cloud-based contact center infrastructure market report ... · figure 4 shows the adoption rate for...

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Cloud-Based Contact Center Infrastructure Market Report

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Table of Contents

1. Executive Summary 1

2. Cloud-Based Contact Center Infrastructure 2

3. What is a Multi-Channel Contact Center? 3

3.1 Deciding Which Channels to Support 3

3.2 Management Tips for Multi-Channel Contact Centers 4

4. Adoption of Cloud-Based Contact Center Infrastructure Solutions 6

5. NewVoiceMedia 8

About NewVoiceMedia 12

About DMG Consulting LLC 12


1. Executive Summary

Cloud-based contact infrastructure and applications have captured the attention of business and IT leaders around the world. Faced with the challenge of optimizing the effectiveness of their contact center systems and applications, companies have been searching for creative and cost-effective approaches, which they are finding with cloud-based partners. Based on a growth rate of 42.4% in 2010, 80.2% on 2011 and 32.5% in 2012, it’s clear that end users in contact centers of all sizes are rapidly moving from simply being interested in cloud-based contact center infrastructure solutions to making investments. Public and private institutions around the world find the value proposition of these systems highly compelling. While it took contact centers close to 15 years to get comfortable with cloud-based solutions, managers are now on board, won over by the flexibility and benefits that they are realizing now that they are free to manage their business instead of hardware and software. Of course, businesses need outstanding solutions, and when there are more than 80 competitors, which is the current state of the cloud-based contact center infrastructure market, not all solutions are created or operated equally. At a fundamental level, the cloud is simply an alternative acquisition or delivery model for contact center or customer service systems and applications. However, in the world of contact center and customer service technologies and systems, the cloud has been a game-changer. It is playing a major role in revitalizing a mature technology sector. It has helped to transform and enhance the competitive landscape for contact center and customer service applications by making it easier for new vendors to enter the market. All categories of contact center and customer service applications are now available in the cloud. As importantly, the cloud-based delivery model has created opportunities for new vendors to enter and compete in the market, which had become somewhat cost-prohibitive in some of the major technology categories, such as automatic call distributors (ACDs), dialers and customer relationship management (CRM) applications. End-user organizations now have more choices and flexibility than at any time in the past, and are no longer limited by their capital budgets. The challenge for prospects is that there are dozens of companies in many IT sectors vying for their business. However, at the same time, leading users of cloud-based contact center systems and applications are increasing their expectations of vendors. Early on in the adoption cycle, for example, lack of integration with third-party applications was acceptable, as was the slow pace of innovation. This is no longer the case, and it’s clear that prospects and customers expect solid, dependable and reliable solutions that are secure, easy to implement, and supported by highly skilled resources.


2. Cloud-Based Contact Center Infrastructure

The standard cloud-based contact center infrastructure solutions should come with the ability to handle multi-channel inbound, outbound (preview, progressive and predictive), blended, email, chat/instant messaging (IM), SMS and, increasingly, social media interactions. Most of these solutions are based on multi-tenant architectures, although some of them use blades and virtualization to support multiple clients. All cloud-based contact center solutions should support legacy time division multiplexing (TDM) as well as session-initiation protocol (SIP)-based transactions. Increasingly, contact center solutions are also coming out-of-the-box with standards-based connectors that enable integration with premise-based, cloud-based, home-grown and third-party applications. Most cloud-based contact center infrastructure solutions are built using a services-oriented architecture (SOA) to facilitate integration and ongoing research and development (R&D). Figure 1 presents a functional view of a cloud-based contact center infrastructure solution. Figure 1: Cloud-Based Contact Center Solutions

