For many enterprises facing changing customer expectations and technologies, as-a-service offerings are the fastest way forward, ISG Provider Lens report says
Rapid changes in contact center technologies are leading more enterprises to outsource these operations to cloud-based as-a-service providers, according to a new research report published by Information Services Group , a leading global technology research and advisory firm.
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“Customer experience is a boardroom issue now”
The global 2022 ISG Provider Lens™ Contact Center as a Service – CX report finds that many enterprises are turning to outside providers to meet growing contact center demands in a time of staffing challenges and increasing complexity. Leading providers are enhancing clients’ customer engagement capabilities with cloud-based operations and advanced AI and analytics.
“AI is redefining the customer experience,” said Wayne Butterfield, partner, ISG Automation. “Automated tools like chatbots can now handle up to 80 percent of customer issues without an agent, so confidence in AI is growing.”
Outsourcing contact centers also helps enterprises acquire omnichannel capabilities, which meet growing customer demand for immediate responses using their medium of choice, the report says. The need to master text, voice, social media and other channels has made customer engagement too complex for many companies to do in-house.
At the same time, the stakes have risen as customer experience becomes a major differentiator for businesses, ISG says. If online customers are dissatisfied, competitors are only a click away, and companies are publicly rated for their customer experience. Some enterprises are outsourcing contact center operations to turn around a declining reputation.
“Customer experience is a boardroom issue now,” said Jan Erik Aase, partner and global leader, ISG Provider Lens Research. “Companies that are not connecting with their customers need to find the best service provider for their needs, and quickly.”
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The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically accelerated the trend toward distributed, cloud-based contact centers, which in turn has ramped up demand for new tools to keep remote and home-based work secure, ISG says. The disruption of work during the pandemic also led to high attrition from contact-center jobs, increasing the need for automation and for more real-time customer data to help agents resolve issues.
The report also examines other trends around contact-centers-as-a-service, including the growing importance of workforce training, coaching and performance monitoring.
For more insights into the challenges driving enterprises to outsource contact centers, along with advice on how best to carry out a provider engagement, see the ISG Provider Lens™ Focal Points briefing here.
The global 2022 ISG Provider Lens™ Contact Center as a Service – CX report evaluates the capabilities of 21 providers across one quadrant: Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS).
The report names 8×8, Amazon Connect, Content Guru, Five9, Genesys, NICE CXone, Odigo and Talkdesk as Leaders in the quadrant.
In addition, Avaya is named as a Rising Star — a company with a “promising portfolio” and “high future potential” by ISG’s definition — in the quadrant.
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