featured posts:
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Will Crowdsourced Customer Service Get Solv(ed)?
Jun 26, 2019, by Ivan KotzevCrowdsourcing and different types of freelanced customer support models pre-date the current household names using these models in leisure and travel, personal transportation, and delivery services. Many of these early attempts died out because of poor business models, or remain effective today but in niche markets (e.g. gaming) or on a small scale (e.g. U.K. mobile network, giffgaff[...]
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Seizing the Automation Opportunity: Alorica’s Automated Discovery Process
May 28, 2019, by Ivan KotzevOne of the first stumbling blocks of business process transformation is identifying meaningful automation opportunities. A typical process will have a management consultant, system expert, or Lean Six Sigma specialist to monitor manual processes for a set time, collect performance data, and make recommendations. Companies supplement this assessment with executive ideation sessions, operational[...]
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IPsoft Looks to Reduce Time to Value While Increasing Return on AI
May 20, 2019, by John WillmottNelsonHall recently attended the IPsoft Digital Workforce Summit in New York and its analyst events in NY and London. For organizations unfamiliar with IPsoft, the company has around 2,300 employees, approximately 70% of these based in the U.S. and 20% in Europe. Europe is responsible for aproximately 30% of the IPsoft client base with clients relatively evenly distributed over the s[...]
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Concentrix VOC: Measuring CX Transformation
May 03, 2019, by Ivan KotzevDespite the evolution of contact center technology (think conversational AI), the spread of digital channels (think smart speakers), and the dramatic change in the ways companies interact with customers (think mobile-first), the industry KPIs for measuring the impact of these transformations remain limited. CSAT, NPS, and more recently, Customer Effort Scores (CES) measure different elements o[...]
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Proactive Social Media Engagement: Best Practices from Startek & Aegis
Apr 17, 2019, by Ivan KotzevConsumers are evolving their preferred ways of interacting on social media: ‘spontaneous’ stories are replacing produced content, transparency and privacy are driving the spread of private groups and influencing regulatory push, and machine learning is personalizing conversational commerce. The impact on brands is greater need for new types of content, investments in automation and[...]
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Chat Services: Teleperformance’s Playbook & Targets
Mar 27, 2019, by Ivan KotzevIn NelsonHall’s 2017 report, ‘Multi-Channel CMS – Delivering Digital Customer Experience’, I forecast that the chat channel, in all its forms, would become 18% of the global CX services outsourcing market by 2020, growing by 30% CAGR. What fuels this sizable growth are the many benefits to brands offering sales and support over text channels, the advancement o[...]
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Enabling CX Digitalization: A Look at CSS Corp's Yodaa
Dec 20, 2018, by Ivan KotzevIn this vlog Ivan Kotzev looks at CSS Corp’s digital experience suite Yodaa and how it unifies the company’s analytics, automation, and multichannel tools and models for digitalizing support.[...]
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Highlights from Alorica’s Analyst Day, November 2018 (vlog)
Nov 30, 2018, by Ivan KotzevIvan Kotzev shares highlights from Alorica's recent analyst day, including current CX initiatives and focus areas, business growth, and investment priorities.[...]
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The CX Consulting Race: New Players, New Models, and Tech Mahindra’s Example
Nov 06, 2018, by Ivan KotzevNelsonHall has recently published a report on Digital Customer Experience Services, and one of the trends explored is the evolving competition in customer experience (CX) consulting. The traditional ecosystem includes distinct players with clear-cut roles: Big five management consulting firms such as Deloitte or PwC, providing strategy-level advisory which covers CX Niche UX [...]
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Arvato CRM’s JV with Saham Group Consolidates EMEA Position
Sep 21, 2018, by Ivan KotzevBertelsmann, the parent company of Arvato CRM Solutions, has announced plans to combine Arvato CRM with the CX services business of the Pan-African Saham Group. The joint venture will have 50/50 ownership, with ~ €1.2bn combined annual revenues and ~48k employees in 25 countries. The deal is expected to close in January 2019. Saham Group & partnership history Founded in 1995 in [...]
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The CX Workforce Challenge & How Vendors Are Responding
Aug 31, 2018, by Ivan KotzevIn February, industry veteran and CEO of SYKES, Chuck Sykes, commented during the earnings call on CX services market trends: ‘… in the U.S., at least in my time, there is no time in the company's history that I can recall seeing this level of labor challenge. And it actually is something that you're going to see in a lot of developed countries around the world.&[...]
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Tech Mahindra BPS’ Approach to CX Process Automation
Jul 23, 2018, by Ivan KotzevCurrently, the level of automation in the front-office is lower than it is for middle and back-office processes, with reasons including the lower cost of handling customer-facing processes, established offshore models for labor arbitrage, and lack of client interest. However, the upside of this relatively slow uptake is that automation can now be applied to multiple areas of CX, incl[...]
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Concentrix Acquires Convergys, Becomes Second Largest CX BPS Player Globally
Jun 29, 2018, by Ivan KotzevWith its Q2 results yesterday, SYNNEX, the parent company of Concentrix, announced its intention to acquire Convergys, the second largest CX services provider and a public company with ~$2.8bn annual revenues. SYNNEX will pay ~ $2.43bn (includes $26.50 per share and repayment of $315m net debt). The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2018. The largest CX Services provider in Nor[...]
