Forethought vs Gladly

Forethought

Forethought's flagship capability uses generative AI to automatically resolve customer support tickets without human intervention. When a ticket arrives, the AI analyzes the customer's message using advanced natural language processing to understand the underlying intent and context. It then searches the company's knowledge base, historical ticket data, and product documentation to gather relevant information before generating a personalized, accurate response. The system assigns confidence scores to each automated resolution—high-confidence responses are sent automatically, while lower-confidence tickets are escalated to human agents with suggested responses. The AI continuously learns from agent feedback, customer satisfaction ratings, and resolution outcomes, improving accuracy over time. This capability is particularly effective for common inquiries like password resets, order status checks, account questions, and basic troubleshooting, enabling 24/7 support without additional headcount. Reduces manual ticket handling by 50-70% while improving first-contact resolution rates and enabling round-the-clock customer support

✓ Reduces manual ticket handling by 50-70% while improving first-contact resolution rates and enabling round-the-clock customer support

Gladly

Gladly's unified omnichannel inbox represents a paradigm shift in customer support technology by consolidating every customer conversation—whether initiated via email, live chat, phone call, SMS text message, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, or messaging applications including WhatsApp and Apple Business Chat—into a single, elegantly designed interface. Unlike traditional ticketing systems that create separate, disconnected records for each interaction, Gladly maintains a continuous conversation thread for each customer that persists across channels and time. When a customer emails about an order issue and later calls for follow-up, the agent immediately sees the complete context without any manual lookup. The inbox intelligently organizes conversations by customer identity rather than channel, enabling agents to seamlessly continue discussions regardless of how the customer chooses to reach out. This architecture eliminates the information silos that plague traditional support systems and ensures that no customer message ever falls through the cracks. Reduces agent context-switching by up to 40% and ensures consistent, personalized customer experience across all communication channels while eliminating the frustration of customers repeating themselves.

✓ Reduces agent context-switching by up to 40% and ensures consistent, personalized customer experience across all communication channels while eliminating the frustration of customers repeating themselves

Forethought

Forethought's intelligent routing engine automatically categorizes incoming support tickets by issue type, priority level, product area, and required expertise, then routes them to the most appropriate agent or team. The system uses machine learning trained on historical ticket data to understand which agents are best suited for specific issue types based on past resolution times, customer satisfaction scores, and expertise areas. It also considers real-time factors like agent availability, current workload, and shift schedules to optimize routing decisions. For complex tickets requiring specialized knowledge, the system can identify subject matter experts and route accordingly. The routing logic is fully customizable, allowing support managers to define rules, priorities, and escalation paths that align with their organizational structure and SLAs. Decreases average resolution time by ensuring tickets reach the right agent faster, improving both customer satisfaction and agent efficiency

✓ Decreases average resolution time by ensuring tickets reach the right agent faster, improving both customer satisfaction and agent efficiency

Gladly

Gladly's intelligent conversation routing engine leverages sophisticated machine learning algorithms to automatically direct incoming customer inquiries to the most appropriate available agent based on a comprehensive analysis of multiple factors. The system evaluates agent skills and expertise areas, current workload and availability, language proficiency, customer history and relationship context, conversation complexity indicators, and real-time queue dynamics to make optimal routing decisions in milliseconds. The AI continuously learns from historical interaction data, analyzing which agent-customer pairings resulted in the fastest resolutions and highest satisfaction scores, then applies these insights to improve future routing accuracy. Supervisors can configure routing rules and priorities while the AI handles the complex real-time optimization. The system also supports skills-based routing for specialized inquiries, VIP customer prioritization, and intelligent load balancing across teams and time zones. Decreases average handle time by connecting customers with the right agent on the first try, increases first-contact resolution rates, and improves overall team efficiency through intelligent workload distribution.

✓ Decreases average handle time by connecting customers with the right agent on the first try, increases first-contact resolution rates, and improves overall team efficiency through intelligent workload distribution

Forethought

For tickets that require human intervention, Forethought generates contextually relevant response suggestions that agents can use, modify, or reject. The AI analyzes the customer's inquiry, searches relevant knowledge base articles and historical similar tickets, and generates 1-3 response options tailored to the specific situation. Suggestions include appropriate greetings, accurate information addressing the customer's question, relevant links to self-service resources, and professional closings. Agents see these suggestions directly in their helpdesk interface, allowing them to respond with a single click or quickly edit the suggestion before sending. The system learns from agent acceptance patterns and modifications, continuously improving suggestion quality. This feature is particularly valuable for maintaining consistent tone and messaging across large support teams while significantly accelerating response times. Enables agents to respond 3-5x faster while maintaining consistent quality, tone, and accuracy across all customer interactions

✓ Enables agents to respond 3-5x faster while maintaining consistent quality, tone, and accuracy across all customer interactions

Gladly

Gladly provides agents with an unprecedented level of customer context by displaying comprehensive customer profiles alongside every conversation in real-time. This contextual sidebar includes complete purchase history with order details and transaction values, every previous interaction across all channels with full conversation transcripts, customer preferences and communication channel preferences, account status and loyalty program information, recent browsing behavior and cart contents for e-commerce integrations, and any custom attributes synced from connected CRM and business systems. The platform automatically surfaces the most relevant information based on the current conversation topic, using AI to highlight recent orders, open issues, or account changes that may be pertinent. Agents never need to ask customers to verify their identity or explain their history—all the information appears instantly when the conversation begins. This eliminates the tedious back-and-forth that frustrates customers and wastes valuable support time. Enables deeply personalized support interactions, reduces average handle time by eliminating information gathering, and creates memorable customer experiences that build loyalty and lifetime value.

