2018 Contact Center Technology Survey Reveals Critical Needs

FROM THE JULY 2018 ISSUE

2018 Contact Center Technology Survey Reveals Critical Needs
Illustration by Alexandra Able for Pipeline

Our 2018 contact center technology survey shows that some things never change, even in an era of massive change! It had been six years since we reached out to contact center professionals to take stock of their technology views. Over the intervening years, the prevailing standards of service excellence have continued to rise. New technologies and sourcing options (like the cloud!) have continued to create opportunities (and confusion) for contact center management. And the message to do more with less (and faster) has never been louder. So it seemed an auspicious time to check in.

Two hundred and sixteen (216) contact center professionals shared their investment drivers, decision criteria, implementation hurdles and support concerns. They represented centers of all sizes and a diverse collection of industries. Fifteen percent (15%) of them self-identified as “Leaders of the Pack” with state-of-the-art technology. Fifty-five percent (55%) consider their technology infrastructure to be average, while 28% deemed themselves as laggards. These figures reflect a positive (albeit small) change since our last survey.

Unfortunately, many of the challenges still remain: tight budgets, end-of-life technology, reliability issues, and insufficient resources for implementation and support.

Top Five Things We Learned from the Survey

  • Feature/function gaps, obsolescence, reliability and growth provide the primary impetus for change.
  • While cost continues to weigh heavily in the decision process, buyers are equally concerned with filling feature/function gaps.
  • Cloud-based technology has achieved high acceptance across sizes and applications, with peak interest in performance management tools.
  • Contact centers continue to be shortchanged on implementation support while being asked to finish the job more quickly.
  • Most contact centers deem their technology to be sufficiently reliable, although they’ve experienced a measurable drop in responsiveness from their vendor and IT partners.

Download the full report here.