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Texas’ social media law lives. Here are Big Tech’s options.

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Texas’ social media law lives. Here are Big Tech’s options.


“We’re in an expertise financial system, customers are very fickle,” stated Tony Bates, chair and CEO of contact middle software program supplier Genesys. “They need nice experiences. They need them at their fingertips, they need them digitally they usually need them performed in the way in which that they wish to have them, not in the way in which that companies are serving them.”

The pandemic solely accelerated these forces, setting in movement lasting results that can completely alter the way forward for buyer expertise expertise. However how do firms really ship good buyer experiences?

In line with consultants, product executives and clients themselves, the reply includes extra than simply migrating to the cloud and updating tech stacks. It requires a brand new mindset and a whole organizational shift in pondering.

Nice expectations

About 10 to fifteen years in the past, the first means many shoppers interacted with sellers was by way of assist brokers situated in huge abroad contact facilities. The main focus then was on rising effectivity, lowering name occasions and funneling clients out and in the door.

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“It was not fascinated about the top individual. It was pondering extra concerning the inner methods and capability and the way shortly might I get you out and in of a queue,” stated Bates.

Buyer expertise was additionally seen as a pricey back-office perform, not a central tenet of enterprise technique.

“I believe we have typically underestimated the significance of [customer experience] to companies and handled it as a price middle or in any other case,” stated Adrian McDermott, chief expertise officer at Zendesk. However that’s altering as extra firms understand buyer expertise “is a vital pillar of your model presence, and it is one thing that you have to put money into.”

“We’re in an expertise financial system, customers are very fickle.”

In some ways, the rise of subscription-based enterprise fashions slowly compelled this shift. As a result of “the switching prices for each clients and workers is approaching zero,” distributors have to offer good experiences with the intention to drive repeat enterprise, stated Brad Anderson, president of services and products at Qualtrics.

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However the previous few years have solely exacerbated that shift.

“What would have in all probability taken one other 20 years definitely bought accelerated by the pandemic,” stated Simonetta Turek, normal supervisor at Twilio Flex. “Rethinking the way you promote, the way you service, the way you assist clients, may be very a lot on the desk now.”

When the pandemic hit, all of the sudden the one means firms might work together with their clients was just about — by way of telephone, video, the net, social media and different digital channels. However firms struggled to maintain up with a surge in requests and calls for, particularly as they needed to shift their very own operations to a work-from-home mannequin.

Their web sites have been outdated, their contact facilities have been nonetheless utilizing legacy on-premises software program, their name middle brokers have been overwhelmed and their gross sales groups have been struggling to conduct extremely customized gross sales processes just about. These challenges not solely heightened the strain emigrate into the cloud so they might transfer extra shortly, but additionally elevated the expectations of their clients, particularly for firms competing towards youthful upstarts with extra fashionable expertise.

As we speak clients anticipate a superb, constant expertise no matter the place and once they work together with an organization, they usually additionally need these experiences to be intuitive, customized and immediately accessible from anyplace on the planet through any channel. Clients don’t wish to clarify their problem time and again to a name middle agent, as an example, however need brokers to have already got their historical past on file, bearing in mind all their previous interactions with the corporate.

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“I believe CX now’s far more about information and utilizing information to outline a really customized expertise throughout each interplay,” stated Rob Tarkoff, government vice chairman and normal supervisor at Oracle CX.

It’s additionally more and more necessary to clients that they will discover solutions on their very own if doable. “Self-service to [customers] is wherever it must occur. It might be Google, it might be YouTube, it might be a bot,” stated Laura Bassett, vice chairman of product advertising at NICE CXone.

Equally, clients need to have the ability to select how they work together with an organization somewhat than having that channel dictated to them. Clients anticipate that they will select between telephone, textual content and even social media to contact an organization, they usually don’t wish to wait till enterprise hours to take action. “Individuals wish to be accountable for the journey,” stated Zendesk’s McDermott.

