Australian Firms Invest in Workforce Tools, Customer Data Analytics After Pandemic Disrupts Contact Centers

Australian companies have changed how they manage contact centers and respond to customer needs since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and this transformation is likely to continue for the next few years, according to a new report published by Information Services Group, a leading global technology research and advisory firm.

“Contact center agents create customer experiences that can determine the success or failure of Australian companies”

The 2021 ISG Provider Lens Contact Center – Customer Experience Services report for Australia finds regulations triggered by the pandemic have disrupted supply chains and work practices, increasing the need for workforce engagement and management and leading companies to adopt new technologies.

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“Contact center agents create customer experiences that can determine the success or failure of Australian companies,” said Scott Bertsch, partner and regional leader, ISG Asia Pacific. “Organizations that maximize the effectiveness of remote and on-site agents help to ensure customer loyalty now and in the future.”

In the wake of work-from-home mandates imposed early in the COVID-19 crisis, Australian companies have rolled out more flexible working arrangements to attract more qualified and experienced contact center staff, the report says. The growth of remote work has increased demand for workforce management and engagement solutions to help agents, including gig workers, better manage their own workloads. Enterprises are also increasingly turning to cloud-based contact center solutions, looking to protect their operations during any future crisis, the report says.

Australian contact centers are also implementing analytics to better understand individual customer needs and preferences for a deeper, more personalized level of service, ISG says. Companies are rapidly increasing the use of both structured data, such as customer feedback streams and transaction data, and unstructured data such as social media and web browsing information. The need for companies to manage huge volumes of unstructured data creates a growing opportunity for service providers to offer AI systems that collate, analyze and interpret the data.

As companies become more skilled at collecting, combining and using customer data to gain insights, contact centers will play more strategic and central roles in Australian organizations, ISG predicts. Customer data will even help organizations deliver more innovative experiences and generate new revenue streams.

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Many Australian enterprises are increasing investments in digital solutions such as bots, which can help support human contact center agents, the report says. ISG predicts a shift over the next five years from reliance on phone and in-person customer support to lower-cost self-service channels such as chat bots, smartphone apps, social media and instant messaging. Companies may face integration challenges as they try to give customers an omnichannel experience that blends traditional and digital options, so opportunities for customer experience consulting firms are expected to grow.

The 2021 ISG Provider Lens™ Contact Center – Customer Experience Services report for Australia evaluates the capabilities of 26 providers across three quadrants: Digital Operations, Work From Services and Social Media CX Services.

The report names Datacom, ProbeCX, Sykes, TSA and Wipro as Leaders in all three quadrants. It names Concentrix and TCS as Leaders in two quadrants each and Acquire BPO as a Leader in one quadrant.

In addition, Cognizant, Concentrix, Infosys and Startek are named as Rising Stars—companies with a “promising portfolio” and “high future potential” by ISG’s definition—in one quadrant each.

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