The European Contact Centre Decision-Makers’ Guide · • by region (Western Europe, Nordics,...

The European Contact Centre Decision-Makers’ Guide

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information that may subsequently prove to be incorrect.

The European Contact Centre Decision-Makers’ Guide: 1st edition 2018

© ContactBabel (Published 4/2018)

This report is a licensed product.

3

CONTENTS

CONTENTS ................................................................................................................................... 3

TABLE OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... 6

INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY .......................................................................................... 8

HOW TO USE THE REPORT...................................................................................................................... 10

SEGMENTATIONS ................................................................................................................................. 11

VERTICAL MARKETS .............................................................................................................................. 11

SIZE BAND & CONTACT CENTRE TYPE ...................................................................................................... 12

THE STRUCTURE OF THE DATASETS .......................................................................................................... 12

DISTRIBUTION AND USE OF THIS REPORT................................................................................................... 14

HR BENCHMARKING ................................................................................................................... 15

ATTRITION .......................................................................................................................................... 15

Agent attrition by vertical market ............................................................................................... 17

Agent attrition by contact centre size .......................................................................................... 18

Agent attrition by contact centre activity .................................................................................... 19

Agent attrition by contact centre activity Type ............................................................................ 20

Agent attrition by region ............................................................................................................. 21

ABSENCE ............................................................................................................................................ 23

SALARIES ............................................................................................................................................ 26

Salaries by Inhouse / Outsourced ................................................................................................. 27

Salaries by contact centre activity ............................................................................................... 28

Salaries by contact centre size ..................................................................................................... 29

CONTACT CENTRE PERFORMANCE .............................................................................................. 31

PERFORMANCE BENCHMARKING ............................................................................................................ 35

Agent activity ............................................................................................................................... 39

Call duration ................................................................................................................................ 43

Call abandonment ....................................................................................................................... 45

Speed to answer .......................................................................................................................... 46

First-call resolution ...................................................................................................................... 48

The role of first-contact resolution............................................................................................... 49

Call transfers ................................................................................................................................ 52

OMNICHANNEL .......................................................................................................................... 53

COST PER CONTACT.............................................................................................................................. 59

HOMEWORKING ........................................................................................................................ 61

CURRENT USE OF HOMEWORKING ........................................................................................................... 62

CLOUD-BASED CONTACT CENTRE SOLUTIONS ............................................................................. 65

‘CLOUD’: TERMS & DEFINITIONS ............................................................................................................ 65

DRIVERS FOR CLOUD-BASED SOLUTIONS .................................................................................................. 68

CURRENT USE OF CLOUD-BASED CONTACT CENTRE SOLUTIONS ................................................................... 71

4

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ............................................................................................................. 72

TECHNOLOGY USAGE AND PLANNING ........................................................................................ 78

CONTACT CENTRE GROWTH ....................................................................................................... 87

APPENDIX: ABOUT CONTACTBABEL ............................................................................................ 88

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6

TABLE OF FIGURES

FIGURE 1: VERTICAL MARKET DEFINITIONS ................................................................................................... 11

FIGURE 2: AGENT ATTRITION RATE RANGES .................................................................................................. 16

FIGURE 3: MEAN AND MEDIAN AGENT ATTRITION BY VERTICAL MARKET (ALL EUROPE) ......................................... 17

FIGURE 4: MEAN AND MEDIAN AGENT ATTRITION BY CONTACT CENTRE SIZE (ALL EUROPE) ................................... 18

FIGURE 5: MEAN AND MEDIAN AGENT ATTRITION BY CONTACT CENTRE ACTIVITY (ALL EUROPE) ............................. 19

FIGURE 6: MEAN AND MEDIAN AGENT ATTRITION BY CONTACT CENTRE ACTIVITY TYPE (ALL EUROPE) ...................... 20

FIGURE 7: MEAN AND MEDIAN AGENT ATTRITION BY REGION .......................................................................... 21

FIGURE 8: CHANGE IN AGENT ATTRITION IN PAST 12 MONTHS, BY REGION ......................................................... 22

FIGURE 9: SHORT-TERM ABSENCE BY VERTICAL MARKET (ALL EUROPE) .............................................................. 24

FIGURE 10: SHORT-TERM ABSENCE BY CONTACT CENTRE ACTIVITY (ALL EUROPE) ................................................ 24

FIGURE 11: SHORT-TERM ABSENCE BY CONTACT CENTRE ACTIVITY TYPE (ALL EUROPE) ......................................... 25

FIGURE 12: SHORT-TERM ABSENCE BY REGION ............................................................................................. 25

FIGURE 13: MEAN AND MEDIAN CONTACT CENTRE SALARIES, BY JOB ROLE (ALL EUROPE) ..................................... 26

FIGURE 14: SALARIES BY INHOUSE / OUTSOURCED OPERATIONS, BY REGION, BY JOB ROLE..................................... 27

FIGURE 15: SALARIES BY CONTACT CENTRE TYPE, BY REGION, BY JOB ROLE ......................................................... 28

FIGURE 16: SALARIES BY CONTACT CENTRE SIZE, BY REGION, BY JOB ROLE .......................................................... 29

FIGURE 17: CONTACT CENTRE METRICS ....................................................................................................... 31

FIGURE 18: MOST IMPORTANT CONTACT CENTRE METRICS (CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE) .................................. 35

FIGURE 19: MOST IMPORTANT CONTACT CENTRE METRICS (NORDICS) .............................................................. 36

FIGURE 20: MOST IMPORTANT CONTACT CENTRE METRICS (WESTERN EUROPE) ................................................. 37

FIGURE 21: MOST IMPORTANT CONTACT CENTRE METRICS (UK)...................................................................... 38

FIGURE 22: MOST IMPORTANT CONTACT CENTRE METRICS (US) ...................................................................... 38

FIGURE 23: AGENT ACTIVITY BY REGION ...................................................................................................... 39

FIGURE 24: AGENT ACTIVITY BY CONTACT CENTRE SIZE ................................................................................... 41

FIGURE 25: AGENT ACTIVITY BY INHOUSE / OUTSOURCED OPERATIONS (EXCLUDING OUTBOUND OPERATIONS) ......... 42

FIGURE 26: MEAN AVERAGE CALL DURATION (SERVICE), BY INHOUSE / OUTSOURCED, BY REGION .......................... 43

FIGURE 27: MEAN AVERAGE CALL DURATION (SALES), BY INHOUSE / OUTSOURCED, BY REGION ............................. 44

FIGURE 28: CALL ABANDONMENT RATES BY REGION ...................................................................................... 45

FIGURE 29: AVERAGE SPEED TO ANSWER, BY INHOUSE / OUTSOURCED, BY REGION (IN SECONDS) .......................... 46

FIGURE 30: AVERAGE SPEED TO ANSWER, BY CONTACT CENTRE SIZE, BY REGION (IN SECONDS) .............................. 47

FIGURE 31: MEAN FIRST-CALL RESOLUTION RATE, BY REGION .......................................................................... 48

FIGURE 32: CALL TRANSFERS BY VERTICAL MARKET ........................................................................................ 52

FIGURE 33: INBOUND INTERACTIONS BY CHANNEL ......................................................................................... 53

FIGURE 34: EXPECTED CHANGE IN INBOUND CHANNELS IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS (CEE) ...................................... 54

FIGURE 35: EXPECTED CHANGE IN INBOUND CHANNELS IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS (NORDICS) ................................ 55

FIGURE 36: EXPECTED CHANGE IN INBOUND CHANNELS IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS (WE) ....................................... 56

FIGURE 37: EXPECTED CHANGE IN INBOUND CHANNELS IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS (UK) ....................................... 57

FIGURE 38: EXPECTED CHANGE IN INBOUND CHANNELS IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS (US) ........................................ 58

FIGURE 39: ESTIMATED COST PER INBOUND CALL / EMAIL / WEB CHAT, BY REGION.............................................. 59

FIGURE 40: ESTIMATED COST PER OUTBOUND CALL, BY REGION ....................................................................... 60

FIGURE 41: CURRENT USE OF HOMEWORKING .............................................................................................. 62

FIGURE 42: PROPORTION OF HOMEWORKING AGENTS IN CONTACT CENTRES, 2017 ............................................ 63

FIGURE 43: EXPECTED PROPORTION OF HOMEWORKING AGENTS IN CONTACT CENTRES, 2019 .............................. 63

FIGURE 44: CURRENT USE OF CLOUD-BASED CONTACT CENTRE SOLUTIONS, BY APPLICATION TYPE, BY REGION .......... 71

7

FIGURE 45: PREDICTED USE OF CLOUD-BASED CONTACT CENTRE SOLUTIONS (2019), BY APPLICATION TYPE, BY REGION

..................................................................................................................................................... 71

