Genesys customers, employees and partners from across the globe came out last week to CX18, our biggest customer experience event of the year. And they took part in an extraordinary week of valuable education about our best-in-class solutions, forward-thinking strategies and some very memorable moments connected.

We shared a deeper understanding of what the future holds for our industry—and how we are not only ready for it, but already living it. And no, we’re not just talking about bots like everyone else. Genesys is achieving new possibilities, such as asynchronous messaging using Apple Business Chat.

At the event, Jim Kraeutler, Vice President of ISV and Technology Alliances at Genesys, gave us a realistic vision around the lives of virtually everyone: “Wake up, get ready, drive to work, work, work some more, drive home, leisure time (if you’re lucky), then sleep. Wake up, rinse, repeat.” Naturally, this means that customers don’t want to take time out their day to contact customer service. But when they do, it should be on their terms. In the age of the digital customer, your agents should be able to seamlessly connect at any moment in customers’ preferred form of communications.

As Chief Marketing Officer at Genesys, Merijn te Booij, said in his keynote, “The future of channels has no channels.” We must stay agile as we navigate through this ever-changing world of customer experience; there is always more to learn—and more opportunities to gain.

AppFoundry Marketplace

That is why AppFoundry is so important to your business strategy. The unified enterprise marketplace holds hundreds of solutions that are fully integrated to the Genesys Customer Experience Platform. With just a few clicks, you will not only find new ways to enhance how you communicate with your customers, but you also can easily access these capabilities for faster deployment and time to value.

Genesys ISV and Technology Partners deliver tremendous value with their integrations available in AppFoundry. And if you had the chance to attend CX18, you know they rocked the event. Here’s why:

DevCon and the Developer Lounge

DevFoundry, a strong ecosystem of developers from our partner and customer organizations—supported by a dedicated team of experts at Genesys—makes it possible for AppFoundry to offer all these solutions. And that’s why we brought DevCon to CX18. Over 20% of our Developer Portal users were in attendance to enjoy specialized access to DevCon breakouts, activities and events, as well as the Developer Lounge.

If you’re a developer who uses Genesys SDKs and APIs, stay engaged on the Developer Portal for documentation, forums and information about the next Genesys developer conference.

Partner Pavilion

The Partner Pavilion was truly the hub of engagement at CX18, as attendees discovered Genesys solutions in the Genesys Zone, gained expert support at the DevLounge and met face to face with many of our AppFoundry members—who had a stronger presence at this event than ever before.

In the Partner Pavilion, companies demonstrated how their solutions help solve your business needs. AppFoundry members, including AudioCodes, Aria Solutions, Avtex, eMite, Semafone and others, also led fantastic breakout sessions.

Partner Demo Battle

At the Partner Demo Battle, 12 partners shared their AppFoundry applications and competed for a chance to be named “AppFoundry App of the Year.” Combining their innovative customer experience technology and marketing creativity, each partner produced a demo video to enter the competition.

After watching the partner presentations, including awesome demo videos, attendees voted for the winners using the CX18 mobile app. This year’s winner, Avtex, conquered all other entrants—and proudly won bragging rights as “AppFoundry App of the Year.” Anana came in second place and PureInsights was close behind in third place.

Check out the full list of contenders from this year’s AppFoundry Demo Battle in my previous post.

The Teamwork Behind CX18

Congratulations to the following companies recognized for their exceptional partnerships:

AppFoundry App of the Year (Demo Battle Winner): Avtex
AppFoundry Partner of the Year (PureEngage/PureConnect): Vidyo
AppFoundry Partner of the Year (PureCloud): eMite
AppFoundry Partner of the Year (Emerging): InGenius

A huge thank you to all our dedicated ISV and Technology Partners within AppFoundry who sponsored CX18:

Gold sponsors: Anana, Aria Solutions, AudioCodes, Avtex, eMite, InGenius, PCI Pal, Semafone, ConvergeOne, Softphone and Opstel

Silver sponsors: Empirix, Pindrop and Eccentex

Bronze sponsors: Occam Networks, Cyara, NuEcho, eemaan, Plantronics, Ideal Systems, Appian and Quovium C3

AppFoundry: nGUVU, GM Voices, PureInsights, QuickPivot, Call Journey, LumenVox, AVDS, Voci Technologies, Vidyo, Contact Relief, CX Index, HelpSocial, Help Lightning, DialogTech, Syntec and Tenfold

Put CX19 on Your Calendar

For CX19, we head to Denver, Colorado. And there will be more regional Genesys events before that—check out upcoming events page and contact your Genesys representative with interest to attend a local G-Summit.