{"id":4255,"date":"2021-08-21T16:39:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-21T16:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/projects\/horsesforsources\/cx-services-pandemic_0821\/"},"modified":"2022-04-26T17:16:38","modified_gmt":"2022-04-26T17:16:38","slug":"cx-services-pandemic_0821","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/cx-services-pandemic_0821\/","title":{"rendered":"Teleperformance, Concentrix, Telus, Sitel\/Sykes and Tech Mahindra kept the CX lights on during the Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"
If there was one corner of the services market which got severely disrupted overnight by lockdowns and unpredictable customer demand, it was customer engagement. For example, when Philippine’s President Duterte locked down the world’s call center capital Manila with 24 hours’ notice, there was an almighty scramble from the CX service providers to shift their agents to other locations, such as nearby Cebu, or to work at home agents in the United States or other locations. As the pandemic dragged on it became clearer than ever that this industry was in dire need of a long-overdue transformation from legacy people-heavy models to smarter use of automation and AI tools. <\/p>\n
One thing I always struggled to understand was why several of the leading IT service providers turned their backs on the customer engagement market, such as when IBM sold off its CX division to Concentrix in 2013<\/a> and Capgemini exited the market. When the full value of automation and AI is realized in the revenue-generating processes driving customer engagement and predicting spending patterns, then the need to couple customer experience services and digital transformation is critical. This is why Infosys acquired Eishtec in 2019 (1400 seats in Ireland) and Tech Mahindra’s Business Process services has risen to number 5 in the rankings this year with 30%+ growth – these firms are able to manage the intersection between traditional BPO delivery and digital capability. This is also why the number one ranked call center provider, Teleperformance, is known to be exploring an IT services acquisition to supplement its global CX business. Simply acquiring more call center<\/em><\/a> is no longer reaping exponential dividends as non-linear growth is only possible when embracing AI, automaton and digital workers.<\/p>\n So let’s check out the 2021 rankings (download report here<\/a>), which clearly show which providers kept the wheels of customer services moving throughout the Pandemic and get the insights from the report’s lead analyst, Melissa O’Brien<\/a>…<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Click to Enlarge<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Melissa – what on earth happened to the CX services industry over the last year and a half? Was it pandemonium? What worked and what didn’t?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n There has been a considerable boom in CX services in the past 18 months. This market was already in the midst of a significant revolution, and the pandemic forced a lot of changes and accelerated decision-making that had stagnated. As with every other industry, the most significant change was the end of resistance to work from home. The contact center providers we covered in this report largely succeeded in the shift to work from home and made it work really well, much to many of their clients’ surprise. What made the difference is that WFH was an already established and fast-growing business model in CX services, representing almost a quarter of FTEs in January 2020. A year and a half into almost entirely remote work, many enterprises say they’ll never go back to brick-and-mortar — in fact, most <\/em>we spoke to said they don’t care whether agents go back to the office and will leave that decision up to the BPOs.<\/p>\n But there are dynamics at play in the contact center that will even out the WFH balance over the next year<\/a>. The CX services providers have long known that employee experience (EX) is king, and employee engagement does not work the same in a remote environment, especially for particular demographics and geographies. Service providers reported lower attrition and absenteeism levels in the early stages of remote work. These have gradually increased as people lose patience and crave the engagement of working in the center (many of which were explicitly designed to attract and delight employees.) So while we don’t expect office staffing to go back to pre-pandemic levels (on average, providers said that 2022 will be a 50\/50 split), the agent engagement aspect, which ultimately drives customer service excellence, will end up dragging a lot of operations back to the center.<\/p>\n The other big change was an acceleration of the adoption of digital tools – with all the disruptions in staffing and unpredictable volume fluctuations, digital associates<\/a> (i.e., intelligent chatbots and IVRs) also had their burning platform in the past year and a half. But we also saw this interesting paradox: while volume volatility significantly increased the adoption of digital assistants, there was also a tremendous demand for traditional voice (human-based) interaction. The CX services industry now has an increasingly difficult challenge of balancing the right blend of digital and human interactions in a volatile pandemic environment. Enterprises now rely on their service provider partners more than ever to help them find the right balance and differentiate through a dual focus on employee and customer experience.<\/p>\n So who came out on top – and were there any specific examples of heroism\/failure along the way?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n On the execution side we see the “usual suspects,” the big boys like Teleperformance and Concentrix flexing their brawn with the global scale and breadth of services that many of the other providers can’t hold a candle. They are tops as far as robust global operations models, sheer breadth of delivery locations, and process consistency. So while shuffling work around and getting capacity sorted out was by no means an easy task, these guys are the ultimate pros. <\/p>\n