2016 Enghouse roadshow provides insights on making business easier

Enghouse Interactive held the Auckland (and Wellington the day after) leg of their 'Interact' roadshow at the Hilton in March.

Enghouse ANZ general manager Dean Hodgson hosted and moderated the event, which featured a number of influential speakers, including Enghouse global CTO Alex Black. He kept the audience captivated with his amusing slant on the market and his thoughts on emerging technologies of customer interaction – including AI/robots within the contact centre.

The panellists included partners and customers, who all spoke at length about industry trends, customer needs and challenges for partners and vendors.

Steve Hennerly CTO of Telnet in New Zealand and a self-described 'client from hell' had some interesting insights as an Enghouse customer.

"We've been with Enghouse (in a number of different guises) for more than 20 years," Hennerly says. "We've always wanted to do a bit more and a bit more and a bit more. I don't like technology to constrain me. I have a vision, I know what I want to achieve, I know what my customers need to achieve, so I want a solution that will suit that.

Hennerly says that from very early on, Zeacom (now Enghouse) had technology that nobody else had, and they used their own tools to manage it.

"So we approached them and said, we want more than that - they took our demands and created solutions to solve them," Hennerly says. "It wasn't a closed product, they essentially gave us the platform and then allowed us to build it.

Hodgson affirms that the ANZ markets is very important to Enghouse, as there is an expectation among the local businesses to have the best technology available, which drives innovation.

"Telnet is a very demanding customer, but demanding in a good way," Hodgson says. "They place high expectations on us and we provide them with solutions, but there is no doubt that their demands have resulted in us being a better software developer and provider.

Black had some wise words to conclude.

"If you can satisfy your most demanding customer, business becomes easier," Black says.