The Shifting Basis for Contact Center Decisions

Many companies are bypassing traditional call handling in favor of sophisticated contact center applications that meet customers in the environment of their choice, according to research from Information Services Group (ISG).

ISG found that many companies are increasingly basing contact center technology decisions on improving customer experiences and relationships rather than the choice of call routing engines.

“Contact center infrastructure decisions are no longer based on the simple choice of a voice routing engine,” says Keith Dawson, director of research for customer experience at ISG. “Enterprises are motivated by the need to deliver a seamless and consistent customer experience. By 2028, as many as half the contact centers replacing their platforms will base their decisions around customer experience and/or customer relationship management rather than the choice of call routing engines.”

Enterprises needing to replace their traditional call center systems are taking the opportunity to evaluate newer, more advanced platforms whose routing decisions are based on customer experience factors rather than network conditions, the report says. These new platforms are geared toward real-time data analytics, relationship data management, and even behavioral and sentiment data for both customers and the agents who service them.

The decade-long shift of enterprise digital and telephonic infrastructures from on-premises to cloud-based platforms has recently made way for hybrid approaches that mix cloud and on-premises applications, ISG also notes. Contact center-in-the-cloud, often referred to as contact center-as-a-service, is now the dominant mode of operations for new or expanding contact centers, and some technology providers with on-premises offerings have developed, migrated, or acquired contact center offerings aimed at the entire marketplace, ISG says further.

“The modernization toward a digital business that focuses on the interactions and experiences of customers requires a contact center and support agent management software that can help reach the customer experience objectives,” says Mark Smith, a partner at ISG Software Research.