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Enterprises Turn to Contact Center Outsourcing in Economic Turmoil

By Amanda Ciccatelli, TMCnet Web Editor

Today, customers expect a lot from businesses and competition is fierce, therefore your company cannot afford to offer insufficient customer service.  Smart businesses understand the advantages of fostering long-term relationships with customers, as customer satisfaction is the primary factor in determining loyalty and in evaluating the future prospects of the business. Applying contact center services to your business is no exception.

The contact center, whether an inbound or outbound center, is essential to almost every company these days. Whether managed in-house or outsourced, the ultimate goal is to comprehensively answer customer queries and resolve customer issues. This begs the question: Do you build a call center in-house or do you outsource for the business service?

Large corporations have the immediate resources tend to go with the former decision. Smaller to mid-sized businesses often decide to outsource for peripheral services such as contact centers in exchange for the opportunity to focus on their core business matters.

In 2011, the contact center outsourcing market in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) experienced low growth compared to major regions in the world – a trend that is expected to persist over the next five years due to the economic situation in Europe and competition from in-house contact centers.

According to a recent Analysis of the European, Middle Eastern and African Contact Center Outsourcing Market by Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert), the market earned revenues of EUR 12,874.5 million in 2011 and estimates this to reach EUR 14,732.6 million in 2017.

"Cost savings for enterprises, multi-shoring options and customer contact expertise offered by providers in the market, together with a large, educated labor pool will promote the outsourcing of contact center services," said Frost & Sullivan Senior Research Analyst Sathya Subramanian in a statement. "The current economic situation, which has resulted in enterprises demanding higher quality customer services, will add further impetus to market development."

Deteriorating margins due to the economic recession has resulted in the need to revise cost structures, which has been accompanied by a focus on quality customer interactions. So in order to achieve this, enterprises have started to seek the expertise of third party outsourcers.

As the contact center outsourcing market expands, it will still face challenges ranging from in-house contact centers, the impact of the economic recession and labor laws to the presence of unions and demand for self-service.

"In-house contact centers are preferred over third-party outsourcers by many enterprises due to quality and security concerns," said Subramanian. "Difficult economic conditions have led to enterprises adopting a 'wait and watch' approach with contact centers."

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