Source: DMG Consulting LLC, December 2013

Integrations

PBX

ACD

Back Office Systems

Third-Party Apps

Core Capabilities

Core Functionality

Optional Modules

Servicing/CRM

eLearning

WFM

Surveying

QA

Screen Capture

CCPM Coaching

CRM Apps

IVR

Social Media

Voicemail

Speech Analytics Desktop Analytics Text Analytics

ACD UQ IVR CTI Dialer Campaign Management

Presence Recording Reporting Voicemail

Inbound Outbound Blended Multi-channel

Underlying Technology

DatabaseIntegration Tools

Virtualization

Multi-tenancyTDM / SIP / IP

Processing Platform


3. What is a Multi-Channel Contact Center?

A multi-channel contact center is a servicing organization that can receive, address and respond to inquiries and transactions in a variety of communication channels. In this environment, it is standard practice to centrally queue, route, handle and record all interactions, regardless of the channel in which they arrive. See Figure 2. Figure 2: Multi-Channel Contact Center


3.1 Deciding Which Channels to Support

The primary servicing channels today are: phone, email, SMS, Web chat, Web self-service, Facebook and Twitter. This list will evolve over time, and managers should re-evaluate their roster of channels continuously. Customers expect to interact with organizations in their channel of choice. The complication is that their preferences vary based on who they are, what they are doing, and where they are. Someone driving a car is, hopefully, speaking to an agent on a hands-free device and not typing a text message. On the other hand, when someone is standing on the side of the road with a flat tire, a text message seems to be an ideal form of communication. In the era of smart phones, the reasons for selecting among various communication media vary, including availability, convenience, preference, safety, privacy and, of

AGENTS

Intelligent & adaptivereal-time routing

UNIVERSAL QUEUE

Skill-based routing

Conditional routing

Basic routing

Reco

rdin

g in

Pro

gres

s Provide information

Update record

Process transaction

Transfer transaction

IVR


course, habit. Therefore, organizations that want to be considered preferred providers in their niche need to proactively identify their customers’ and prospects’ preferences. Failure to support customers’ or prospects’ channels of choice does not mean that they are going to abandon a company immediately, but they will be less loyal, and when something more convenient comes along, they will be open to a new offer.

3.2 Management Tips for Multi-Channel Contact Centers

The number-one mistake that many companies make when adding channels is setting up a different group or team to handle each new interaction channel. Even worse, they may use different pay scales, even though agents are basically doing exactly the same job in each channel. For example, in some companies email agents are paid more than phone agents, while in others they are paid less. A further complication is that too many organizations use different, non-integrated servicing applications to support each communication channel, so agents lack a holistic view of customers and what is being done to help them. This is a mistake that negatively impacts customers and is very costly for enterprises, as it results in miscommunication, additional work, and often hurts the customer experience. Figure 3 reviews the top 11 do’s and don’ts for multi-channel contact centers.


Figure 3: Management Tips for Multi-Channel Contact Centers Practices Don’t Do Hiring Require additional education for email, SMS or social

media agents Use the same educational standards for all channels

Staffing Assume that all agents can handle all channels Hire employees who can handle multiple channels, and try to retrain agents who were previously dedicated solely to the phone

Compensation Have different pay scales for each channel and underpay phone agents

Use one pay scale; pay all agents fairly and competitively based on their knowledge, experience and competency

Performance goals Apply phone KPIs to other channels Create a new set of metrics and KPIs for each channel; start with easily attainable goals and make them progressively more challenging as the staff becomes more experienced

Quality assurance evaluations

Use the same quality evaluation criteria for all channels Create customized quality evaluation forms for each channel; however, the criteria for product knowledge should be the same in each evaluation form

Training Update the training program just by referring to additional channels

Rethink and revamp the training program based on the unique requirements of each channel

Coaching Use traditional coaching and training approaches that delay feedback

Provide feedback on a timely or real-time basis

Policies and procedures Give priority to social media interactions simply because the communication arrives in a public medium

Have standard resolution policies that are used by agents in all channels; take into consideration the immediacy of each channel to ensure that customers receive the service they expect on a timely basis

Organization structure Set up channel silos where the teams are separate, not cross-trained, and do not interact

Create a single organization that supports multiple channels, even if different agents handle the various channels

Servicing/CRM application

Use different servicing/CRM systems to support each channel

Have one servicing/CRM application that supports all channels

Knowledge base Create different knowledge-base articles for different channels

Ensure that all servicing staff have immediate access to all content and knowledge