Satisfying clients

With such nice expectations, companies have their work lower out for them in the event that they wish to unlock top-tier buyer experiences. Not solely do firms have to improve their tech stacks to deal with the necessity for sooner, extra environment friendly buyer interactions, however they might additionally have to restructure their whole customer-facing operations.

“If you consider to this point, most finish customers have actually, sadly, put up with these fairly fragmented interactions,” stated Genesys’ Bates. A part of that is because of disparate applied sciences, however a part of it’s as a result of customer-facing groups like advertising, customer support and gross sales are sometimes fragmented themselves.

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Buyer expectations are “creating a giant wake-up name” for firms to not solely put money into new applied sciences but additionally to interrupt down silos inside their firm and rethink the way in which they construct services and products, Bates stated.

To reply shortly and effectively to clients within the digital age, most consultants imagine distributors have to be within the cloud.

The benefit of cloud-native distributors corresponding to assist desk supplier Zendesk or communications platform Twilio is that their software program can scale simply, is extra dependable and might combine with the newest applied sciences extra seamlessly than on-premises software program. “If digital channels [are] a bolt-on to what they’ve at this time, it’s extremely costly to do, very costly to keep up and truly the expertise continues to be subpar,” stated Twilio’s Turek.

Through the pandemic, lengthy wait occasions and missed calls provoked the ire of consumers. With the cloud, which makes it simpler to allow applied sciences corresponding to AI, machine studying and automation, firms can enhance pace and effectivity by answering buyer questions routinely with a bot, routing calls to the suitable agent extra shortly or surfacing buyer information and context mid-call.

The demand for personalization additionally necessitates that customer-facing groups have a superb underlying information infrastructure.

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“One of the crucial vital traits that’s occurring proper now’s there is a consolidation occurring the place CX leaders are saying, ‘I would like all of my buyer expertise information to be in a single place,’” stated Qualtrics’ Anderson. Naturally, that has given rise to buyer information platforms, or CDPs, which assist seize and retailer buyer information from throughout an enterprise.

As buyer interactions turn out to be more and more digital, having a superb person interface can also be paramount. Clients ought to be capable to simply navigate an organization’s web site, discover assist articles or contact the gross sales group.

“It has been confirmed time and time once more that stage of effort is definitely extra predictive of loyalty than the rest,” stated John Ball, senior vice chairman of buyer workflows at ServiceNow. “So in case your stage of effort in your customer support request goes up, you might be extra doubtless to take a look at options.”

However expertise alone gained’t clear up these new customer-experience challenges. That requires other ways of pondering and, at occasions, even a whole overhaul of how a company approaches its clients and manages its customer-support personnel. “I truly suppose that expertise items would be the best,” stated Turek.

First, it’s extremely necessary {that a} concentrate on clients comes from the very prime of a company. “I truly suppose it must be a CEO agenda merchandise, and it must be one thing that the C-suite owns cross-functionally,” stated Lara Caimi, chief buyer and accomplice officer at ServiceNow.

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“[I]f your stage of effort in your customer support request goes up, you might be extra doubtless to take a look at options.”

Equally, each enterprise perform must undertake customer-centric mindsets, understanding that each interplay a buyer has with an organization is a chance to both higher or worsen their view of an organization. “It must be part of the entire firm’s mission, each perform, each individual. They need to really feel like they will make a distinction from a customer-experience perspective,” stated Caimi.

To really ship nice experiences, they may even want to interrupt down organizational silos between advertising, gross sales and repair, and that shift is already underway. “Gartner is predicting within the subsequent three years gross sales and repair will truly merge into one division,” stated Umesh Sachdev, co-founder and CEO of conversational intelligence firm Uniphore.

Though buyer expertise was once considered primarily as offering pre- and post-sale assist, now it’s advanced “to incorporate much more about understanding indicators and information from buyer interactions and tying that into execution methods, be it advertising, gross sales, commerce, service, content material administration,” stated Oracle’s Tarkoff.