FIGURE 46: FACTORS MOST VALUED BY CUSTOMERS USING A CONTACT CENTRE (CEE) ......................................... 72

FIGURE 47: FACTORS MOST VALUED BY CUSTOMERS USING A CONTACT CENTRE (NORDICS) .................................. 73

FIGURE 48: FACTORS MOST VALUED BY CUSTOMERS USING A CONTACT CENTRE (WE) ......................................... 73

FIGURE 49: FACTORS MOST VALUED BY CUSTOMERS USING A CONTACT CENTRE (UK) .......................................... 74

FIGURE 50: FACTORS MOST VALUED BY CUSTOMERS USING A CONTACT CENTRE (US) .......................................... 74

FIGURE 51: PROPORTION OF CALLS THAT ARE COMPLAINTS, BY REGION ............................................................. 76

FIGURE 52: BEST CHANNEL TO USE FOR COMPLAINTS ..................................................................................... 77

FIGURE 53: TECHNOLOGY PENETRATION AND IMPLEMENTATION PLANS - CEE .................................................... 78

FIGURE 54: TECHNOLOGY PENETRATION AND IMPLEMENTATION PLANS - NORDICS ............................................. 79

FIGURE 55: TECHNOLOGY PENETRATION AND IMPLEMENTATION PLANS – WE .................................................... 80

FIGURE 56: TECHNOLOGY PENETRATION AND IMPLEMENTATION PLANS - UK ..................................................... 81

FIGURE 57: TECHNOLOGY PENETRATION AND IMPLEMENTATION PLANS - US ..................................................... 82

FIGURE 58: TOP 5 MOST IMPORTANT AREAS OF CONTACT CENTRE IT EXPENDITURE IN THE NEXT TWO YEARS (RANKED BY

OVERALL NUMBER OF TOP 5 PLACES) – CEE .......................................................................................... 83


OVERALL NUMBER OF TOP 5 PLACES) - WE ........................................................................................... 84


OVERALL NUMBER OF TOP 5 PLACES) - UK ............................................................................................ 85


OVERALL NUMBER OF TOP 5 PLACES) - US............................................................................................. 86

FIGURE 62: CHANGES IN AGENT POSITIONS, 2017-18 ................................................................................... 87

8

INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY

“The European Contact Centre Decision-Makers’ Guide (2018)" is a major report studying the

quantified performance and HR aspects of mainland European and Irish contact centre operations,

comparing them to similar US and UK operations.

Taking a random sample of the industry, a detailed structured questionnaire was answered by 168

contact centre managers and directors in 2017 and early 2018.

ContactBabel is grateful for the support received from sponsors of the report. However, complete

editorial independence has been maintained at all stages, and readers can be confident about the

objectivity of the report’s findings.

We would also like to thank those European contact centre industry associations who agreed to

publicise our research programme to their membership.

9

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10

HOW TO USE THE REPORT

“The European Contact Centre Decision-Makers' Guide” looks in-depth at many of the major pain

points and issues that affect the contact centre industry:

• Agent position growth rates

• Staff attrition

• Staff absence

• Salaries

• Use of technology

• Contact centre performance metrics

• Agent activity

• Cost per channel

• Omnichannel activity and plans

• Homeworking

• Cloud

• Customer experience

• Technology investment plans

• Contact centre growth rates.

11

SEGMENTATIONS

Looking at industry averages for contact centre statistics is only so useful. Only with a clear

understanding of how and why metrics differ between operations can readers see where they stand

compared to their competitors. As such, key statistics have been segmented in many different ways

where relevant and possible depending on the number of responses to the question:

• by region (Western Europe, Nordics, Eastern Europe, UK and US)

• by contact centre size (agent positions)

• by contact centre type (e.g. inbound/outbound)

• by vertical market

• by ownership (e.g. in-house or outsourced)

• by contact centre activity (e.g. sales / service).

VERTICAL MARKETS

Where possible, we have segmented and analysed data along vertical market (business sector) lines,

to highlight the specific issues and environments particular to that vertical industry. Below are the

five vertical markets studied within this report which had sufficient respondents to justify inclusion.

Figure 1: Vertical market definitions

Vertical market

Example of sub-sectors which may be included

Financial Services Banks, credit cards, loans, debt collection, insurance

Manufacturing & Retail Retailers, home shopping, catalogue, manufacturing

Outsourcing Large full-service outsourcers and smaller telemarketing firms

Services Non-physical service offerings to public and business

Technology, Media and Telecoms (TMT)

Technology sales and service; Mobile and fixed line operators, TV and cable providers; Broadband

12

SIZE BAND & CONTACT CENTRE TYPE

Almost every survey question is considered from the size aspect, as differences in resources,

management techniques and technology vary greatly between size bands.

Contact centres surveyed fit into one of three categories:

• Small - 10 to 50 agent positions

• Medium - 51 to 200 agent positions

• Large - over 200 agent positions.

Whether a contact centre is predominantly inbound or outbound can fundamentally determine how

the contact centre is run. Therefore, we sometimes analyse data by contact centre type:

• Inbound: at least 75% of activity is inbound

• Outbound: at least 75% of activity is outbound

• Mixed: less than 75% of activity is either inbound or outbound.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE DATASETS

The data provided by the 168 mainland European and Irish contact centres interviewed in this study

were broken down into discrete segments:

Vertical markets

• Financial Services - 18

• Manufacturing & Retail - 14

• Outsourcing - 58

• Services - 35

• Technology, Media and Telecoms (TMT) - 30

• Other (not included in vertical market breakdown) – 13.

Size bands

• Small (10 to 50 agent positions) - 80

• Medium (51 to 200 agent positions) - 30

• Large (200+ agent positions) – 54

• No response to this question – 4.

13

Inbound / outbound

• Mostly inbound (75%+ inbound) - 117

• Mixed (between 25% and 75% inbound and outbound) - 27

• Mostly outbound (75%+ outbound) – 18


Sales / service

• Mostly service (75%+ service) - 114

• Mixed (between 25% and 75% service and sales) - 30

• Mostly sales (75%+ sales) – 18


Region

• Central & Eastern Europe - 42

• Nordics - 24

• Western Europe - 102

NB: regional data is used as no country provided enough responses to allow confident data analysis

at a country-specific level. The following countries provided responses to the survey:

• Belgium (W Europe) – 7

• Bulgaria (CE Europe) - 2

• Czech Republic – (CE Europe) - 4

• Denmark (Nordics) - 7

• Estonia (CE Europe) - 1

• Finland (Nordics) - 4

• France (W Europe) - 18

• Germany (W Europe) - 26

• Hungary (CE Europe) - 6

• Ireland (W Europe) - 10

• Italy (W Europe) - 14

• The Netherlands (W Europe) - 21

• Norway (Nordics) - 4

• Poland (CE Europe) - 10

• Portugal (W Europe) - 1

• Romania (CE Europe) – 4

• Russia (CE Europe) - 3

• Serbia (CE Europe) – 3

• Slovakia (CE Europe) - 1

• Slovenia (CE Europe) - 2

• Spain (W Europe) - 3

• Sweden (Nordics) - 10

• Switzerland (W Europe) - 2

• Ukraine (CE Europe) - 6.

14

DISTRIBUTION AND USE OF THIS REPORT

This report is written for the community of people interested in the present and future performance

of the European contact centre industry. Amongst others, these may include:

• Contact centre managers and directors

• HR managers and directors

• Operations managers and directors

• Customer service directors and those involved in contact centre strategy

• IT managers and directors

• Contact centre solution providers: hardware, software & services

• Outsourcers

• Consultants

• Training providers

• New entrants to the European contact centre industry

• Government bodies

• Academic institutions

• Contact centre industry organisations

• Regional & national development/inward investment agencies.

No sharing, swapping, gifting, photocopying or other dissemination of this report must

occur without prior written permission from ContactBabel. No findings of this report may

be made available outside your organisation without prior written permission. Please

email [email protected] if you wish to reproduce any findings.

All content is © ContactBabel 2018.

ContactBabel is not responsible for the content of outside agencies that are linked to via this report.

All external files are downloaded at the risk of the user.

mailto:[email protected]

15

HR BENCHMARKING

Issues such as attrition, morale, recruitment and training are always towards the front of any contact

centre manager's mind. This section looks at how time and money are spent on the human element

to contact centres.

ATTRITION

Throughout the studies that ContactBabel has carried out over the years, whether in the US or

Europe, staff attrition has consistently been quoted as one of the major worries of contact centre

management. Along with staff absences, high levels of unexpected attrition can cripple a contact

centre’s ability to provide even an acceptable level of service, raising costs and creating a negative

customer experience, as well as pacing massive stress on those agents who remain at work.