4. Adoption of Cloud-Based Contact Center Infrastructure Solutions

DMG estimates that the number of worldwide contact center infrastructure seats was 15,804,600 as of the end of 2012. (DMG does not track the number of contact center infrastructure seats directly, but instead has estimated this number using a variety of other industry sources.) DMG believes that this number is highly conservative, and there could easily be 20 million contact center seats in use around the world. In the past few years, many non-traditional contact center environments have started to use some type of contact center technology. For example, an increasing number of traditional back-office functions are starting to handle contact center transactions during peak time periods; some may have contact center infrastructure and, in other cases, they may be receiving calls on their office phones. (Also, contact center agents are starting to handle back-office activities when their volumes are low.) Some contact center-type applications have also started to be used in branches. In addition, there are literally thousands of small “mom and pop”-type environments with fewer than 10 seats that are using contact center-like technology and may be falling under the radar. This is very significant because it impacts the adoption rate of cloud-based contact center infrastructure and its overall potential. In order not to overstate market potential, DMG will continue to take a conservative approach to counting contact center seats, but invites anyone with better information to share it with us. Figure 4 shows the adoption rate for the cloud-based contact center infrastructure market for the five-year period between 2008 and 2012. The adoption rate is the percent of worldwide contact center seats that are in the cloud. This chart also shows adoption rate projections for the four-year period between 2013 and 2016. In 2008, only 2.2% of all contact center seats were in the cloud. This number increased slowly to 2.7% in 2009, and grew to 3.5% by the end of calendar year 2010. The market picked up momentum in 2011, and by the end of the year, 5.9% of all contact center seats were in the cloud. Given that there were 1,155,172 cloud-based contact center infrastructure seats in production as of August 2013, the adoption rate for the market was 7.3%, a substantial increase from 2011. The increase between 2011 and 2012 is the largest in the history of the market. However, DMG expects that the next few years will see rapid growth for the cloud-based contact center infrastructure market. We predict that the adoption rate will grow by 9.5% in 2013, 11.4% in 2014, 13.4% in 2015, and 15.6% in 2016. The reason for the growth is rather simple. As time passes and the cloud-based contact center infrastructure solutions develop and the vendors improve their ability to execute, fewer organizations will see a clear reason not to use one of these applications.


Figure 4: Cloud-based Contact Center Infrastructure: Actual and Projected Adoption Rates, 2008 – 2016 Seats and Growth Rates

Actual 2008 - 2011 Projected 2012 - 2015

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Total cloud-based seats 268,794 339,850 483,875 871,717 1,155,172 1,501,723 1,907,188 2,364,913 2,885,194

Total worldwide CC seats 1 12,198,289 12,564,237 14,000,000 14,840,000 15,804,600 16,721,267 17,607,494 18,523,084 19,486,284

Adoption rate 2.2% 2.7% 3.5% 5.9% 7.3% 9.5% 11.4% 13.4% 15.6%

Note: 1. The worldwide seat numbers are DMG Consulting estimates. Many factors could alter this seat number, including the need to support social media interactions.



5. NewVoiceMedia

Founded: 2000

Headquarters: Belvedere Basing View Basingstoke RG21 4HG UK Website: www.newvoicemedia.com Ownership: Private Product: ContactWorld Sales & Marketing ContactWorld Service ContactWorld Perform Current GA Version: 13.10.50 Current Release Date: Bi-weekly for minor updates; quarterly for major releases Production sites: UK, US, Australia, Singapore Key verticals: Finance, retail Sales model: Direct, indirect

NewVoiceMedia is a privately held company with 162 employees, headquartered in the United Kingdom. NewVoiceMedia sells ContactWorld, an integrated cloud-based contact center software suite. NewVoiceMedia’s contact center strategy is to “continue to organically develop their own multi-tenant cloud infrastructure targeted at supporting mid-sized (20-100 agents) and complex (100+ agents) contact center environments.” NewVoiceMedia’s ContactWorld is sold primarily on a direct basis. The solution’s sweet spot is 20 to 500 agents, with a focus on the finance and retail verticals. A majority of NewVoiceMedia’s opportunities come from their partnership with Salesforce in the UK. NewVoiceMedia recently entered the US market and has opened offices in California and New York. During the next 12 months they plan to expand their business in North America.