✓ Enables deeply personalized support interactions, reduces average handle time by eliminating information gathering, and creates memorable customer experiences that build loyalty and lifetime value

Forethought

Forethought deeply integrates with company knowledge bases, documentation systems, FAQs, and help centers to ground all AI responses in verified, accurate information. The platform connects via API or native integrations to popular knowledge management systems, indexing and understanding content to make it accessible for AI-powered responses. When processing tickets, the AI uses semantic search to find the most relevant articles and information, incorporating this content into both automated resolutions and agent suggestions. The system can also identify knowledge gaps—topics where customers frequently ask questions but no documentation exists—helping content teams prioritize article creation. This knowledge-grounded approach significantly reduces AI hallucinations and ensures customers receive accurate, consistent information regardless of which agent or automated system handles their inquiry. Improves response accuracy and consistency by grounding AI in verified company information while reducing hallucinations and incorrect responses

✓ Improves response accuracy and consistency by grounding AI in verified company information while reducing hallucinations and incorrect responses

Gladly

Gladly's AI-assisted response system acts as an intelligent copilot for support agents, providing real-time suggestions for responses, relevant knowledge base articles, and recommended actions based on the current conversation context. As customers type their messages, the AI analyzes the content and intent, then surfaces the most appropriate pre-written responses, macros, or knowledge base content that agents can insert with a single click and personalize as needed. The system learns continuously from agent behavior—when agents modify suggested responses or choose alternative answers, the AI incorporates this feedback to improve future recommendations. For common inquiries like order status checks, return requests, or account questions, the AI can draft complete response templates that agents simply review and send. The technology also detects customer sentiment and urgency, alerting agents when conversations require escalation or special attention. This intelligent assistance ensures consistency in support quality across the team while dramatically accelerating response times. Accelerates agent response times by 30-50%, improves consistency in support quality across the team, reduces training time for new agents, and ensures customers receive accurate, helpful answers quickly.

✓ Accelerates agent response times by 30-50%, improves consistency in support quality across the team, reduces training time for new agents, and ensures customers receive accurate, helpful answers quickly

Forethought

Forethought provides unified support automation across all customer communication channels including email, live chat, social media platforms, messaging apps, and web forms. The platform normalizes incoming messages from different channels into a consistent format, applies the same AI-powered categorization and routing logic, and maintains conversation context when customers switch between channels. Agents see a unified inbox with full conversation history regardless of channel, eliminating the need to switch between different tools or lose context. Automated responses are formatted appropriately for each channel—concise for chat, more detailed for email—while maintaining consistent information and tone. This omnichannel approach ensures customers receive the same quality of support whether they reach out via Twitter, email, or live chat. Enables consistent, high-quality support experience across all customer touchpoints while reducing agent context-switching and improving efficiency

✓ Enables consistent, high-quality support experience across all customer touchpoints while reducing agent context-switching and improving efficiency

Gladly

Gladly's comprehensive analytics and reporting suite provides support leaders with deep visibility into every aspect of their operation through intuitive dashboards, customizable reports, and real-time monitoring capabilities. The platform tracks essential metrics including average handle time, first-contact resolution rate, customer satisfaction scores (CSAT), Net Promoter Score (NPS), response times by channel, conversation volume trends, and agent productivity indicators. Beyond standard metrics, Gladly's analytics leverage AI to identify patterns and anomalies—surfacing emerging issues before they become widespread problems, highlighting top-performing agents whose techniques can be shared with the team, and detecting training opportunities based on conversation outcomes. Managers can drill down from high-level dashboards to individual conversations to understand the context behind the numbers. The reporting system supports scheduled report delivery, custom metric definitions, and data export for integration with business intelligence tools. Real-time queue monitoring enables supervisors to make immediate staffing adjustments during volume spikes. Enables data-driven decisions to optimize support operations, identifies coaching opportunities and training needs, provides visibility for capacity planning, and demonstrates support team ROI to leadership.

✓ Enables data-driven decisions to optimize support operations, identifies coaching opportunities and training needs, provides visibility for capacity planning, and demonstrates support team ROI to leadership

Forethought

Approach: Forethought automates the entire outbound prospecting workflow using AI. The platform identifies ideal customer profiles, enriches contact data from multiple sources, and generates personalized email sequences at scale. Sales teams can set targeting criteria and let the AI handle research, outreach, and follow-ups.

Outcome: 70% time savings on prospecting activities, 3x increase in qualified meetings booked, 50% improvement in email response rates through AI personalization.

Gladly

Approach: Gladly automates the entire outbound prospecting workflow using AI. The platform identifies ideal customer profiles, enriches contact data from multiple sources, and generates personalized email sequences at scale. Sales teams can set targeting criteria and let the AI handle research, outreach, and follow-ups.

Outcome: 70% time savings on prospecting activities, 3x increase in qualified meetings booked, 50% improvement in email response rates through AI personalization.

Forethought

Approach: Forethought uses AI to automatically qualify and score leads based on firmographic data, behavioral signals, and engagement patterns. The system continuously learns from conversion data to improve scoring accuracy and prioritize the highest-value opportunities.

Outcome: 45% increase in lead-to-opportunity conversion, 60% reduction in time spent on unqualified leads, 2x improvement in sales team productivity.

Gladly

Approach: Gladly uses AI to automatically qualify and score leads based on firmographic data, behavioral signals, and engagement patterns. The system continuously learns from conversion data to improve scoring accuracy and prioritize the highest-value opportunities.

Outcome: 45% increase in lead-to-opportunity conversion, 60% reduction in time spent on unqualified leads, 2x improvement in sales team productivity.