For many years, attrition has been one of the greatest challenges facing the industry, and one which

has rarely been addressed with much in the way of a truly radical approach. The recession reduced

attrition greatly, but recent years’ UK and US data shows that this may be a temporary respite: with

no structural change to the industry, its recruitment and training methods, management techniques

or job types, the same problems will emerge as the economy picks up.

The reduction of attrition has two main factors - that the successful candidates are suited to, and

competent for the work which they will undertake, and that the work and conditions in which they

find themselves will be conducive to a long-term stay.

Solution providers experienced in analysing attrition state that that understanding the 0-to-90-day

attrition data is critical to being able to reduce attrition. Most organisations believe that a very

significant proportion of their annualised attrition occurs in the first 90 days after recruitment. This

strongly suggests that there are often errors made in the type of people employed, who are all but

doomed to failure by their unsuitability for the task. Businesses should collect information on the

sorts of behaviour and characteristics of people likely to do well in each role - preferably analysing

the people who are successful in the roles already - and pre-screen applicants against those criteria.

Getting a high proportion of the right sort of people through the doors and onto the induction

course can greatly reduce early attrition: attrition is something that should be focused upon at the

recruitment stage, rather than leaving it until the candidates are already in the business before

noticing the problems.

16

Staff attrition in small doses can be good for a contact centre, bringing in fresh blood and

enthusiasm. However, high levels of staff attrition have some serious side-effects:

• Increased recruitment and training costs

• Decreases the average agent competency as there are so many ‘learners’

• Can decrease the quality of the customer experience, as the agent may not know how to

answer the query correctly first-time

• Adverse affect on contact centre performance indicators, including first-time resolution,

call transfer rates, queue time and call length

• Bad for the morale of the remaining staff

• Inexperienced staff are more likely to miss cross-selling and up-selling opportunities

• Increased pressure put on team leaders and experienced agents

• Difficult to bring on-board new systems and ideas, as the agents are struggling with what

is already in place.

Attrition rate: the total number of agents leaving the contact centre in a 12-month period, divided by

the average number of occupants during the same 12-month period, expressed as a percentage.

Figure 2: Agent attrition rate ranges

There are numerous factors that impact upon a contact centre's agent attrition rate, including

vertical market (or the type of business that agents are involved in); contact centre size; whether the

work is inbound or outbound, and the region in which the contact centre is based, all of which will

be analysed in this section.

<10%

31%

10-19%29%

20-29%18%

30-50%

8%

>50%14%

Agent attrition ranges

17

AGENT ATTRITION BY VERTICAL MARKET

The outsourcing sector has consistently had a high attrition rate historically - driven mainly by low

salaries and lots of outbound telemarketing work - but the past few years have seen a drop to more

manageable levels in line with many other sectors, perhaps as a result of a greater focus across the

sector on customer service work rather than high-pressure outbound sales. While its mean average

is the highest of any vertical market, it is no longer quite the stand-out statistic that it has sometimes

been in the US in particular.

The medians (the mid-point of all respondents) are no higher than 20% in any sector, showing that

attrition is not a problem at an industry-wide level in Europe, although on a case-by-case basis, there

are still examples of very high (50%+) staff turnover rates.

Figure 3: Mean and median agent attrition by vertical market (all Europe)

32%

21%20%

11%

7%

23%

14%

20%

15%

10%

6%

13%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

Outsourcing TMT Services Manufacturing /Retail

Financial Services Average

Mean and median agent attrition by vertical market

Mean Median

18

AGENT ATTRITION BY CONTACT CENTRE SIZE

Previous ContactBabel studies carried out in the US and UK have shown that larger contact centres

are more likely to have high attrition rates, and this is also the case in Europe, with respondents in

large operations experiencing median staff attrition rates of 32% on average, compared with 18% for

both sub-50 seat operations and 50-200 seat contact centres.

However, the low median seen in large contact centres suggests strongly that this high mean

average is caused by a few very high attrition figures, rather than anything industry-wide.

Figure 4: Mean and median agent attrition by contact centre size (all Europe)

18% 18%

32%

23%

12%13%

10%

13%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

Small Medium Large Average

Mean and median agent attrition by contact centre size

Mean Median

19

AGENT ATTRITION BY CONTACT CENTRE ACTIVITY

It is generally acknowledged that outbound customer contact is a very difficult, high-pressure job,

which leads to stress and burnout, and thus more likely to see high levels of attrition. Historically,

there has been an acceptance that large volumes of outbound calling will often come at the cost of

high staff attrition, and that this is something which just has to be managed, and outbound

respondents will tend to be more geared-up to cope with high staff turnover.

Although recent years’ outbound attrition figures in the UK and US have been much lower than the

historical norm - which may be to do with the reduced amount of cold calling taking place –

European figures show a significant difference between inbound and outbound attrition rates.

Figure 5: Mean and median agent attrition by contact centre activity (all Europe)

21%

15%

48%

23%

13%11%

23%

13%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Inbound Mixed Outbound Average

Mean and median agent attrition by contact centre activity

Mean Median

20

AGENT ATTRITION BY CONTACT CENTRE ACTIVITY TYPE

Looking at attrition by activity, service-based agents generally have far lower attrition rates than

those involved in sales. As the nature of contact centres change, and more of the outbound work

becomes service-led, this may have the effect of reducing the outbound attrition rate to some

extent, but European figures show very high attrition amongst sales-focused jobs.

Figure 6: Mean and median agent attrition by contact centre activity type (all Europe)

20%

13%

56%

23%

15%

10%

49%

13%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Service Mixed Sales Average

Mean and median agent attrition by contact centre activity type

Mean Median

21

AGENT ATTRITION BY REGION

Agent attrition rates in Central & Eastern Europe are considerably higher than elsewhere in Europe,

including the UK, although they are relatively similar to the US.

The Nordics in particular reports very low attrition rates, with a median of only 5%.

Figure 7: Mean and median agent attrition by region

29%

13%

23% 23%21%

29%

23%

5%

10%

13%

15%

20%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

CE Europe Nordics W Europe Average UK US

Mean & median agent attrition by region

Mean Median

22

One of the difficulties with tracking metrics such as attrition over time is that the companies

responding to the research programme may be different year-on-year, meaning comparing like-for-

like is difficult. As such, the question was asked, "How does your current attrition rate compare with

12 months ago?", giving a consistent view of changes at a company level.

The most popular response to this question was that there has not been a major change in any of

the regions looked at within this report. It is noticeable that twice as many respondents from Central

and Eastern Europe had found an increase in staff attrition than had experienced a decrease. The

opposite was the case with Nordics respondents.

Figure 8: Change in agent attrition in past 12 months, by region

29%

13%19% 21%

31%25%

43%

63%55% 53%

47% 54%

14%

25% 23% 21%19%

20%14%

3% 6% 3%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

CE Europe Nordics W Europe Average UK US

Change in agent attrition in past 12 months, by region

Don't know

Has decreased

No major change

Has increased

23

ABSENCE

In a tightly-run operation like a contact centre where costs and performance are closely managed,

significant levels of staff absence can cause major problems with contact centre performance and

the customer experience. Even just a slight increase in absence rates can mean a major difference to

how well the contact centre performs on that day. Staff end up overworked and stressed, and more

likely to take time off as a result. Morale suffers, which increases staff attrition and overwork, thus

creating further absence.

Absence has many reasons – a poor working environment, workplace bullying, an unoptimised

schedule which makes impossible demands on staff, lack of leadership, low morale, unsociable

hours, repetitive and mundane tasks - the list goes on. Staff absence is a vicious circle, each part of

which feeds into another, usually leading to higher attrition rates, greater costs and poor service.

There are many causes of absenteeism, including:

• The absence of a recruitment process that allows operations to identify unreliable

applicants

• Poor front-line leadership - many team leaders are just not able to manage their teams and

help prevent absenteeism, a fault of incorrect training and/or recruitment at this level

• Low morale in the contact centre, meaning the workforce think that missing work is

acceptable.

There are also other factors that influence absence, including:

• Mandatory overtime and unsociable hours

• Lack of schedule flexibility and choice

• Insufficient mentoring or supervisor support, especially during the transition period after

training

• Large team sizes (20+ per team)

• Cancelled team activities like 1:1 coaching due to heavy call volume.

Short-term (no-show) absence - this is the average number of agent days lost through short-term

sickness and unauthorised absence as a percentage of contracted days annually. This is included in

this year’s report.

Long-term absence - this includes long-term sickness, maternity leave, sabbaticals and other long-

term absences where the business expects, and is able to plan for, the absence. This is not included in

this year’s report.

24

Some respondents within the manufacturing & retail and services sectors in particular are

experiencing high absence levels.

