Earlier this summer, I spoke with Birendra Sen, Business Leader, Tech Mahindra Business Process Services, on the building blocks of customer experience transformation and lessons from the pandemic. What are the main customer experience objectives for companies in 2021 and 2022? Birendra Sen: The pandemic caused almost a reset of customer experience objectives for brands. It acc[...]

  2020 triggered multiple large-scale engagements between public sector bodies and CX services providers, with contract activity growing 12.5% year-over-year to reach $4.7bn globally this year (NelsonHall estimate). Outsourcing companies provided healthcare information lines, patient track and trace, unemployment and social benefits hotlines, and loan administration for national, regio[...]

  From wine to pharmacy sales, gamification is quickly becoming a tool for marketers to attract and retain customers in a subscription economy. Yet at its core, gamification is a leading method to teach, retrain, and engage employees. We recently spoke with Teleperformance about their gamification practice and the benefits of implementing comprehensive game-based learning. Game-base[...]

  Sitel’s announcement on 18 June to enter an agreement to acquire all outstanding shares of SYKES stock further consolidates the global CX services leaders. It also highlights the market shift to large-scale, multinational, and financially strong players able to make the needed investments in consulting, CX technology, and automation. Here is a short analysis of the deal. The[...]

  While the CX services industry is anxiously following the situation in India and its surge of COVID-19 cases, the start of 2021 mainly brought positive news. In this blog, I look at the strong performance across the industry and the extent to which the current growth is sustainable. 2021’s record start The three months ending 31st March 2021 was a record quarter for many [...]

  2020 further accelerated transformative trends in the mobility space. Changes include electric vehicle adoption and the shift to mobility as a service and mobility on demand. Auto manufacturers, car rental firms, ridesharing providers, and public transport operations are all responding to this new market and, in support, the underlying model is changing from product to service to cus[...]

  2020 was a very disruptive year for CX services, marked by supply problems in the first half and a massive shift to WAH. It also proved to clients the key role of their CX services suppliers and the major benefits of outsourcing. The year started several trends and accelerate multiple others which will shape a dynamic 2021 for the industry. Here are five CX services trends for 2021. [...]

  In a year when the U.S. stock market pushed to a record high, the U.K. had its worst recession in 300 years, and entire sectors shut down for weeks, business planning has become less reliable while demand fluctuates unexpectedly and inconsistently. The supporting industry of CX services is directly impacted on two fronts: Challenges with supply, where the traditional multi-hund[...]

In July 2020, Majorel acquired French platform developer ISILIS, specialists in bank account switching. In this blog, I look at the new capability, the company’s focus on the banking and financial services sector, and the evolving CX services needs of EU banks. Specialist in bank account portability ISILIS was founded in 2004 initially to support non-regulated account switching pro[...]

  Ages ago, in the pre-COVID-19, pre-U.S. election, pre-BLM protest times of 2019, the challenges of online reputation management (ORM) seemed to be brand-specific. For example, how Boeing could restore customer confidence in the 737 MAX aircraft. Today, in the second half of 2020, navigating social media during a crisis is top of mind for most brand managers and PR departments across [...]

  The impacts of the pandemic and lockdowns are creating winners and losers in terms of BPS delivery geos. Determining factors include a geo’s ability to manage the health and safety of workers, its success in minimizing economic disruption, and the flexibility of its labor regulators. For Egypt, the unfolding effects of COVID-19 on front-office BPS may be too early to judge, [...]

  If there is a silver lining to the pandemic with respect to CX services, it is the changing perception of clients and providers on the pace of digital transformation and the role of frontline staff. In a conversation with Ritesh Idnani, President of Tech Mahindra, we discuss the company’s vision for what the Future of Work looks like and some of the latest trends and technologi[...]

  The COVID-19 crisis is forcing a rethink of the CX delivery model with large contact centers. The fundamental question is how to maintain people’s health and safety in an open floor space with hundreds of seats, continuous face-to-face interactions, shared equipment, and 24x7 operations. For many outsourcing clients, the pandemic was the trigger to adopt work-at-home (WAH) for [...]

  In a new social distancing world, most traditional face-to-face customer service tasks have had to digitize quickly. This trend is not new, but for some processes, it required the adoption of emerging technology and different operational models. A prime example is customer premise visits by engineers for equipment installations, parts replacement, and technical support. For several y[...]

  One of the memes during the COVID-19 crisis asks ‘who led the digital transformation of your company?’ with the options of ‘the CEO’, ‘the CTO’, or ‘the virus’. The global emergency has severely impacted CX, forcing many organizations to shut down or limit their contact center operations when they are most needed. A side effect is that,[...]

  High employee attrition rates are the norm in contact centers, with companies maintaining a constant recruitment, training, and onboarding pipeline. As generations X, Y, and Z come to represent the majority of the workforce, these new workers have different career aspirations, work values, and learning styles. For CX services providers with global delivery networks and demand for spe[...]

  As businesses brace for the effects of the Covid-19 virus, one direct impact is already happening: the mandatory shift to work-at-home (WAH) in China created the world’s biggest remote working experiment. In CX services, this health hazard is putting the WAH model top of mind for both providers and clients. While virtual work has been gaining traction in the last few years, thi[...]

  At the end of January 2020, NelsonHall attended Teleperformance’s global analyst meeting in Mumbai. Here are some insights into the company’s progress since the Intelenet acquisition in October 2018 and the formation of Teleperformance Digital Integrated Business Services (D.I.B.S.). Repositioning as a knowledge partner Teleperformance’s reorganization in 2019[...]

  Telus International announced last week the acquisition of Competence Call Center (CCC) for ~€915m. The deal marks the biggest M&A in front-office BPO (CX Services) for 2019. It is also one of several investments in the DACH region and part of a global trend for market share acquisitions. CCC gives Telus International scale for DACH markets CCC is a private CX services[...]

  One of the main challenges facing front-office automation projects is the adoption of commercial terms protecting the interests of both clients and CX services providers. In an industry dominated by traditional per FTE and per hour/minute pricing, to be successful, end-to-end digital transformation requires significant initial investments, new KPIs, a stake from the vendor, and a lon[...]