For that cause, many organizations suppose “all customer-facing providers and actions needs to be aligned beneath one chief, so that you’ve got one group that’s understanding and driving your complete expertise,” stated Anderson. The rise of chief buyer and chief expertise officers displays this, as extra firms acknowledge the necessity for executives tasked with solely specializing in the shopper.

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Enterprises can also have to shift how they measure buyer experiences. Past conventional information corresponding to web promoter rating (NPS) and buyer satisfaction rating (CSAT), buyer lifetime worth, churn or retention can even assist gauge how a lot whole worth a buyer is receiving from their expertise with an organization.

Qualitative information, corresponding to buyer sentiment, is equally necessary. As buyer experiences turn out to be ever extra long run and relational, qualitative expertise information gathered through web site evaluations, tweets, buyer calls, surveys and extra will turn out to be much more necessary.

“I believe the flexibility to collect very insightful qualitative information is an underrepresented, underappreciated tactic,” stated Sameer Patel, chief advertising and options officer at SAP CX.

To succeed over the subsequent a number of years, firms will really need to put clients entrance and middle. Which means forward-looking firms might want to migrate to the cloud, undertake rising applied sciences and even restructure enterprise departments.

“The scenario we’re right here speaking about shouldn’t be a nice-to-have, it is a ‘roof is on fireplace’ scenario,” stated Patel. Corporations unable to ship will merely get left behind by newer entrants into the market constructed round nimble expertise and an innate understanding of these buyer wants.

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Texas

Texas vs South Dakota State: Longhorns head into holiday break with a 46-point win

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Texas vs South Dakota State: Longhorns head into holiday break with a 46-point win


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After a 103-57 win over South Dakota State on Sunday, the Texas Longhorns will head into their holiday break on a high note.

Sunday’s lopsided win at Moody Center came five days after Texas beat La Salle by a 111-49 score. Texas hadn’t scored 100 points in consecutive games since it did so against McNeese State and UTSA in November 2017.

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Texas never trailed on Sunday, and freshmen Jordan Lee and Justice Carlton served as first-half catalysts for the No. 6 team in the USA Today Sports Coaches Poll. Lee started and scored 10 first-quarter points while Carlton came off the bench to score 17 first-half points on 7-of-9 shooting. Combined, Lee and Carlton had 29 points in the first half. South Dakota State’s entire team had 26.

While Texas built its 53-26 lead in the first half, eight of the nine Longhorns who played scored. The surprising exception was All-American Madison Booker, who distributed three assists and grabbed three rebounds but missed her three shots.

A perennial NCAA tournament qualifier that had split its prior games against ranked Creighton and Duke teams, South Dakota State (10-3) never cut into its 27-point halftime deficit in the second half.

Here are three observations from Sunday’s 46-point rout:

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Mwenentanda remains patient with her process

Carlton finished with 19 points and nine rebounds while senior forward Taylor Jones had 15 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks. Lee and senior guard Rori Harmon respectively added 14 and 13 points for a Texas team that shot 53.9% from the field. Booker was limited to nine points, but Harmon pointed out after the game that Booker’s +/- of 41 was the best among the Longhorns.

Ndjakalenga Mwenentanda was the fifth Longhorn to record a double-digit scoring total. Over 11 minutes, Mwenentanda scored 10 points on 5-of-6 shooting.

Mwenentanda grew up in South Dakota and was that state’s Gatorade Player of the Year in 2022. The school in Sioux Falls where she won a state championship is about an hour drive from South Dakota State’s campus. Mwenentanda was recruited by the Jackrabbits but she said that she was attracted to what Texas could offer her athletically and academically.

Since arriving on campus, Mwenentanda has shown glimpses of her potential since arriving at Texas, but she has mainly been a role player for the Longhorns. Sunday was the 11th time that she scored at least 10 points in a game. Just twice in her career has she played more than 25 minutes.