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Teleperformance to Acquire Intelenet, Makes Strategic Bet on India & Analytics
Jun 15, 2018, by Ivan KotzevAfter several months of media speculation, Teleperformance officially announced yesterday an agreement to acquire Intelenet Global Services from the private equity Blackstone for a total consideration of $1bn. Boost for Indian market The deal will expand Teleperformance’s topline growth and have a positive impact of around +10% on the company’s earnings per share in[...]
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The End of Telecoms Sector Dominance in CX Services?
May 01, 2018, by Ivan KotzevFor many years, the telecoms sector has been the dominant market for customer experience (CX) services providers. However, over the last few years, consolidation, flat performance, decreasing margins caused by market saturation, new digital models and competitors, and unfavorable regulations (e.g. Eurotariff) have eroded the significance of the telecoms sector for CX services provide[...]
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Aegis & StarTek Expand Globally with ~$700m Merger
Mar 20, 2018, by Ivan KotzevLast week Aegis Global and StarTek announced the creation of a combined company. The merger will see Aegis majority owner PE Capital Square Partners swap shares with the NYSE listed StarTek, to reach a ~55% stake in the merged company. The deal is expected to close by Q3 2018. Here I look at the implications of the merger. Return to the U.S. for Aegis For Aegis, the merger fol[...]
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Parsing the Customer Journey: How WNS Translates Data to Insights
Mar 12, 2018, by Ivan KotzevNelsonHall recently visited WNS’ Analytics CoE in Bangalore. Research & analytics (R&A) services are key activities for WNS, as a first point of entry into new clients, and also as a higher margin activity in existing accounts. Readers of NelsonHall’s Quarterly Updates on WNS will be aware that WNS is looking to increase the level of annuity revenues from analytic[...]
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How Indian CX Services' Channel Mix Will Change by 2020
Feb 22, 2018, by Ivan KotzevIn our latest CX services research in collaboration with NASSCOM, we have mapped how Indian CX services channel mix will change by 2020, as shown in the following infographic. NelsonHall’s Customer Experience Services program delivers the most comprehensive insight for buyers and providers of CX services. For more information, contact Guy Saunders.[...]
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Key Mechanisms to Boost Your CX Services Performance
Feb 20, 2018, by Ivan KotzevIn our latest CX services research in collaboration with NASSCOM, we identified the top 3 mechanisms for improving key CX metrics: Net Promoter Score, First Call Resolution, Conversion, and Turn-Around Time & Average Handling Time, as shown in the following infographic. NelsonHall’s Customer Experience Services program delivers the most comprehensive insight f[...]
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9 Key Stages of Adoption for Next Generation Customer Service
Feb 16, 2018, by Ivan KotzevIn our latest CX services research in collaboration with NASSCOM, we identified the 9 key stages of adoption for next generation customer service, as shown in the following infographic. Insights into the differences across client industries and the best practices applied by vendors are available in NelsonHall’s Customer Experience Services program. For more information, contact [...]
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Addressing Political Risks & Regulatory Changes: Priorities for CX Services in 2018
Jan 17, 2018, by Ivan KotzevIn my predictions for the customer experience services industry a year ago, I noted that political risks will replace security concerns as the biggest external threat to the industry. Looking ahead to 2018, regulatory changes and government policies will have a lasting impact on the selection of delivery locations, country investment plans, and market presence. Here I take a closer l[...]
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CPG’s Digital CX Future: Notes from HGS Forum
Dec 13, 2017, by Ivan KotzevI recently attended HGS’ forum on the trends and challenges in CX for the European Consumer Packaged Goods (FMCG) market. In the company’s West London center, clients and prospects including Colgate, Danone, L’Oréal, Nespresso, Nomad Foods, and Mars discussed the ways customer service can drive ecommerce and augment sales. Digital as a force for disruption[...]
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Arvato UK&I: Bringing Digital & Automation to CX
Dec 04, 2017, by Ivan KotzevRecently, I had a chance to visit Arvato’s U.K. and Ireland HQ in Slough, ~20 miles (30km) west of London, to witness its customer experience operations and how the company is applying digital channels and automation. A mix of public and private sector clients Arvato U.K. & Ireland provides customer experience services, finance and accounting (record to report, order [...]
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Omnichannel, Bots & the Future of CX: Q&A with Head of Prosodie-Capgemini, Erwan Le Duff
Nov 07, 2017, by Ivan KotzevThis month, Capgemini is launching a new version of its omnichannel cloud platform, Odigo™. I interviewed Erwan Le Duff, Head of Prosodie-Capgemini, about the new platform features, the evolution of self-service, and the future of customer experience. Below is a video of highlights from the interview, followed by a brief introduction to Odigo and a full transcript of the interview. [...]
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Transforming a Contact Center to a Profit Center: CSS Corp Client Study
Oct 30, 2017, by Ivan KotzevPost-sales support functions are typically cost centers: large, labor-intensive operations with significant overheads and no financially attributable benefit to the bottom line. This environment is changing, with organizations gradually understanding the revenue generation opportunities in support services such as technical support and afterlife maintenance. I recently had a co[...]