Already firmly established as a major business, technology, and customer imperative, contact centre outsourcing will see continued growth over the next decade, according to a new report by Aberdeen Group. The largest increase in the use of outsourced contact centre (OCC) services is expected in contact centres with between 250 and 1000 agents: each of the three segments in this range, with agent populations ranging from 251-500 agents, 501-750 agents, and 751-1000 agents, expecting their use of OCC services to increase by more than 33 per cent in the next 18 months.
The outsourced contact centre industry has been buoyed by the ongoing financial and economic pressure on companies to cut costs, and fueled by the increasing level of network and infrastructure capacity, said Christopher Fletcher, Aberdeen vice president and managing director, Customer Relationship Management and author of the report, The Customer Contact Centre: Technology, Trends, and Investment Plans 2003-2004.
In addition to the short-term financial and business implications for users and vendors alike, the outsourcing of contact centres either to domestic outsourced providers or to companies with contact centre facilities located offshore has significant economic and social impact. Political and legal concern relating to the outsourcing of contact centres, and in particular to the shifting of contact centre jobs and investment to locations outside of ones national borders is growing and will continue to provide significant social concerns to voters, businesses, and the government, he added.
Fifty-one per cent of the contact centre executives that participated in the study are located outside of the U.S; participants from Europe accounted for 18 per cent of the total; 16 per cent were from the Asia/Pacific/Australia/New Zealand area, 7 per cent were from Canada, and 6 per cent were from Latin America and Africa/Middle East.
2003-09-05
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