The Pandemic is Speeding the Drive to Digitization

While many companies were in the midst of digitization projects for their customer support functions, as well as remote working before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the global emergency has sped up those efforts. Many organizations accelerated their efforts in order to allow employees to work from home and keep business afloat. This trend has benefited customers as well, as they are demanding more access to a broader array of channels as they also navigate life from home.

In a recent interview with TechRadar Pro, Senior Vice President of API Global Sales at Vonage, Sunny Rao, said that his company’s 2020 and 2021 Global Customer Engagement Reports uncovered just how much the pandemic accelerated the global adoption of newer communications channels while increasing fragmentation in channel preferences.

The reports have indicated that nearly half (47 percent) of consumers worldwide have reported they have escalated their use of digital channels to engage with businesses and service providers during the recent year and a half, and 87 percent of respondents said they expect to maintain or increase this level in the next 6 to 12 months.

“Remote working has also driven strong preference for digital channels (video, chatbots, messaging apps, etc.) over more traditional channels (mobile voice calls, email),” Rao told TechRadar Pro. “Since January 2020, globally, there has been a 300 percent growth in the number of people who prefer to connect with businesses via video. Three in five consumers worldwide are video chatting with a business or service provider more now than they were 18 months ago.”

The drive to digitization is happening all over the world, but the numbers are particularly striking in regions such as APAC (Asia Pacific). Europe is expected to see moderate growth driven by education and healthcare, while APAC is expected to see the highest CAGR due to increased demand for internet-based communication services and a boom in cloud services.

According to Fortune Business Insights, the global unified communications as a service (UCaaS) market is expected to be worth nearly $70 billion by 2028.