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Paul Stockford

Saddletree Research


Paul Stockford was the President and Chief Analyst at Saddletree Research, a veteran-owned business based in Scottsdale, Arizona. Founded in 1999, Saddletree Research provided focused communications industry research, including analysis of market trends, issues, technologies, and companies in the Contact Center industry with special emphasis on emerging technologies and developing markets.

In addition to over 30 years as an industry analyst, Paul has also done telecommunications research and analysis at Cahners In-Stat Group, Vanguard Communications and Dataquest. Paul began his telecommunications career with GTE.

Paul has authored numerous articles on contact centers and related technologies for several industry journals in the U.S. and abroad, and is a frequent speaker at major industry conferences in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia.  Since 1993 he has authored monthly columns in such magazines as Call Center, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Customer Interface, Voice+ (U.K.), Enterprise Communications and Voice Processing.  He currently authors the monthly “View from the Saddle” column in Contact Center Pipeline magazine and is a member of that magazine’s editorial board.  In addition, he has sat on the Editorial Advisory Boards of several European industry magazines and has served on the advisory boards of a number of industry organizations and events. 

Paul is currently a member of the board of directors at the National Association of Call Centers (NACC), a 501(c)(6) not-for-profit industry organization based at Middle Tennessee State University.  He also serves as research director for the NACC where he is directly involved in research activities on behalf of the NACC membership.  He is a regular contributor to the monthly NACC “In-Queue” newsletter with a circulation of over 8,000 contact center professionals. 

Paul graduated cum laude from California State University at San Francisco with a BS degree in Marketing and holds an MBA from Santa Clara University.

Author Wall of Fame

What is one thing other people don’t know about you?
To quote Rockin’ Rod Stewart, “Every picture tells a story, don’t it?”

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Articles by Paul Stockford

CX Versus GX: When Worlds Collide

Painfully slow, complex, tree-based IVR menus are about to go the way of the buffalo.

Strategy Customer Experience


Cognitive Collaboration, Artificial Intelligence and Music Nerds

Initially, the big focus was on replacing resources but the real action will be in agent augmentation, where technology and humans work hand-in-hand to deliver better experiences.

Technology Artificial Intelligence


Gonna Take a Sentimental Journey

More than discovering what customers are talking about, sentiment analysis lets users know how the customer feels.

Technology Software Platforms


CX Pundits Vs. CX Practitioners: Real Life or Fantasy?

Consultants talk about the ideal while operations leaders deal with limited budgets and staff bandwidth.

Strategy Customer Experience


Automation, AI and Analytics: Big Data Gets Bigger

Big Data relies on analytics to create value from data of all sorts, and analytics’ superpower is to detect patterns.

Technology Software Platforms


Analyticus Ubiquitous

Analytics is at the core of everything a business needs to do to succeed in the customer experience economy today.

Strategy Planning


Contact Center 2019: There’s an App for That

We are also seeing clear indications that contact center buyers are starting to think along the lines of choosing the app/solution they want regardless of whether or not it is native to their platform.

Technology Software Platforms


Change the Channel to Omnichannel

Generational norms and expectations will drive widespread adoption of omnichannel in the contact center whether the contact center likes it or not.

Strategy Planning


It’s No Secret: Hiring Veterans Is Smart Business

Veterans offer the contact center industry a highly qualified pool of candidates.

People Hiring


Like It or Not, Get Used to the Gig

The gig economy is beginning to become such an economic driving force that there are many who believe that having gig workers in the contact center - i.e., on-demand agents - is only a matter of time.

Operations


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