Figure 9: Short-term absence by vertical market (all Europe)

In the UK and US, sales-related contact centres have historically tended to have a higher absence

rate, probably as a result of these operations undertaking more outbound work, which usually has a

definite effect on absence. This is not the case with European contact centres, where the median

rate is very similar across all contact centre activities.

Figure 10: Short-term absence by contact centre activity (all Europe)

Contact centre activity

Mean agent absence rate Median agent absence rate

Service 6.3% 5.3%

Mixed 6.9% 5.0%

Sales 5.3% 5.5%

Average 6.3% 5.1%

6.3%

8.3%

6.1%6.3%

5.8%

6.3%

4.5%

7.5%

5.2%

7.0%

5.2% 5.1%

0.0%

1.0%

2.0%

3.0%

4.0%

5.0%

6.0%

7.0%

8.0%

9.0%

Financial Services Manufacturing /Retail

Outsourcing Services TMT Average

Short-term absence by vertical market

Mean Median

25

Conventional wisdom would expect to find that those in high-pressure outbound jobs would have

higher unauthorised absence rates, and while this is somewhat case with the median average, the

difference at the mean level is not there.

Figure 11: Short-term absence by contact centre activity type (all Europe)

Contact centre activity type


Inbound 5.8% 5.1%

Mixed 8.8% 5.0%

Outbound 6.2% 6.0%

Average 6.3% 5.1%

As with attrition, the Central & Eastern European region has the highest absence rates, with a

median of 9% being considerably higher than any other region considered within this report.

The Nordics and Western Europe have slightly lower absence rates than the UK and US.

Figure 12: Short-term absence by region

Region


CE Europe 8.0% 9.0%

Nordics 5.1% 4.5%

W Europe 5.8% 5.3%

Average 6.3% 5.1%

UK 6.7% 5.0%

US 9.0% 5.9%

26

SALARIES

Looking at salaries at a Europe-wide level is of limited value, as salaries vary widely across countries.

However this table provides a useful picture of the salary differentials between roles.

Figure 13: Mean and median contact centre salaries, by job role (all Europe)

Role

2017 mean average salary

2017 median average salary

New agent €16,731 €18,928

Experienced agent €19,157 €21,000

Team leader / supervisor €24,960 €26,800

Contact centre manager €39,163 €40,000

27

SALARIES BY INHOUSE / OUTSOURCED

As there were not enough responses to look confidently at specific vertical markets within regions,

data has been aggregated into inhouse and outsourced sectors.

Agent salaries in Central & Eastern Europe are considerably lower than elsewhere in Europe or the

US, being around one-quarter that of the Nordics. This differential is smaller at the managerial level.

Unlike elsewhere, CEE outsourcers tend to pay higher salaries than inhouse operations, at least at

agent levels.

Figure 14: Salaries by inhouse / outsourced operations, by region, by job role

Region Inhouse/outsourced

New agent

Experienced agent

Team leader

Contact centre manager

CE Europe

Inhouse €6,148 €7,386 €10,809 €20,743

Outsourced €6,436 €7,700 €9,421 €14,984

Combined €6,268 €7,517 €10,230 €17,758

Nordics

Inhouse €25,800 €28,867 €38,133 €53,067

Outsourced €22,200 €22,800 €28,200 €66,000

Combined €24,360 €26,440 €34,160 €58,240

W Europe

Inhouse €22,600 €25,696 €33,121 €49,006

Outsourced €15,608 €18,443 €24,235 €41,471

Combined €19,853 €22,846 €29,630 €45,936

Average Combined €16,731 €19,157 €24,960 €39,163

UK

Inhouse €20,349 €23,372 €30,233 €47,093

Outsourced €18,116 €20,894 €25,315 €42,257

Combined €19,929 €22,799 €29,091 €45,726

US

Inhouse €26,563 €31,473 €40,402 €64,286

Outsourced €23,302 €26,915 €34,492 €52,443

Combined €26,172 €30,946 €39,654 €62,144

NB: US & UK salaries based on Euro exchange rates (1 Euro = 1.12 USD; 1 Euro = 0.86 GBP)

28

SALARIES BY CONTACT CENTRE ACTIVITY

As they become more senior, outbound contact centre employees have historically tended to get

paid a lower basic salary than their inbound equivalents, mainly because the former will usually

receive a much higher performance-related bonus.

Agents in inbound environments tend to receive slightly higher basic salaries as those agents more

involved in outbound work.

NB – as there are fewer mixed and outbound respondents than inbound, these figures should be

treated with more caution.

Figure 15: Salaries by contact centre type, by region, by job role

Region Inbound / outbound

New agent

Experienced agent

Team leader


CE Europe

Inbound €7,129 €8,651 €11,526 €18,794

Mixed €4,890 €5,850 €8,121 €12,375

Outbound €5,760 €6,240 €9,600 €16,000

Combined €6,268 €7,517 €10,230 €17,758

Nordics

Inbound €24,360 €26,440 €34,160 €58,240

Mixed n/a n/a n/a n/a

Outbound n/a n/a n/a n/a

Combined €24,360 €26,440 €34,160 €58,240

W Europe

Inbound €20,372 €23,776 €30,021 €46,479

Mixed €24,880 €27,930 €34,500 €50,500

Outbound €17,485 €20,695 €26,543 €42,555

Combined €19,853 €22,846 €29,630 €45,936


UK

Inbound €20,095 €22,870 €29,189 €45,738

Mixed €19,403 €23,221 €29,788 €47,628

Outbound €19,390 €21,267 €26,802 €41,250

Combined €19,929 €22,799 €29,091 €45,726

US

Inbound €26,486 €31,367 €40,394 €63,816

Mixed €25,529 €29,887 €38,043 €57,920

Outbound €24,107 €28,125 €32,813 €46,875

Combined €26,172 €30,946 €39,654 €62,144


NB: too few Nordic mixed / outbound operations participated in research to analyse data confidently.

29

SALARIES BY CONTACT CENTRE SIZE

US and UK surveys usually find that agents in smaller contact centres get paid higher salaries than

those in large operations, and this is also true for all three European regions.

This differential does not apply at management level in Nordics and Western European respondents,

although it is still the case with CEE contact centres .

Figure 16: Salaries by contact centre size, by region, by job role

Region Size

New agent

Experienced agent

Team leader


CE Europe

Small €6,595 €7,138 €10,823 €18,893

Medium €6,250 €8,200 €10,828 €17,600

Large €4,850 €5,938 €8,500 €16,000

Combined €6,268 €7,517 €10,230 €17,758

Nordics

Small €29,700 €31,100 €38,000 €56,600

Medium €22,000 €24,400 €29,400 €47,000

Large €22,200 €24,800 €29,200 €66,000

Combined €24,360 €26,440 €34,160 €58,240

W Europe

Small €21,056 €23,135 €31,166 €45,789

Medium €20,736 €24,000 €30,040 €43,550

Large €17,848 €21,895 €27,428 €46,758

Combined €19,853 €22,846 €29,630 €45,936


UK

Small €20,730 €23,881 €29,986 €44,212

Medium €19,277 €21,884 €28,814 €45,774

Large €19,486 €22,265 €28,066 €47,936

Combined €19,929 €22,799 €29,091 €45,726

US

Small €28,236 €33,270 €40,208 €58,393

Medium €25,500 €29,703 €41,695 €70,151

Large €23,865 €28,642 €37,404 €61,479

Combined €26,172 €30,946 €39,654 €62,144


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31

CONTACT CENTRE PERFORMANCE

The success or otherwise of contact centres has traditionally been measured by observation of key

metrics, usually related to cost and efficiency - average call length, average speed to answer, % of

calls answered within a certain time, etc. While these figures are a useful and still widely

acknowledged and understood benchmark, times are changing. Many contact centres now try to

measure the effectiveness of their operation by tracking metrics such as first-time call resolution and

customer satisfaction levels, although there are no standard measures or agreements on what

constitutes a satisfied customer or fully-resolved call. This does tend to strengthen the hand of those

who believe that because the contact centre can provide detailed data on call volumes and handling

times, then that is what it should primarily be measured against, and previous ContactBabel

research shows that agents are far more likely to be rewarded for meeting required operational

metrics rather than customer-focused service metrics. Depending on the type of work that they do,

contact centres may consider focusing upon various measurements from the following table.

Figure 17: Contact centre metrics

Metric Comments

Call duration / Average Handle Time

A typical ‘old-fashioned’ metric, which is generally going out of favour, based on the idea that each call is different and should take as long as it takes. However, it is one of the easiest statistics to measure, and work out cost against.