Solution Overview

ContactWorld is a multi-channel solution supporting voice, email, chat and short message service (SMS) interactions. ContactWorld’s core capabilities include an automatic call distributor (ACD), presence, computer telephony integration (CTI), interactive voice response (IVR), basic customer relationship management (CRMLite), automatic callback, call recording, scripting, and real-time and historical reporting. Optional modules/capabilities include: Salesforce CRM integration, workforce management, outbound dialing (preview is available through a partnership with Salesforce, and progressive requires integration with the third-party Sytel dialer), quality management and knowledge management (Salesforce).

Agent Interface

ContactWorld provides a Web-based interface for handling blended multi-channel interactions, including inbound and outbound voice, email, Web chat and SMS. The application comes with an integrated soft phone that provides access to standard call control functions, pick-up, disconnect, hold, conference, transfer and speed dial. The agent interface


provides access to NewVoiceMedia’s own basic CRM module called CRMLite, Salesforce.com (optional), real-time key performance indicators (KPIs), and agent state.

Supervisor Environment

Service Control Suite is a Web-based supervisor interface used to manage and monitor agents, agent groups and queues in real time. Supervisors have access to a real-time dashboard that can be customized by users, and incorporates over 100 KPIs. The application also issues real-time alerts to supervisors via email message or SMS, triggered when pre-defined KPI thresholds are exceeded. Supervisors can live-monitor agents, whisper, conference or take over a call. Using a broadcast feature, the interface allows supervisors to distribute information and send links to agents. Administrator Environment

ContactWorld has a centralized, Web-based administration environment, Call Plan Architect, for system and user set-up and configuration. System administrators use the Call Plan Architect graphical design and development environment to create and edit scripts for call routing and the IVR. Skills-based, conditional and real-time adaptive routing is supported. Call Plan Architect also has a contact database that can be used to facilitate real-time adaptive routing. The module allows administrators to configure SMS, email and hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) post alerts.

Outbound Capabilities

ContactWorld supports manual, preview and progressive dialing modes. Adherence to Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) regulations is primarily a manual process; however, development is under way to incorporate integration with do-not-call lists and automate the setting of hours of operation.

Recording and Playback

ContactWorld comes with voice recording capability that supports both time-division multiplexing (TDM) and session initiated protocol (SIP)-based environments. Recording can be triggered by a call plan, capturing 100% or a random


percentage of calls; it can also be activated on-demand by an agent. Using a graphical interface, agents and supervisors can listen to, pause and annotate recordings. Sensitive information such as credit card numbers can be routed to an IVR application for direct input by a customer, then transferred back to the agent, to ensure compliance with the Payment Card Industry – Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS).

Dashboards, Reporting and Alerts

ContactWorld has 100+ standard reports for real-time and historical reporting. Reports can be scheduled or created on-demand. The system also comes with an application program interface (API) for exporting raw data to be used for custom and ad hoc statistical reporting. Reports can be scheduled and sent via email on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Security

Access to the ContactWorld system is role-based and controlled by user ID and password. Standard templates are available to assist users in configuring roles and permissions. The solution provides a security audit trail that tracks any changes made to the system. Sensitive customer data is secured using advanced encryption standards (AES). Production data centers are protected by physical security, including perimeter security, closed-circuit television (CCTV), locked cabinets, and 24x7 security guards on-site. All data centers comply with International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 27001 and PCI-DSS Level 1 Service Provider requirements. NewVoiceMedia is a member of the Cloud Security Alliance and serves on the Telecom Working Group, which is responsible for providing feedback on how to deliver secure cloud solutions and foster cloud awareness in all aspects of telecommunications.

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity NewVoiceMedia’s data centers operate on an active/active basis for disaster recovery and business continuity. NewVoiceMedia has geographically redundant data centers in the UK. NewVoiceMedia also has data centers located in the United States, Australia and Singapore. Daily back-ups are performed, with incremental data stored every second.


