Aragon Research recently took a fresh look at coaching technology with their inaugural report covering the Enterprise Coaching market. While Aragon has covered sales learning and coaching for years, this is the first time they have separated out coaching capabilities as an area worthy of individual assessment.
Why? In short, this critical technology is growing in demand because it helps managers of all customer-facing roles coach more effectively and more efficiently — upskilling teams better and faster. It goes beyond the traditional categories of sales learning/sales enablement, corporate learning and contact center intelligence.
“Coaching is about skills (how), interaction conversations (what), and feedback (how to do better next time.”
The Aragon Research Globe™ for Enterprise Coaching, 2024
What to look for in an enterprise coaching technology
Automated coaching capabilities are nothing new – conversational intelligence (CI) technology has facilitated the summarization of audio and video calls for years. However, as Aragon tells us, coaching platforms are evolving beyond simple CI to help customer-facing roles:
- Prepare for interactions by building confidence with practice scenarios and content guidance
- Execute the interactions with real-time suggestions
- Automate feedback by providing insight into everything from talk time to use of key phrases and filler words, as well as advising managers on gaps and suggesting feedback and resources
- Correlate rep and agent behaviors to business outcomes through robust analytics and dashboards
Aragon recommends looking for these capabilities at a minimum when considering enterprise coaching technology.
Who are the key players?
Aragon Research conducted a rigorous evaluation of 15 vendors across a variety of criteria, including strategy, performance, and reach. They looked at a cross section of providers hailing from several categories including Sales Enablement, Contact Center Intelligence, and coaching point solutions. Our identification as a leader is a designation we are extremely proud of, and one we never take for granted.
What is the future of coaching technology… AI, of course!
Aragon Research believes that AI will play a significant role in the future of this category. They forecast by the end of 2024, 70% of these technology providers will add Generative AI capabilities to their platform (75% probability). At Seismic, we couldn’t agree more with that prediction since we’re already well down the AI road with our Seismic for Meetings and Seismic Knowledge capabilities that provide always-on coaching for frontline teams.
So, the burning question is — will AI-driven coaching tools replace those always overworked managers of frontline teams? Aragon tells us no need to fear — human coaches still have job security.
“While human managers still need to coach, what we see is the rise of this form of automated coaching application, which is technology-based and is getting smarter all the time.”
The Aragon Research Globe™ for Enterprise Coaching, 2024
To learn more, download a full copy of The Aragon Research Globe for Enterprise Coaching™, 2024 report.
To better understand how coaching fits into the overall enablement ecosystem, learn more about the Seismic Enablement Cloud™.
Aragon Research does not endorse vendors, or their products or services that are referenced in its research publications and does not advise users to select those vendors that are rated the highest. Aragon Research publications consist of the opinions of Aragon Research and Advisory Services organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Aragon Research provides its research publications and the information contained in them “AS IS,” without warranty of any kind.
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