Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
ISG Plans Study to Examine How Call Centers Are Coping Through COVID-19 Pandemic
How are the world’s call centers handling customer support, sales and outsourced services during the global COVID-19 pandemic? While it’s impossible to know for certain, as many companies have improvised their pandemic response, technology research and advisory firm Information Services Group (ISG) is hoping to find out. ISG recently announced that has launched a research study examining the contact center outsourcing market, including the ability of providers to deliver services during the COVID-19 pandemic.
While call centers have been limited in the scope of their operations due to shelter-in-place rules assigned by various state and international governments, the demands for customer support have gone up, which has led companies to change their operations procedures, particularly in call center scheduling and workforce management, very rapidly.
“COVID-19 has led to enforced remote working and a shift toward digital communication, which both have accentuated the importance of customer service,” said Jan Erik Aase, director and global leader for ISG Provider Lens Research. “Enterprises are looking to serve their customers through digital channels while social distancing measures are place. Contact centers take center stage and will play a more critical role in helping enterprises drive customer experience.”
Once the research is completed, the results will be published in a comprehensive ISG Provider Lens report, called “Contact Center – Customer Experience.” The study is scheduled to be released in September of this year. It will cover outsourcing providers offering contact center and related services, and examine such core success metrics as a provider’s ability to offer services in multiple languages, to implement design thinking elements, to incorporate artificial intelligence and to include cloud-based services. The report will be broken into three parts: Contact Center – Consulting Services, covering the design of the customer experience transformation roadmap for enterprise clients; Contact Center – Digital Operations for the Middle Market and Large Market, focusing on customer experience services directed toward enhancing the end-user experience; and Contact Center-as-a-Service, which enables enterprises to run virtual contact centers using cloud software to support scalability, flexibility and savings in overhead IT costs.
A list of identified providers and vendors and further details on the study are available in this digital brochure. Companies not listed as contact center providers can contact ISG and ask to be included in the study.
Edited by Maurice Nagle