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Mwenentanda sees herself as a Swiss Army Knife on the Texas roster. She’s listed as a 6-foot-2 guard on the team’s roster, but Vic Schaefer has mainly used her as a “4” player this season. Mwenentanda played some in the paint last season, but she got more playing time as a guard. Training more with the post players this offseason has helped her adjust to that role this season.

“I physically prepared for it, I mentally prepared for it. I’m enjoying it,” Mwenentanda said.

Schaefer praised the play of Mwenentanda in his postgame press conference on Sunday. Earlier in the week, Mwenentanda said that she was staying patient with her process.

“Everybody’s process is different. I feel like comparing myself to other people’s process would be one reason to give up,” Mwenentanda said. “Everybody on this team are great players, are great women so even though this process is a little bit different for me, it’s not something I look at negatively because I know everybody’s working hard and everybody’s pitching in.”

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Status for sidelined Laila Phelia remains unclear

Texas senior Laila Phelia missed her third straight game on Sunday. Phelia suffered a detached retina during the offseason. Texas has not announced a timeline for her return, but Schaefer has said the program will soon release an update.

The leading scorer at Michigan last season, Phelia has played in just eight of the Longhorns’ 13 games. She is averaging 6.1 points and 19.4 minutes per game while shooting 40.5% from the field.

What’s next for Texas? Rest and one final tune-up

Next on the schedule for Texas is a home game against UTRGV (6-6) on Dec. 29. That will be the Longhorns’ final game until their Southeastern Conference debut at Oklahoma on Jan. 2, 2025.

But first, the Longhorns will get some rest. Mwenentanda won’t be able to fly back to South Dakota until Monday morning, but the rest of the Longhorns headed home after Sunday’s win. The Longhorns will return to practice on Dec. 27.

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How will the Longhorns spend their break? The three players who attended Sunday’s postgame press conference – Carlton, Harmon and Mwenentanda – said they’d take some time off, but they added that they’ll get some workouts in with family and hometown trainers.

As for Schaefer? He’ll do some work over the break, but he won’t be in his office.

“I’m going to be standing in about knee-deep water in the morning calling a duck and having my son (Logan) with me and my dog, my hunting dog, not my show dog. We’ll enjoy some time together in the morning and then we’ll wet a line and fish in the afternoon,” Schaefer said. “I’ll probably sit in my bow stand a couple of nights with my computer in my lap and watch film. I don’t really care if I see anything or not, but I usually see a lot. I get more work done sitting in a bow stand in a bow blind than I do a lot of times sitting at my desk.

“I’ll just enjoy time with family. I’m really blessed with Holly and Logan and Blair here and we’re all together at Christmas, and it’s just a special time for us. We really embrace the Christmas season.”

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Former Colorado defensive end Dayon Hayes transfers to Texas A&M

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Former Colorado defensive end Dayon Hayes transfers to Texas A&M


Former Colorado Buffaloes defensive end Dayon Hayes is set to continue his collegiate career at Texas A&M after transferring following a season-ending injury. Hayes, a 6-foot-3, 265-pound defender, began his journey at Pitt, where he played from 2020 to 2023, accumulating 13 sacks and 80 tackles over four seasons.

At Pitt, Hayes showcased his potential in his sophomore and junior years, logging around 500 combined snaps and producing 30 pressures. His breakout came in 2023 when he amassed 44 pressures and a 13% pass rush win rate, ranking 12th in the ACC. Hayes also demonstrated solid run defense, posting an average tackle depth of 1.6 yards and recording 10.5 stops for loss. His ability to set the edge and prevent runners from escaping outside made him a critical piece of Pitt’s defense.

Following his success at Pitt, Hayes transferred to Colorado as a highly sought-after addition to Deion Sanders’ revamped Buffaloes roster. He made an immediate impact, registering two sacks and 3.5 tackles for loss in Colorado’s first three games. However, his promising start was cut short by a knee injury in the fourth game, sidelining him for the rest of the season.

