply it consistently, rather than repeatedly rebuilding and maintaining the same reports.
For organisations managing multiple contact centres, that can make reporting easier to maintain and give teams a clearer, more consistent view of what’s happening.
AI becomes much more useful when it connects to what happens next
There are several AI enhancements in this release. ECX can prompt silent callers, capture keypad input and give teams clearer visibility of the actions AI has taken during an interaction.
But the development we think is particularly interesting is what happens after that interaction.
Smart Wrap Up results can now be sent directly into CRM platforms and workflows.
AI delivers far greater value when the information it creates doesn’t remain trapped inside an individual customer interaction.
Connecting those outputs to CRM platforms and workflows means useful information can become part of what happens next – whether that’s updating a customer record, triggering another process or giving a colleague the context they need to continue the conversation.
For us, that’s an important distinction. The value of AI isn’t just what it can do during a customer interaction; it’s how effectively it can support the people, processes and systems around it.
A digital channel is only useful if you can service it properly
Adding another customer channel can sound like an obvious improvement. But offering customers a channel you can’t reliably service can create a worse experience than not offering it in the first place.
That’s why some of the live chat changes in this release stand out to us.
Administrators now have better control over chat availability. Chat can be hidden outside operating hours or when no agents are available, with customers instead routed to another queue or presented with a pre-chat form.
The release also introduces longer response windows and clearer typing cues, alongside WhatsApp connectivity and options to use voicemail for targeted follow-up.
Good digital engagement isn’t about offering as many channels as possible. It’s about offering the right channels at the right time, and setting realistic expectations when someone isn’t available to respond.
These controls give organisations the ability to think more carefully about the experience around the channel, not just the channel itself. If live chat isn’t available, customers can be given a clear alternative rather than simply being left waiting.
The changes worth paying attention to are often the practical ones
The most valuable platform developments aren’t always the most technically ambitious. Often, they’re the ones that remove everyday operational frustrations, make existing processes work better or give teams more control over the customer experience.
That’s what stands out in this ECX release. And it’s how we believe technology should be judged: not by the length of the feature list, but by what it makes easier, better or possible in practice.
What could the latest ECX release mean for you?
If you’re already using ECX, speak to your Customer Success team to explore the new capabilities and identify which could make the biggest difference to your teams and customers.
If you’re exploring ECX, get in touch with our Sales team to find out how the platform could support your approach to customer experience.
Ian is the Lead Product Manager at IPI. With a career spanning over 25 years, he’s championed innovative approaches, achieving numerous patents for digital product experiences.
Throughout his career, he’s played pivotal roles at Virgin Media O2, Vodafone Group, Nokia, and Deloitte Consulting, shaping transformative CX strategies and overseeing design frameworks for global platforms. Today, Ian leads the product evolution of ECX Contact Centre as a Service at IP Integration, where we are passionate about customer-centricity and aligning technology with customer needs to deliver exceptional product and customer experiences.
