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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

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Articles by Paul Stockford

Contact Center Industry Gets in Step with Veterans and Military Families

These are men and women who’ve sacrificed so much for our country, they deserve the dignity of work and financial stability for themselves and their families.

People Hiring


I Can See Clearly Now—Clearing the Contact Center Clouds

True cloud contact centers are built as cloud native platforms, not premises equipment that’s been moved to the cloud and offered at a monthly charge.

Technology Software Platforms


Return of the Kachina! The 2017 Saddletree Research Kachina Awards

The most significant awards are those that not everyone wins,” she continued. “That means the company that won the award has truly differentiated itself and has earned external validation for its product or service.

Technology Vendor - Management


Hello, HAL! Artificial Intelligence in the Contact Center

While HAL was able to converse naturally with people on any imaginable topic, the conversational user experience with AI still isn’t there and probably won’t be anytime soon.

Technology Self-Service


At the Intersection of the Contact Center and the Autism Spectrum

At some point in the not-too-distant future, you’ll probably find yourself with contact center employees who function somewhere on the autism spectrum.

Strategy Planning People management


Homeward Bound

The at-home agent workforce is now mainstream in the global contact center industry and will likely dominate the industry before the end of this decade.

Operations Strategic management COVID-19 Remote Work


Communing with Communities

Having a community in the contact center is an excellent way to help improve communications, deflect calls, locate expertise and resources, improve efficiencies and gain insights about those integrations.

Strategy Strategic management


Cool Hand Stew

Long-term relevance for Aspect was going to mean rethinking the product portfolio, rethinking how our enterprise customers are going to compete to maximize the value of their consumer relationships, and do it in an omnichannel, extreme self-service contex

Technology Vendor - Management


A Predilection for Predictive Predictions

Predictive analytics isn’t yet a mass-market solution, but it’s only a matter of time before the mass market realizes the power of predictive analytics and that changes.

Strategy Planning


Let the Games Begin!

Gamification may be the solution much of the industry is looking for to smooth out some contact center wrinkles that have confounded it for decades

People


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