Credit: Dreamstime
FoAustralian enterprises are increasingly adopting cloud technologies and turning to service providers to power their hybrid contact centres, a report has found.
According to ISG Provider Lens, a growing number of Australian businesses are outsourcing their contact centres to service providers to meet the challenges posed by remote work and the need for new technologies to reach customers.
Concentrix, Datacom, Probe CX, TSA and Wipro were named as local leaders in three key criteria by ISG, while Acquire BPO, Tech Mahindra and Telstra ticked one criterium each.
Enterprises are also striving to retain contact centre workers through hybrid work modes, especially as many contact centre roles return to Australia from offshore. This, according to ISG, has increased the need for workforce management and engagement solutions, along with security infrastructure to protect assets and data in remote locations.
“The pandemic showed Australian companies how important digital engagement is for surviving and competing in uncertain times,” said Jarrod Magill, director, ISG global business services. “Cloud-based and outsourced contact centres are making them more resilient and agile.”
Meanwhile, as consumer behaviour changes, companies in Australia are also improving their ability to collect, combine and use customer data to generate meaningful insights in real-time, ISG claimed.
In addition to structured data, such as transaction and customer relationship management (CRM) data, companies have more unstructured data from social media, web browsing, mobile devices and other sources. According to ISG, they are starting to leverage artificial intelligence to collate and interpret the data.
“Data has become an essential tool for improving contact centre experiences,” said Jan Erik Aase, partner and global leader at ISG Provider Lens Research. “With the latest technologies, providers can help clients develop new, revenue-generating experiences using timely and relevant data.”
These trends are occurring as contact centres take on more central roles in Australian organisations, the report said, meaning consumers require better experiences and staff better tools to provide these.
The report also examines other contact centre trends in Australia, including the increasing importance of customer-facing automation and the return of many overseas contact centres to Australia.
At a regional level, the Asia Pacific contact centre applications market is expected to see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.3 per cent from 2019 to 2026, research firm Frost & Sullivan claimed last year.