Deion Sanders says he won’t attend the 2025 NFL Draft in Green Bay

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Despite the setback, Hayes’ strong early performance likely earned him a medical redshirt, granting him another year of eligibility. With his final collegiate season on the horizon, Hayes opted to join Texas A&M, bringing his pass-rushing skills to the SEC. The Aggies, coming off an eight-win season, are set to face USC in the Las Vegas Bowl. Hayes’ ability to pressure quarterbacks and defend the run should bolster Texas A&M’s defensive front, adding experience and depth to their edge rotation for the 2024 season.



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D-FW can claim Texas’ best high school football team in an otherwise down year for Dallas

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D-FW can claim Texas’ best high school football team in an otherwise down year for Dallas


ARLINGTON — North Crowley showed out on Saturday in its dazzling 50-21 victory over Austin Westlake in the 6A Division I state title game, winning the program’s second state championship and putting Fort Worth high school football on the map in front of 36,120 fans at AT&T Stadium.

Until North Crowley took the field at 7:30 p.m., there was a possibility the Dallas-Fort Worth area might boast only one state champion in 2024. Celina routed Kilgore 55-21 in the 4A Division I state championship to capture the program’s ninth state title and its first under coach Bill Elliott.

But North Texas teams came up short in the next three title games, the region’s worst showing at state since 2021, when South Oak Cliff became the first Dallas ISD school to win a recognized state championship since 1958, but Denton Guyer and Duncanville fell in the 6A state championship games.

Two-time state champion South Oak Cliff missed a last-second field goal, falling 38-35 to third-year program Richmond Randle in the 5A Division II state title game Friday night. It was SOC’s second straight loss in the state championship game.

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“The future is still bright,” South Oak Cliff coach Jason Todd said. “We just gotta find out what’s going to get us over this hump.”

Texas high school football central: 2024 state championship game stories, photos and more

Smithson Valley, from the San Antonio area, topped Highland Park 32-20 as the six-time state champion faded in the second half of the 5A Division I state title game Saturday afternoon.

In the second game of the day, eight-time state champion Southlake Carroll extended its title drought to 13 years with a 24-17 loss to Austin Vandegrift in the 6A Division II game.

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“It’ll happen one day. I’m excited about what the future holds,” said Carroll coach Riley Dodge, who fell to 0-2 in state title games as a coach.

The Dallas area claimed three football state champions in 2023 with Anna winning the 4A Division I state title and Duncanville and DeSoto sweeping the 6A Division I and II state championships, respectively. The southern Dallas County schools also swept the 6A state championships in 2022, when South Oak Cliff won its second straight 5A Division II state title.

But this year, the rest of Texas didn’t let the Dallas area, a high school football mecca, run the table. Teams from each of the state’s major metros — Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio —- won a title in each division of the UIL’s two highest classifications.

Even before this week’s state championship games, 2024 seemed to mark a changing of the guard. Neither Duncanville, DeSoto nor Houston-area power Galena Park North Shore made it to AT&T Stadium this year. Nor did 12-time UIL state champion Aledo, the juggernaut west of Fort Worth that had won the last two 5A Division I state championships.

North Crowley, coach Ray Gates didn’t ‘duck any smoke’ in bold state championship season

But North Crowley did, after knocking off both DeSoto and Duncanville this season. North Texas might not have dominated the competition as it has in recent years, but for a third straight season, the king of 6A reigns in Dallas-Fort Worth.

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“When you get to this point, there’s only one team that’s standing that’s hoisting the trophy. And fortunately for us, this year it’s us and we just happen to be from 817,” North Crowley coach Ray Gates said. “We’re elated to be able to bring that type of recognition back to our community, just to let people know that when you talk about this area, when you talk about Metroplex football, you can’t forget about us.”

On Twitter/X: @t_myah

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