Schedule adherence

Schedule adherence is a metric that looks to help with the fine-tuning of a contact centre’s labour force, so that calls are answered swiftly, but that agents are not sitting idly waiting for calls. It is a metric that is of more importance to schedulers than to customers, although the impact of getting schedules wrong can be catastrophic for efficiency, cost and performance.

32

Metric Comments

Customer satisfaction ratings

Customer satisfaction is seen to be directly linked to profitability through increased loyalty, share of wallet and customer advocacy. There is considerable debate about how satisfied (or delighted) customers have to be before it starts making a noticeable difference to the bottom-line (i.e. how happy does a customer have to be before they accept premium pricing strategies, and how unhappy do they have to be before they go elsewhere?). There’s no easy answer, but high customer satisfaction ratings - at a reasonable cost for the business - are surely good for everyone.

Cost per call

Although this is an attractive and easily-understood metric for senior management to view, there is a real danger that calls are closed too quickly and revenue and loyalty-building opportunities are lost. If a contact centre has many short calls (which may be better off being dealt with by self-service), this will produce a lower cost-per-call figure, which makes it look as though the contact centre is doing well, when the opposite may be the case. The same logic applies to first-call resolution rates (see later in this chapter). Cost per call is a very complicated metric that is difficult to get correct. However, senior non-contact centre management understand how cost figures impact the business more than occupancy or call abandonment rates, although these have an impact on all parts of the business. At the most basic level, cost per call can be calculated by dividing the overall spent budget of the contact centre by the number of calls, although this does not take into account abandoned calls or situations where the customer has had to call multiple times to get a resolution (a situation which in fact brings cost per call down, although being negative to both business and customer). Neither does it take into account the effect of failure demand - where the contact centre cleans up after processes elsewhere in the business go wrong, leaving the contact centre to sort them out. As such, it should be viewed with caution.

Agent occupancy rate

The agent occupancy rate is calculated as the proportion of time in a given period that is call-time plus wrap-up, (that is, the proportion of time that each agent spends on dealing with the call itself and the actions deriving from it. A laborious wrap-up time caused by slow back-office systems or lack of familiarity from the agent’s perspective can go some way to producing high occupancy rates, which looks as though the agent is constantly active, but which is actually negative for both business and customer.

33

Metric Comments

Call throughput and abandonment rates

Understanding the types of call being received as well as tracking the number that are dropped can be translated into lost revenue within a sales environment, making a pitch for greater investment easier.

Call transfer rate

This metric can indicate training needs at the individual agent level, a failure in the initial IVR routing or a need to update FAQs or other information on a website (for example, a spike in this metric might be driven by a recent marketing campaign which has confused some customers, creating a high level of calls about the same issue). Tracking and analysis of call recordings in cases of high transfers should identify the issue.

Revenue per call / promise to pay

As many contact centres are now profit centres, understanding the effectiveness of the sales or debt collection efforts is vital to judging the success of the contact centre itself.

Staff attrition rates

A well-publicised cost that senior management are very aware of, high levels of staff attrition are poisonous to the effective running of the majority of contact centres, causing excessive recruitment and training costs, lower average call handling quality and longer queue times due to inexperienced staff, as well as the vicious circle of lower staff morale.

Average speed to answer / longest call waiting etc.

Has a strong and demonstrable effect on customer satisfaction or frustration, as well as impacting on call abandonment, lost revenues and high staff attrition rates caused by excessive pressure. Average speed to answer is a metric which is easily measured, and forms a vital view of the contact centre’s staffing levels as well as impacting directly upon the customer experience. As such, it is similar in nature to the call abandonment rate. Contact centres should of course consider the amount of time that a customer spends in the IVR segment of the call when considering the ‘speed to answer’ metric - as the customers themselves surely do so.

34

Metric Comments

Customer loyalty / lifetime value / churn rates

A central thought of CRM is that a business should focus upon keeping profitable customers, and growing unprofitable ones. A single figure for customer retention is not effective, as it does not include the types of customer churn, or the undesirability (or otherwise of losing such customers).

First call resolution

Improving first call resolution (FCR) benefits customers (who are more happy / loyal / profitable / etc.); agents (higher morale; fewer frustrating calls); and business (lower cost of repeated calls; higher profitability): everyone wins. This can be very hard to measure, as it is the customer, and not the contact centre that should be stating whether the issue has been resolved successfully. There is more detail and the use and effectiveness of first call resolution methods later in this chapter.

35

PERFORMANCE BENCHMARKING

Over the years, the importance of contact centre metrics has changed considerably. 10 years ago,

average call duration and cost-per-call were considered to be the most important metrics, but

respondents to recent reports consider them of minor importance compared to more customer-

focused measurements.

Survey responses from CEE contact centres sure some quite dramatic differences from those in the

more established Western markets. The most noticeable is that 27% of respondents placed

customer satisfaction rating as the least important of the metrics offered. While first contact

resolution rate was viewed as one of the top three most important metrics by 93% of respondents,

the same proportion of respondents (21%) placed call abandonment rate and first contact resolution

rate as the most important contact centre metric.

Figure 18: Most important contact centre metrics (Central & Eastern Europe)

21%

21%

14%

14%

14%

7%

7%

8%

17%

17%

8%

33%

17%

17%

25%

17%

17%

8%

8%

8%

25%

50%

8%

17%

14%

7%

29%

7%

14%

14%

14%

17%

17%

8%

8%

25%

25%

7%

27%

40%

27%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Call abandonment rate

First contact resolution rate

Speed to answer

Customer satisfaction rating

Cost per call

Average call duration

Call transfer rate

Most important contact centre metrics (Central & Eastern Europe)

1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th

36

The Nordics showed a more typical ranking of contact centre metrics, with 43% of respondents

stating that customer satisfaction rating is the most important measurement that a contact centre

tracks. Customer satisfaction is in large part driven by the other metrics shown here, and can be

seen as a consequence of how these other elements perform.

First call resolution is even more important, with all respondents (albeit from a relatively small

sample size) choosing this as either first or second most important metric. Speed to answer is chosen

as a top 3 metric by 69% of respondents: both of these metrics are of huge importance to customer

satisfaction (or the lack of it), and handling more calls effectively first-time is key to improving

customer satisfaction and reducing repeat calls, which will impact positively upon queue lengths.

Nordic respondents place far more importance on call transfer rates than is found in other mature

contact centre industries.

Figure 19: Most important contact centre metrics (Nordics)

57%

43%

43%

14%

33%

14%

29%

36%

14%

14%

14%

17%

29%

14%

29%

43%

50%

14%

14%

14%

14%

25%

29%

29%

14%

25%

29%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%



Speed to answer

Call transfer rate



Cost per call

Most important contact centre metrics (Nordics)


37

Survey respondents from Western Europe generally show a similar pattern to those in the UK and

US, with customer satisfaction, first contact resolution and speed to answer being generally viewed

as the priorities. These markets also place significant emphasis upon call abandonment rates (unlike

the Nordics, which actually has a significantly higher call abandonment rate than other mature

industries), as this metric too is linked to customer satisfaction.

Figure 20: Most important contact centre metrics (Western Europe)

The following tables show the UK and US equivalent answers, and are included for completeness’s

sake.

31%

24%

17%

10%

7%

7%

3%

26%

30%

11%

4%

22%

7%

15%

15%

10%

15%

5%

30%

10%

9%

9%

17%

35%

9%

13%

9%

5%

9%

41%

5%

27%

9%

5%

10%

5%

15%

15%

20%

35%

9%

0%

17%

13%

17%

43%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%



Speed to answer

Cost per call



Call transfer rate

Most important contact centre metrics (Western Europe)


38

Figure 21: Most important contact centre metrics (UK)

Figure 22: Most important contact centre metrics (US)

44%

36%

8%

6%

5%

1%

24%

38%

14%

14%

8%

3%

11%

12%

21%

34%

13%

7%

3%

12%

6%

24%

25%

12%

12%

9%

3%

4%

16%

12%

32%

15%

18%

2%

4%

10%

7%

13%

24%

39%

2%

1%

8%

2%

17%

39%

31%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Customer satisfaction rating / NPS

First-call resolution


Speed to answer


Cost per call

Call transfer rate

Most important contact centre metrics


39%

29%

16%

7%

6%

3%

18%

32%

20%

17%

6%

6%

1%

12%

15%

29%

20%

6%

19%

2%

12%

11%

16%

26%

13%

12%

12%

7%

6%

12%

16%

16%

19%

24%

5%

4%

6%

10%

23%

24%

28%

4%

1%

1%

4%

33%

20%

37%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Customer satisfaction rating / NPS


Speed to answer


Cost per call


Call transfer rate

Most important contact center metrics


39

AGENT ACTIVITY

Agent activity per hour is a key structural metric aimed at helping contact centre management

understand how the agent’s time is being spent. It is segmented into seven parts:

• Talk time: amount of time actually spent on the inbound call

• Post-call wrap-up: after-call data input and actions driven specifically by that call

• Email / web chat: text-based communication with customers

• Training: whether desk-based or lecture-type

• Administration / paperwork: general administration and keyboard- or paper-driven work

which may be for internal purposes only (e.g. timesheets) or for external work as well (e.g.

sending faxes).