Implementation and Integration Process

Implementation of ContactWorld is generally done remotely. A typical 50-seat contact center can be implemented within 1 month of receiving customer configuration requirements; a 250-seat contact center can be brought online within 2 months, but the time frames vary depending upon the operating environment. ContactWorld has an extensive range of APIs that allow for third-party application integration. These optional modules that are pre-integrated with ContactWorld include Salesforce.com for CRM, quality management and knowledge management.

Futures

NewVoiceMedia supports an Agile development methodology, with new releases issued every two weeks. Major upgrades and significant new features are typically released once a quarter. The following enhancements are expected to be released over the next 12 - 18 months:

1. Expanded API capabilities – enabling deeper integration between ContactWorld and other customer data systems which have available Web-services.

2. Speech and text analytics – addition of analytics capabilities that allow users to analyze both speech and text channels

3. Enhanced WFM capabilities – enhancement of the WFM module by adding simulation

4. Enhanced sales and marketing offering – enhancement of CTI functionality for sales and marketing organizations; this includes changes to the NewVoiceMedia dialer platform to allow agents to leave voicemails, dynamic outbound caller line identification (CLID) selection and the ability to import lists.

5. CRM integration toolkit – enhancement of CRM integration to enable customers to string together workflows within different CRM systems


About NewVoiceMedia

NewVoiceMedia is a leading provider of true cloud contact center and voice solutions, enabling

businesses of all sizes to deliver a personalized and unique customer experience, quickly and

securely. Customer service is the lifeblood of any organization and NewVoiceMedia’s ContactWorld

for Sales & Marketing and ContactWorld for Service make every customer interaction a great

experience.

Service availability and security are critical attributes of the cloud. NewVoiceMedia guarantees

99.999% service availability, and transparently backs that up with a Trust Site

(http://www.newvoicemedia.com/trust), which offers real-time data on how its services are performing.

Established more than 10 years, NewVoiceMedia has 250+ customers in 40 countries on five

continents covering most industry sectors. Customers include Topcon, PhotoBox, DPD, Lumesse,

QlikTech and Cunningham Lyndsey.

For further information, please visit www.newvoicemedia.com.

About DMG Consulting LLC

DMG Consulting is the leading provider of contact center and analytics research, market analysis and

consulting services. DMG’s mission is to help end users build world-class, differentiated contact

centers and to assist vendors in developing high-value solutions for the market. DMG devotes more

than 10,000 hours annually to researching various segments of the contact center market, including

vendors, solutions, technologies, best practices, and the benefits and ROI for end users. Our research

covers Hosted Contact Center Infrastructure, Hosted/Managed Service IVR, Quality

Management/Liability Recording (Workforce Optimization), Speech Analytics, Desktop Analytics, Text

Analytics, Surveying/Enterprise Feedback Management, Contact Center Performance Management,

Workforce Management, and Contact Center Analytics. DMG is an independent firm that provides

information and consulting services to contact center management, the financial and investment

community, and vendors in the market. This reprint is excerpted from the 2013 – 2014 Cloud-Based Contact Center Infrastucture Market Report, which was released in January 2014 with the permission

of DMG Consulting LLC. More information about this Report and DMG Consulting is available at

www.dmgconsult.com

http://www.newvoicemedia.com/trust

http://www.dmgconsult.com/


© 2014 DMG Consulting LLC. All rights reserved. This Report is protected by United States copyright law. The reproduction, transmission or distribution of this Report in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of DMG Consulting LLC is strictly prohibited. You may not alter or remove any copyright, trademark or other notice from this Report. This Report contains data, materials, information and analysis that is proprietary to and the confidential information of DMG Consulting LLC and is provided for solely to purchasers of this Report for their internal use. THIS REPORT AND ANY DATA, MATERIALS, INFORMATION AND ANALYSIS CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE DISCLOSED TO OR USED BY ANY OTHER PERSON OR ENTITY WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT OF DMG CONSULTING LLC. Substantial effort went into verifying and validating the accuracy of the information contained within this Report, however, DMG Consulting LLC disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy or completeness of this information. DMG Consulting LLC shall not be liable for any errors or omissions in the information contained herein or for any losses or damages arising from use hereof.

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