Executive Summary: ISG Provider Lens™ Contact Center - Customer Experience Services - Global 2021

The individual quadrant reports are available at:

ISG Provider Lens™ Contact Center - Customer Experience Services - AI & Analytics - Global 2021

ISG Provider Lens™ Contact Center - Customer Experience Services - Digital Operations - Global 2021

ISG Provider Lens™ Contact Center - Customer Experience Services - Social Media CX - Global 2021

ISG Provider Lens™ Contact Center - Customer Experience Services - Work-from-home CX Services - Global 2021

Contact Center Industry Landscape Post-Covid

'Post-pandemic," several changes happened that had an impact on businesses in some way or other. Some of the changes, however, were irreversible. On the other hand, end consumer buying behavior saw dramatic shifts and businesses are scaling to adapt to these changes.

As the contact center industry rapidly evolves to address the consumers of the future and their needs, businesses are beginning to realize the need for newer technologies and operating models. Accelerating transformation has become a priority item for all businesses. A lot has changed in the 18 months since the pandemic struck. There are new trends that are redefining this industry.

Industry Trends

Outsourcing witnesses growth

Outsourcing activity in the BPO space is consistently growing. BPO annual contract value (ACV) was up 48 percent in the first half of 2021 versus 1H20. When the pandemic struck, contact center customer care faced many disruptions. Due to lack of preparedness, some enterprise captives struggled to move to a work-from-home model while balancing the customer queries at the same time. Given the situation, enterprises also realized the need for technology and the importance of disrupting the traditional business model by going digital. Besides, with the changing buyer behavior and the increase in digital, the skillsets required for an agent are also evolving. Thus, many enterprises are looking to outsource and leverage partnerships to accelerate their transformation journey.

High-tech industries redefining outsourcing standards

There is an uptake in outsourcing, particularly among the digital native companies, especially insurtech, fintech, and healthtech industries. Being asset-light and maintaining lean operational structures, technological adoption is the highest priority among these companies. The companies are also looking at outsourcing a large part of the functions, to reap the benefits of outsourcing from day one, while the businesses focus on their core operations.

Industry-specific BPO is gaining traction

Every industry has nuances attached to it that are distinctly different from the others. Understanding the depth of any industry, applying the learnings, and enabling agents with the right set of data and insights so their conversations with end customers are contextual, personalized, enriching and informed, means delivering true customer experience. One of the points of scepticism that has made most enterprises reluctant to outsource critical functions is whether the service providers would understand business nuances. However, service providers are making investments to strengthen their industry-specific offerings and are actively leveraging what they’ve learned, by applying analytics to help agents deliver more contextual conversations. With growth and investments occurring, the industry is witnessing a growth in industry-specific BPO sourcing.

Brands turn to social media for growth opportunities

Social media become a more important channel of communication during the pandemic, and post-pandemic. With lockdowns and social distancing norms, customers are leveraging this platform for customer service, complaints, purchases, sales, etc. Brands are increasingly turning to social media to tap into new customers and to manage their existing customers. Social media is acting as one of the key channels for sales and marketing because it makes it easier for companies to reach out to masses effortlessly and quickly. While social media has deep advantages, it also comes with its own set of challenges. Brands have to be extremely agile to manage these channels because brand damage can occur at the same speed at which you can build a business. Content moderation, community management, web crawling and scanning have become extremely important, and companies are required to stay on top of this 24/7.

Technological Trends

Rise in the adoption of asynchronous messaging

Asynchronous messaging saw an uptick in usage post-pandemic: Customers turned to digital channels to defeat queues and waiting times. Queries were of all kinds, some that needed immediate attention, and others that could wait if customers received a response to their queries. For these reasons and more, asynchronous messaging worked well. Though agents work sequentially on this in the background, agents can productively resolve more queries, and unlike live chat, one doesn’t have to leave customers frustrated. For customers, on the other hand, it becomes a matter of convenience because they could use the chat service at their convenience and pick up threads from where they left off even if they respond hours later.

Conversational AI sees more adoption

Conversational AI has been in the market for some years. However, the adoption rate has dramatically increased in the last 12 months. The solutions in the market are maturing, and with more enterprises realizing the potential a bot can bring, companies are ready to embrace and explore this technology to its fullest.

With low code/no code becoming more prevalent, conversational AI deployment has become easier for companies and employees, even if they lack technical know-how. With the growing importance around industry-specific solutions, conversational AI is no exception. Some of these solutions come preloaded with industry nuances that give companies faster go-to-market with their solution. With the deployment of such industry-specific bots, the bots are rapidly maturing and are able to solve more complex queries. Over time, integrating these solutions so the bots can talk to the internal systems has drastically improved, thus making it easier for companies to deploy solutions.

Cloud contact center is inevitable

With the growth in cloud-based platforms, the market is witnessing a phenomenal trend. Adoption of a cloud contact center is inevitable because the benefits are well known. Taking it to the next level are the service providers, which are significantly expanding their partnerships with cloud platform companies or are investing in developing proprietary solutions to help clients accelerate their transformation and effectively address business continuity.

Security can be the biggest inhibitor if not done right

It was a challenge for most enterprises to accept work-from-home, but given the pandemic situation most enterprises did not have a choice. However, as the work-from-home model has successfully worked for most companies, the question of securely sustaining operations with disparate working models is the burning question for most of them. However, the technology and solutions in this space are evolving beyond multifactor authentication and secure networks. Companies are introducing video analytics, voice biometrics, facial recognition, geolocation and other embedded security solutions to continue monitoring their agents on a real-time basis and to instil strict protocols to ensure security.

Agent Experience Trends

Analytics is the survival of the fittest

Analytics is a game changer for customer experience. Empowering companies with the right set of information at the right time will help them achieve desired business outcomes. This begins with employee experience and, if agents are not empowered with the right information, it can be detrimental to customer success in the long run. With millions of interactions across numerous agents, companies must leverage this data to turn it into meaningful conversations.

Innovation in the space of employee engagement

Burnout is real. The work-from-home environment comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Brick-and-mortar contact delivery centers have always provided a vibrant atmosphere for employees. With daily huddles, team meetings and fun activities, the environment in brick-and-mortar facilities was different. However, in a work-from-home environment, some of these social aspects are missing and companies are working hard to create an engaging atmosphere for agents. Focusing on innovative people programs has become more important, to ensure that employees are motivated and stay productive.

While businesses may not entirely adopt work from home, they will not return entirely to the office either. The hybrid working model is here to stay permanently for several reasons. As businesses adapt and embrace the new working model, companies are getting innovative in finding solutions to make this new working model highly effective for both employees and customers. Service providers in this industry are coming up with creative solutions like engagement hubs that provide state-of-the-art infrastructure to enable employees to strike the right balance between office and home. These platforms provide opportunities for employees to engage with other team members, with facilities for training, team meetings and fun activities. On the other hand, companies are also investing in innovative virtual platforms that provide opportunities for employees to engage virtually. Ultimately, happy agents lead to happy customers.

Access to the full report requires a subscription to ISG Research. Please contact us for subscription inquiries.