Enterprises in Europe and the U.K. Turn to Contact Center-as-a-Service Providers to Keep Up with Customer Demand

Enterprises across Europe and the U.K. are turning to contact center-as-a-service (CCaaS) providers to address dramatic changes in customer buying and communication behavior prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report published today by Information Services Group (ISG) (Nasdaq: III), a leading global technology research and advisory firm.

The 2021 ISG Provider Lens™Contact Center as a Service – CX Report for Europe and the U.K. finds customers are seeking more digital interactions with companies and improved experiences overall. At the same time, the contact center industry is being forced to use remote workers and adopt work-from-home and hybrid business models due to the pandemic. Contact center operators in Europe and the U.K. increasingly are transitioning to cloud-based contact center solutions with enhanced security requirements.

“During the pandemic, companies across Europe and the U.K. have been challenged to deliver better customer service through a variety of channels, including messaging and social media,” said Jan Erik Aase, partner and global leader, ISG Provider Lens Research. “Many enterprises have realized that CCaaS providers represent one of the few routes that enable them to meet customer expectations.”

CCaaS solutions deliver several benefits, the report says. They are easy to deploy and integrate with other applications and systems, they offer high scalability, and they provide pricing flexibility. In addition, CCaaS solutions support multiple channels of communication, including voice, chat, email, social media, video and messaging apps.

Social media has become a customer service focus of many companies in Europe and the U.K., with content moderation, community management and web crawling seen as vital elements of a good social media plan. Many CCaaS providers are now offering these services.

Cloud-based contact center solutions are embedded with several technologies that can bring benefits to enterprise buyers, the report adds. They offer omnichannel customer engagement and analytics, as well as single-screen management functionalities that enable agents to deliver highly personalized services. Many CCaaS providers are using AI and machine learning to create even more personalization and achieve higher customer satisfaction.

In addition, CCaaS solutions often include a suite of workforce management capabilities that provide supervisors with real-time insights about team performance. Features and tools include automated coaching, sentiment scoring, analytics for performance improvement, and gamifi­cation that provides performance comparisons and customized avatars to keep agents motivated and focused, even in remote settings.

CCaaS providers also are investing in remote working setups to address issues with connectivity and background and environmental noise. The report sees the industry moving to a mix of brick-and-mortar and remote working models as the pandemic subsides.

With a range of functionalities in one solution, CCaaS is highly suitable for enterprises that want to deliver a high-quality customer experience with advanced technologies and the ability to integrate seamlessly with existing systems, the report concludes. It also makes remote working easier than legacy stack solutions with private network connectivity.

The 2021 ISG Provider Lens™Contact Center as a Service – CX Report for Europe and the U.K. evaluates the capabilities of 18 providers in one quadrant: Contact Center as a Service.

The report names Content Guru, Five9, Genesys, NICE inContact, Odigo, Puzzel, and Talkdesk as Leaders in the quadrant.

In addition, Avaya was named a Rising Star—a company with a “promising portfolio” and “high future potential” by ISG’s definition.

The 2021 ISG Provider Lens™Contact Center as a Service – CX Report for Europe and the U.K. is available to subscribers or for one-time purchase on this webpage.

About ISG Provider Lens™ Research

The ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant research series is the only service provider evaluation of its kind to combine empirical, data-driven research and market analysis with the real-world experience and observations of ISG's global advisory team. Enterprises will find a wealth of detailed data and market analysis to help guide their selection of appropriate sourcing partners, while ISG advisors use the reports to validate their own market knowledge and make recommendations to ISG's enterprise clients. The research currently covers providers offering their services globally, across Europe, as well as in the U.S., Germany, Switzerland, the U.K., France, the Nordics, Brazil and Australia/New Zealand, with additional markets to be added in the future. For more information about ISG Provider Lens research, please visit this webpage.

A companion research series, the ISG Provider Lens Archetype reports, offer a first-of-its-kind evaluation of providers from the perspective of specific buyer types.

About ISG

ISG (Information Services Group) (Nasdaq: III) is a leading global technology research and advisory firm. A trusted business partner to more than 700 clients, including more than 75 of the world’s top 100 enterprises, ISG is committed to helping corporations, public sector organizations, and service and technology providers achieve operational excellence and faster growth. The firm specializes in digital transformation services, including automation, cloud and data analytics; sourcing advisory; managed governance and risk services; network carrier services; strategy and operations design; change management; market intelligence and technology research and analysis. Founded in 2006, and based in Stamford, Conn., ISG employs more than 1,300 digital-ready professionals operating in more than 20 countries—a global team known for its innovative thinking, market influence, deep industry and technology expertise, and world-class research and analytical capabilities based on the industry’s most comprehensive marketplace data. For more information, visit www.isg-one.com.

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Contact information

Will Thoretz, ISG
+1 203 517 3119
will.thoretz@isg-one.com

Kate Hartley, Carrot Communications for ISG
+44 (0)20 3457 6403
kate.hartley@carrotcomms.co.uk