• Idle time: time spent not taking calls or doing other work, usually waiting for the next call

• Other: anything not covered by the previous activities.

Figure 23: Agent activity by region

Talk time in UK and US contact centres is generally between 55%-60%, and has been so for some

years. Western European respondents report that their agents spend less than half of the time

actually talking to customers, although as they also report the highest levels of email and web chat

activity, the US, UK and Western Europe end up reporting very similar levels of customer interaction

activity of around 65%, as does CE Europe. The Nordics has the highest level of talk time at 60%, and

adds a further 13% of email/web chat activity, making customer interaction activity in this region the

highest of any surveyed. Post-call wrap-up is also considerably less than in other mature industries.

53%

60%

48%

54%

58%

8%

5%

12%

11%

10%

12%

13%

16%

11%

9%

6%

6%

6%

5%

6%

7%

5%

4%

5%

5%

12%

7%

9%

9%

9%

3%

4%

5%

5%

3%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

CE Europe

Nordics

W Europe

UK

US

Agent activity by region

Talk time Post-call wrap-up Email / web chat Training Admin / paperwork Idle time Other

40

CE Europe has considerably higher levels of idle time than any other region, at 12% compared to 7%-

9% elsewhere.

The identification of idle time is one thing: being able to recover unproductive time in the agent’s

daily routine and use this otherwise-lost capacity is quite another. A workforce management

solution that has intraday capabilities can recover these small pockets of fragmented agent idle time

as the day goes on, aggregating this time into larger blocks that can be allocated to other productive

activities such as training, coaching, back office tasks or administration, which goes a long way

towards using the agent time that businesses necessarily pay for already, but which could not

previously be accessed.

There is also a significant opportunity for reducing the non-productive call time at the beginning of

the call, where an agent is authenticating the caller’s identity. By doing this automatically, either

through IVR or more securely, through biometric identification, the business can free up 30 seconds

or more of agent time, which makes a big difference to call and queue lengths.

Post-call wrap-up time is also an area which could further be reduced in many contact centres. There

are many applications in the market which are capable of reducing the amount of after-call work

that an agent has to do by bringing together all of the systems and applications the agent needs on

that specific call into a single virtual application and then updating the relevant databases

accordingly. This removes the need for a specialist knowledge of legacy system navigation, reducing

keying errors and dramatically shortening wrap-time through kicking off relevant back-office

processes automatically. Most of these agent desktop optimisers do not touch the logic of the

existing systems, but act as a user interface that picks up and presents the relevant fields and

business processes at the right time.

Based on many years surveys of the US and UK contact centre industries, , it can be seen that the

average amount of time an agent spends talking to customers has dropped to the low 50%s.

Certainly the agent today has more tasks than previously: the job will tend to be more varied and

require greater depth of knowledge, meaning that increased training and administration tasks will

need to take place, and of course many agents now handle significant amounts of multichannel work

in addition to their traditional telephony role.

We would also expect to find that the overall amount of agent time spent idle has reduced very

significantly as a result of agents having so much more to do and the focus that the economic

downturn placed on efficiency and cost-cutting. However, although idle time has indeed decreased

from a historical peak of almost 14% to around 9%, there has been little improvement since 2012.

One of the main problems with idle time is that it is mainly comprised of small chunks of a few

seconds or a couple of minutes at most between calls, which are too short a time for an agent to do

an alternative task. As such, unless these fragments rolled up into a larger, schedulable amount of

time, keeping idle time much below 9% will be difficult.

41

The following chart considers agent activity by contact centre size across the whole of Europe

(excluding UK).

As has been seen in past UK and US reports, larger contact centres will tend to have a higher

proportion of agent talk time, whereas smaller operations will spend more time on email and web

chat. Larger contact centres - in this case, mostly from CE Europe - report greater levels of idle time.

As the industry matures, we would expect this to come below 10%.

Figure 24: Agent activity by contact centre size

48%

46%

58%

51%

9%

12%

9%

10%

20%

14%

8%

15%

6%

9%

5%

6%

7%

3%

3%

5%

8%

11%

12%

10%

3%

5%

5%

4%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Small

Medium

Large

Average

Agent activity by contact centre size


42

Considering the outsourced contact centres rely on efficiency and cost management to help their

profitability, a reported average idle time of 12% is quite a surprising finding. Outsourced

operations, as we might expect, also report high levels of talk time, and spend considerably less time

on digital channels.

In-house contact centres spend 7% of their time carrying out admin paperwork, a figure which is far

lower in outsourced contact centre operations.

Figure 25: Agent activity by inhouse / outsourced operations (excluding outbound operations)

47%

55%

50%

10%

8%

9%

18%

11%

16%

6%

6%

6%

7%

3%

6%

8%

12%

9%

3%

6%

4%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Inhouse

Outsourced

Average

Agent activity by inhouse / outsourced


43

CALL DURATION

Average inbound call length has traditionally been a metric which most contact centres have

measured, as it is directly related to cost (and is also easy to quantify). Enlightened operations now

regard this metric with wariness, as a call which is cut short too quickly can often mean a worse

experience for the customer (with lower revenues over time), lower first-call resolution rates (which

increase costs in the long-term) and fewer cross-selling or upselling attempts being made. Low call

duration can also mask a lack of agent capability, as knowledgeable and confident agents may go out

of their way to deliver the best service possible, which leads to longer call times, as well as having

the confidence and ability to address multiple issues within a single call. The use of call recording,

monitoring and speech analytics, as well as close supervision by team leaders can assess whether

this is the case.

Helpdesks and sales contact centres now pay much less regard to managing call lengths (especially in

premium rate environments), but most operations will still be aware of it, especially it is obvious

that a high-quality agent will spend less time on certain types of call than a low-quality agent.

Additionally, although the contact centre’s own management is aware of the questionable value of

average call duration as a useful metric, the senior management (who are used to measuring this)

may be less willing to replace such a definite and cost-related metric with something else. A

surprisingly high proportion of respondents still use call duration targets as a metric for deciding

agent bonuses.

Average call duration varies between regions, especially for sales calls, as some types of interaction

will involve a complex explanation of products, along with legislative explanations and disclaimers,

with time needed to run credit checks and to refer upwards to more senior decision-makers (as well

as take payment details).

Figure 26: Mean average call duration (service), by inhouse / outsourced, by region

Vertical market

CE Europe Nordics W Europe UK US

Inhouse 4m 19s 4m 38s 5m 42s 5m 30s 5m 55s

Outsourcing & Telemarketing 4m 32s 5m 4m 22s 5m 6s 8m 22s

Average 4m 24s 4m 52s 5m 11s 5m 26s 6m 16s

More mature contact centre industries tend to have longer call durations, as they have passed

through the phase of focusing mainly on efficiency and call throughput. The US, as the world’s most

mature and advanced contact centre industry, correspondingly takes longer on service calls. CE

Europe, a relative newcomer, takes the least amount of time.

44

Looking at sales calls, average length is usually higher than for service calls in the UK and US, but this

pattern is not found in Western Europe or the Nordics, where the average sales and service calls

take around the same amount of time.

Figure 27: Mean average call duration (sales), by inhouse / outsourced, by region

Vertical market


Inhouse 4m 13s 4m 40s 5m 44s 5m 5s 7m 30s

Outsourcing & Telemarketing 6m 16s 5m 5s 4m 10s 7m 58s 9m 9s

Average 5m 58s 4m 47s 5m 14s 6m 52s 7m 56s

As the role of an agent becomes more complex, call lengths will increase, especially if no additional

investment in technology or training is made. Contact centres need to alleviate the effect of the

increasing complexity of the work by managing agent occupancy rates and reducing the amount of

the call which is wasted, such as silences when the agent is waiting for the system to deliver what is

needed, and the caller ID process at the beginning, which can be securely automated and

authenticated through voice biometrics.

For sales calls, a slight increase over the typical historical call duration is expected, as cross-selling

and upselling on calls becomes more prevalent and effective, and EU regulations on telemarketing

and electronic marketing mean that inbound calls become an even more precious opportunity to

engage with the customer.

These figures also assume that the take-up of automated call payment systems (driven by PCI

compliance as well as cost-cutting) will be significant, reducing call lengths from what they otherwise

would be.

