To keep up with consumer expectations, customer care organizations are engaging with clients on multiple channels of interaction, and improving the customer experience by applying cross channel analytics. This allows companies to glean data from all touch-points to better understand and improve the customer journey. According to new research, one key enabler for this is the move to the cloud.
Frost & Sullivan has found that growth in the hosted contact center market is driven by the scalability and flexibility it provides to companies looking to add new channels and applications. The North American hosted contact center market reached $1.76 billion in 2012. This encompasses combined spend across hosted and cloud-based automatic call distributor (ACD), interactive voice response (IVR), outbound contact, chat, quality monitoring, workforce management and analytics applications.
And, the research finds cloud is quickly outpacing traditional solutions, as the hosted contact center market is forecast to grow at a 12.1 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2011-2017, Meanwhile, the premise-baseed contact center systems market is expanding at a 5.5 percent CAGR.
“Cloud is no longer restricted to small or mid-sized enterprises,” said Frost & Sullivan contact centers principal Analyst Nancy Jamison. “Organizations of all sizes realize initial concerns related to the cloud, including doubts as to the security, have been addressed by solution providers. This includes providers’ adherence to strict security requirements, including both physical and on an application layer.”
The cloud is precipitating a move to an omni-channel experience where a customer’s experience across touchpoints is seamless. With a hosted approach, omni-channel solutions can be seamlessly integrated and customized to meet unique organizational needs, while being built into existing applications. In fact, third-party applications from providers such as SalesForce.com, SAP and Oracle CRM already integrate with many cloud solutions.
Frost & Sullivan’s research finds even countries with a nascent hosted contact centers market are key targets for all top tier players. Latin America alone has seen a 50 percent increase in customer service operations in the last decade in response to middle class service demands. During this global market growth, with new players materializing and the industry consolidating, cloud will play a key role to quickly and cost effectively adjust capacity based on traffic, season and business need.
“Customers are dictating the transformation of contact centers,” said Jamison. “And companies are responding by stepping up from a multi-channel approach to omni-channel engagement, which is vital to seamlessly interact with customers from channel to channel without loss of interoperability or history. Fast time to deployment, combined with capabilities related to social and mobile, analytics and integration with the back office, all paint a clear picture of the drivers pushing organizations to wholeheartedly adopt the cloud.”
