CX Today

Constellation Research’s Liz Miller explains why Salesforce’s $5.66B Braze deal is about the execution layer behind data, AI, content, and customer engagement. 

Salesforce has agreed to acquire Braze for $5.66B. The deal adds Braze’s real-time, cross-channel customer engagement and decisioning capabilities to Salesforce’s growing stack of CRM, data, AI, and content tools. 

But, according to Liz Miller, VP and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, this is about more than another acquisition. 

Salesforce has spent years building out Customer 360, Data 360, Agentforce, and, more recently, Contentful. The missing piece was how brands actually execute engagement at scale: delivering a major product announcement to millions while also managing personalized, timely communication with individual customers. 

In this CX Today interview, Miller discusses whether Braze gives Salesforce the engine it needed to turn customer data and AI into real-time customer engagement. 

The conversation covers: 

Why Salesforce’s Braze acquisition was not a surprise 

The engagement execution gap in Salesforce’s wider strategy 

Why data and AI are only useful when brands can act on them 

The challenge of balancing mass brand communication with one-to-one engagement 

What the acquisition could mean for Salesforce Marketing Cloud 

Why Braze customers may be concerned about cost, simplicity, and innovation 

Where Data 360, Contentful, Braze, and Agentforce could fit together 

The integration risks that could define the deal’s success

Contact centers are under pressure to automate, cut costs, and reduce customer contact. But are efficiency targets improving service, or simply making it harder for customers to get help? 

In this CX Today interview, Rhys Fisher speaks with Natalie Beckerman, Chief Business Officer at iQor and author of When Did You Stop Caring?, about the “caring recession” she believes has taken hold in customer service. 

Beckerman explains why containment, deflection, and average handle time can hide unresolved customer problems, repeat contacts, and declining trust. 

She also shares where automation can genuinely improve the customer experience, when it becomes a barrier to human support, and why agents should be involved in journey and technology design. 

The conversation covers: 

Why reducing contact is not always the same as improving CX 

The customer-service risks hidden behind containment and deflection rates 

Why repeat contact can expose a failed self-service journey 

Where AI and automation genuinely make service easier 

How automation can trap customers in loops and block human help 

Why frontline agents should shape service and technology decisions 

The metrics leaders should use alongside efficiency measures 

Natalie Beckerman’s book, When Did You Stop Caring? Reignite Humanity in a World Obsessed with Efficiency, explores how businesses can restore care to customer and employee experiences.

Brands have more customer data, dashboards, and campaign tools than ever. Yet turning a useful customer signal into the right action can still take too long. 

In this CX Today interview, Rhys Fisher speaks with Kabir Shahani, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Amperity, about Pér, Amperity’s new customer data agent. 

Shahani explains why customer engagement often slows down after a business spots the signal, as information passes between analytics, marketing, service, and activation teams. 

He also shares an early MacKenzie-Childs use case, where Pér analyzed survey feedback to identify customers connected to wedding and registry purchases and proposed a possible engagement journey. 

The conversation explores: 

Why fragmented customer data still creates slow decision-making 

How Pér moves from investigation to recommendation and approval 

The difference between generic AI tools and specialized customer-data intelligence 

Why brands need evidence, permissions, and human approval before acting 

How to avoid intrusive outreach, including promotions during unresolved service issues 

When personalization is useful and when restraint is the better customer experience

In this CX Today interview, Rhys Fisher, Associate Editor at CX Today, speaks with Suzie Dieth, VP and Chief Experience Officer at NRG, about why churn should concern every customer experience leader.

In deregulated energy markets, customers have plenty of options and can switch providers with relative ease. Dieth explains why the decision to leave often starts much earlier, and what businesses can do to spot the warning signs before it is too late.

A customer switching provider is rarely a single-moment decision.

In competitive energy markets, a higher-than-expected bill, a home move, poor communication, or an uninspiring renewal offer can all become reasons to look elsewhere. For Dieth, churn is not simply a number to reduce; it is a signal that customers may no longer feel the value or connection needed to stay.

In this CX Today interview, Dieth discusses:
🔴 The moments most likely to trigger churn, including bill shock, relocation, and contract renewal, and why these points demand proactive customer support.
🔴 How NRG seeks to build trust through tailored support, payment assistance, competitive renewal plans, and weekly usage updates that help customers avoid surprises.
🔴 Why NPS and CSAT are only useful when connected to retention, customer behavior, revenue, and the operational changes teams need to make.
🔴 Why employee experience and AI both matter, but neither can replace the human judgment needed to understand customer needs and act on them.

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In this CX Today interview, Rhys Fisher, Associate Editor at CX Today, speaks with Kim Johal, Retail Specialist at Infobip, about WhatsApp’s growing role in UK retail customer engagement. 

Infobip’s research points to a shift away from one-way notifications and toward richer conversations across service, shopping, loyalty, and returns. Johal explains why the next challenge for retailers is not sending more messages, but making every interaction feel relevant enough to deserve a place in a customer’s inbox. 

WhatsApp is already in shoppers’ pockets. Retailers are now racing to make it part of the customer journey. 

But there is a fine line between a useful conversation and another message a customer wants to mute. 

Johal discusses why WhatsApp is gaining traction across UK retail, and how AI, customer data, and rich messaging channels could reshape everything from product discovery to returns. 

They cover: 

• Why consumers are moving away from phone calls and toward conversational channels that support text, images, updates, and real-time service. 

• Why personalization needs to go beyond “Hi, first name,” using consented behavioral data to make a message timely and useful. 

• How agentic AI can support product availability, sizing questions, store locations, returns, and purchase decisions without forcing customers through a rigid chatbot flow. 

• Why future retail engagement may be driven by customer preference across WhatsApp, Apple Business Messenger, and RCS, rather than a brand deciding where the conversation happens. 

Johal also explains why returns are becoming an important AI use case. Better sizing, product guidance, and purchase support can help customers make more confident choices before they buy. 

For retail and CX leaders, start by identifying where customers already ask for help, then connect those moments across service, commerce, and loyalty.