45

CALL ABANDONMENT

The call abandonment rate links directly to customer satisfaction, cost, average speed to answer and

revenue, and is widely seen as one of the most important and complete key performance indicators

that a contact centre has at its disposal.

Both the CE European and the Nordics respondents have much higher call abandonment rates than

the UK, US and Western Europe, at both a mean and median level. (Looking at median averages

reduces the impact of very high call abandonment rates which might be seen as freakish to most of

the industry).

Figure 28: Call abandonment rates by region

Region

Call abandonment rate (mean) Call abandonment rate (median)

CE Europe 10.0% 9.0%

Nordics 9.4% 9.0%

W Europe 4.8% 4.0%

UK 5.6% 4.7%

US 6.0% 4.0%

46

SPEED TO ANSWER

Average speed to answer (ASA) is another of those traditional statistics which has always been

measured, and there is a strong case for keeping it at the forefront of how contact centres measure

their success. Speed to answer plays a vital part in improving the customer experience, and also

feeds into other performance measures such as call abandonment rate. However, contact centres

should also keep a close eye on “longest call waiting” statistics to get a fuller picture of the pre-call

experience that customers are having. Some contact centres reduce their speed to answer figures by

not counting the time taken for the caller to deal with IVR or listen to announcements before

speaking with an agent: it is our opinion that the call should be measured from the moment the

caller dials the last digit to the moment the agent answers the phone. Of course, not everyone sees

it that way, but your customers certainly do.

As an aside, past ContactBabel research1 has indicated that UK callers believe that they wait for an

average of 11½ minutes to speak with an agent. As average speed to answer in the UK is consistently

around 30 seconds, and has been for many years, this statistic does not make sense, particularly in

the light of the average time to call abandonment being well under 2 minutes (i.e. this makes the

11½ minute statistic is very unlikely to be true, as the vast majority of callers would actually have

hung up long before this time). Our conclusion is that the “11½ minute” figure is collected from

people’s subjective view, rather than anyone waiting by the phone with a stopwatch. Also, people

tend to remember the times they had to wait a long time, rather than the times they were answered

straightaway. Regardless of the reality, speed to answer does affect customers’ perceptions of the

contact centre’s quality.

The Nordics report a longer wait time than the rest of Europe, close to that of the US at slightly less

than one minute. Western Europe is closer to the UK, and CE Europe reports very low ASA in its

inhouse contact centres, although the outsourcing sector tends to have much longer wait times.

Figure 29: Average speed to answer, by inhouse / outsourced, by region (in seconds)

Vertical market


Inhouse 15 55 38 37 54

Outsourcing & Telemarketing 34 60 28 23 53

Average 22 58 34 35 54

1 Source: ContactBabel analysis of ICM Research data interviewing 1,004 UK adults on behalf of Vicorp.

47

At a size level, the standout figure is from large Nordic operations, which have an ASA of 108

seconds. This may be something of a statistical anomaly, as this subset of data is quite small, and is

skewed upwards by a handful of operations that clearly have a problem with ASA.

There is little clear pattern or correlation between size and ASA. The mathematics of contact centre

performance tends to suggest that larger operations should have an advantage over smaller contact

centres where ASA and queue management is concerned. In fact, there are very few years in the UK

or US where this has been the case, probably as a result of larger contact centres wishing not to

over-staff, which can be very expensive.

Figure 30: Average speed to answer, by contact centre size, by region (in seconds)

Contact centre size


Small (<51 seats) 23 30 44 28 52

Medium (51-200 seats) 22 59 25 39 71

Large (>200 seats) 18 108 28 41 44

Average 22 58 34 35 54

48

FIRST-CALL RESOLUTION

The ability to understand a query and deal with it in a reasonable timeframe at the first time of

asking is seen as the key to customer satisfaction, in that it reduces the overall number of calls while

providing the customer with a good experience which will impact on the company’s overall

performance. It also has a positive effect on the agent’s morale (and thus, staff attrition rates), and

increases the chances of a successful cross-sell and up-sell being made. Little wonder that this metric

is growing in importance, although first-call resolution can be very problematic to quantify

accurately (risking this metric being ignored), especially as it is not simply a matter of producing a

monthly report from ACD statistics.

First contact resolution rates are very consistent across all geographies studied, with a median of

around 80%. CE Europe has a higher mean average, which may indicate lower levels of self-service in

place, a solution which is used in mature industries to handle the most straightforward issues.

Figure 31: Mean first-call resolution rate, by region

Average


Median 80% 82% 79% 81% 81%

Mean 85% 82% 76% 73% 72%

49

THE ROLE OF FIRST-CONTACT RESOLUTION

For most businesses, there is no fixed agreement on what a successful contact centre looks like:

even in similar industries, around half of businesses state that a contact centre is a strategic asset,

with the other half seeing it as an operational cost centre. Contact centre managers are tasked to

balance factors such as cost, efficiency, staff morale and attrition, call quality, customer satisfaction

and revenue - some of which may be mutually antagonistic - in a constantly-changing environment

where there is limited opportunity for reflection. Often these contact centres exist on a virtual island

away from the rest of the business, not just geographically, but logically as well. Although they

belong to the business, and constantly receive insights about other parts of the operation, they may

not have the ability to provide actionable insight either for their own benefit or for other

departments.

Having said that, most of the contact centre world has moved on from the ruthless focus on call

throughput and call duration that characterised many operations a decade ago. A major question

being asked today is, “How do contact centres attempt to measure the most important metric of all -

first-contact resolution?” (‘First-contact’ resolution differs slightly from ‘first-call’ resolution, in that

it includes emails, web chat and other non-voice channels as well. In reality though, non-voice

resolution rates are much less commonly measured).

It can be stated with some confidence that first-contact resolution is seen as the key to a successful

contact centre: while the previous chart shows that customer satisfaction rating is the most

important metric, the vast majority of survey respondents place first-contact resolution as being one

of the top 3 metrics that are most influential on customer satisfaction, with 69% stating it as being

no.1: in effect, far more important than any other metric. So, logically it seems that to improve

customer satisfaction, a business has to improve first contact resolution rates.

The ability to understand a query and deal with it in a reasonable timeframe at the first time of

asking is the key to a contact centre’s success, reducing the overall number of contacts while

providing the customer with a good experience which will impact on the company’s overall

performance. It also has a positive effect on the agent’s morale (and thus, staff attrition rates), and

increases the chances of a successful cross-sell and up-sell being made. Little wonder that the first-

contact resolution metric has grown hugely in importance, but it can be problematic to quantify

accurately. This risks the metric being downplayed, especially as it is not simply a matter of

producing a monthly report from ACD statistics.

First-contact resolution rates are not simple to understand, but have to be viewed in context. An

improving business may well see its FCR rate actually decline after it implements process

improvements, which is counter-intuitive, but if the business had been handling live calls that were

more suited to self-service or avoidable through better marketing communications, getting rid of

these ‘easy’ calls entirely will make the FCR rate decline. If many calls are about the same issue, and

are answered quickly and accurately, it improves FCR rates, but of course piles up cost and impacts

negatively upon other performance metrics, such as queue length and call abandonment rate.

50

Businesses should consider the reasons for these unnecessary calls, rather than just focusing upon a

single metric, as high first-contact resolution rates may actually be masking underlying problems:

• The contact centre is handling simple and repetitive calls that could be moved to self-

service, or which could be addressed on a website and through better marketing

communications

• Callers are dropping out of self-service to speak with agents because the self-service

application is failing in its task and should be re-engineered

• Unclear marketing communications are causing customers to call

• Calls are being received that are actually driven by mistakes from elsewhere in the

enterprise.

When businesses begin stopping unnecessary calls at the source, those left are usually of a more

complex nature. This will lower first-call resolution rates initially, allowing a clearer picture of what is

really happening in the contact centre to emerge, which can then be addressed more fully.

The overall trend for FCR is quite steady: as the easier interactions go to self-service (especially

online), the contact centre is left with more difficult and varied tasks – through email as well as

phone - which can also be very complicated to categorise effectively using the current tools available

to most. As the contact centre adapts and invests in better ways of handling customer requests, first

call resolution rate increases and parity resumes.

The exodus of ‘easy’ work to self-service channels may not be quite balanced by improvements in

knowledge sharing and other agent support processes that would mean stable first call resolution

rates.

The first-contact resolution rate is an important metric to study, being concerned both with the

customers' experience as well as avoiding unnecessary calls. However, it is very difficult to measure

effectively, with no single best practice method of getting definitive statistics that are directly

comparable to the rest of the industry.

Of those that do measure FCR, there are various methods used to measure or closely estimate first-

call resolution rates:

• Agents provide opinions on whether the call was resolved completely

• Tracking of issues shows if they are re-opened

• Supervisors monitor calls and score based on their opinion

• The company or a third-party can contact customers later to ask their views

• Customers provide feedback in end-of-call IVR sessions

• SMS messages or emails are sent to customers at times defined by the business.

51

Call monitoring is by far the most widely-used way of gauging the call's success, and is used by the

vast majority of contact centres. Post-call methods of trying to gather first-call resolution rates are

much less widely used.

However, even if FCR can be measured successfully and accurately, this figure is still not necessarily

actionable: we do not always know why some calls are not resolved first-time. Without a greater

level of insight, contact centre managers may not be addressing the real issues that are impacting on

customer satisfaction and the effectiveness of the operation. We expect to see a continued growth

in the use of speech analytics being directed at understanding why customers contact a business

multiple times.

It is worth noting that the majority of contact centres who track first-call resolution do so only based

on the initial telephone call itself: that is, they do not check whether the action or business process

initiated by the call has been followed through successfully. Most complaints received by a contact

centre are about the failings of the wider business (around 80%), so focusing entirely upon the work

done within the contact centre is missing the point of measuring first-call resolution. The traditional

insularity of the contact centre operation fails the needs of the wider business, but without an

explicit remit to investigate and report on processes outside the contact centre, it can hardly be

blamed for the failure to hunt down and fix the wider problems.

52

CALL TRANSFERS

This metric can indicate training needs at the individual agent level, a failure in the initial IVR routing

or a need to update FAQs or other information on a website (for example, a spike in this metric

might be driven by a recent marketing campaign which has confused some customers, creating a

high level of calls about the same issue). Tracking, and call recording / speech analytics in cases of

sudden high transfer rates could identify the issue.

CE Europe respondents report very low levels of call transfers compared to other geographies.

Alongside the slightly higher levels of first contact resolution, this could imply that the CEE contact

centres are operating at a higher level of performance than elsewhere. An alternative is that agents

are dealing with issues that are generally easier (thus not requiring 2nd-line support), and which are

handled by digital self-service in other regions.

Figure 32: Call transfers by vertical market

Region

% of calls transferred (mean) % of calls transferred (median)

CE Europe 4.2% 1.5%

Nordics 8.5% 5.0%

W Europe 6.5% 4.5%

UK 9.2% 5.8%

US 9.2% 6.0%

Care must be taken when analysing these figures, as a switchboard-type operation is likely to have

very high call transfer rates - as that may be what the agent is supposed to do, and a technical

helpdesk may require significant amounts of 2nd-line support to be provided. As such, both mean

and median averages should be considered, to remove the few very high anomalies that occurred in

the respondent data and make it more representative of a 'typical' contact centre.

53

OMNICHANNEL

Western European and CE European respondents state that their use of email is very considerable,

at 27% and 20% respectively, with lower proportions of phone activity than in the UK, US and

Nordics. As this is the first year of studying mainland and Irish European contact centres, judgement

should be reserved until further years’ surveys corroborate this.

The results show a major use of digital channels in CEE, with the Nordics also using above average

social media customer service and also web chat. Western Europe, apart from email, has much

lower use of digital channels such as web chat or social. Levels of voice self-service are lower than

the US. It should be noted that this survey does not take into account any use of web self-service.

Figure 33: Inbound interactions by channel

58.7%

70.0%

61.4%68.5% 67.8%

9.2%

3.8%

4.7%

5.2%10.2%

20.0%11.5% 27.0%

15.5%13.1%

6.5%8.8%

2.2%3.3%

5.3%1.1% 0.5%

1.5%3.0%

0.7%0.1% 0.3%

0.3% 1.1% 0.4%3.8% 5.0%2.0% 2.9% 1.8%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

CEE Nordics WE UK US

Inbound interactions by channel

Social media(customerservice)

Fax

Letter

SMS

Web chat

Email

Telephone(self-service)

Telephone (liveagent)

54

As not all of the same respondents take part in this survey every year, a jump or drop in the usage of

a minor multimedia channel could be an industry-wide phenomenon or a case of a handful of early-

adopters skewing the results, which is certainly possible where only a few use a channel, and where

mean averages are used. As such, a question is asked to respondents about how each inbound

channel will change, so being able to judge if any alterations in the use of channels is due to real

changes at a contact centre-level, or is more of a statistical blip caused by a different set of

respondents providing data each year.

There is little major change expected by CE European contact centre respondents, with web chat

and social expected to rise by a minority, and live telephone to decrease.

Figure 34: Expected change in inbound channels in the next 12 months (CEE)

9%20% 18%

13%

9%

10%

18%25%

55%

70%

70%

55%

88%

100%

88%

63%

18%

9%

10%

10% 10% 9% 13% 13%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Expected change in inbound channels in the next 12 months (CEE)

Don't know

Greatly decrease

Slightly decrease

No major change

Slightly increase

Greatly increase

55

In the Nordics, an expected decrease in traditional channels – fax, live telephony and letters – can be

seen, with growth in digital channels, particularly social and web chat being viewed as likely.

Figure 35: Expected change in inbound channels in the next 12 months (Nordics)

50%

33%25%

50%

25%

25%

33%

50%

5%

30%

35%

33%

17%25%

17%

70%

25%

33%

15%

33%

50%

20%25%

33%

17%25%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Expected change in inbound channels in the next 12 months (Nordics)

Don't know

Greatly decrease

Slightly decrease

No major change

Slightly increase

Greatly increase

56

Western European respondents expect strong growth in social, with the other digital channels also

expected to grow more moderately. Traditional channels are expected to see a slight decline.

Figure 36: Expected change in inbound channels in the next 12 months (WE)

9%

30%

8% 10%

27% 44%

22%13%

30%

58%

90%

55%44%

56%

63%

75%

40%33%

9%

22%

13% 13%

13% 13%11%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Expected change in inbound channels in the next 12 months (WE)

Don't know

Greatly decrease

Slightly decrease

No major change

Slightly increase

Greatly increase

57

As usual, the traditional media of letters and fax will have a net decline in our respondents' eyes,

although still have their place in the likes of the insurance, medical and manufacturing industries.

Interestingly, more respondents this year once again believed the live telephony channel volumes

would drop (48%) than thought they would rise (23%), a finding that growing each year, and which

signals a trend in the industry that is explored in the next chart.

Strong growth is once again expected in web chat and social media customer service interactions

(and SMS, from a very low base), with email volumes still predicted to grow although at a much

lower rate than previous years. Telephony self-service is expected to grow once again this year, with

its twin benefits of customer convenience and low cost still very much relevant. New approaches,

such as visual IVR, are likely to encourage further use of self-service. Although not shown on this

chart, almost half of respondents offer an app or mobile service option for customer service.

Figure 37: Expected change in inbound channels in the next 12 months (UK)

39%

28%

13% 12% 10%6%

2% 1%

42%

48%

43%

29% 35%

17%

4% 4%

18% 23%

36%58%

33%

30%70%

51%

2% 1%

6%

1%

19%

41%

15%

30%

1% 4% 7% 9%15%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Web chat Social media(customer

service)

Telephone(self-service)

SMS Email Telephone(live agent)

Fax Letter

How do you think inbound channels will change in your contact centre in the next 12 months?

Greatly decrease

Slight decrease

No change

Slightly increase

Greatly increase

58

As usual, the traditional media of letters and fax will have a net decline in US respondents' eyes,

although still have their place in the likes of the insurance, medical and manufacturing industries.

Interestingly, more respondents this year once again believed the live telephony channel volumes

would drop (30%) than thought they would rise (15%), a finding that growing each year, and which

signals a trend in the industry.

Strong growth is expected in web chat and social media customer service interactions (and SMS,

from a very low base), with email volumes still predicted to grow although at a much lower rate than

previous years. After some years of relative decline, telephony self-service is expected to grow once

again this year, with its twin benefits of customer convenience and low cost still very much relevant.

New approaches, such as visual IVR, are likely to encourage further use of self-service. Although not

shown on this chart, almost half of respondents offer an app or mobile service option for customer

service. More information is available in the ‘The Mobile Customer’ chapter of this report.

Figure 38: Expected change in inbound channels in the next 12 months (US)

The previous charts’ real message is that channels aren't being replaced - although letters and fax

are becoming endangered species for some operations - but rather augmented, and businesses have

to accept that they need to develop an omnichannel approach, as that’s what their customers are

expecting. This means that the pressure to unify the view of the customer across channels is a

challenge that isn't going to go away.

22%

9% 8% 4% 3% 1%

34%

24%22%

18% 23%

14%

35%

53%

48% 60%60%

53% 80%74%

12% 2%

26% 4% 14%

1%4%

4% 1%

8%14%

23%

6%12%

2%11% 11%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Web chat Social media(customer

service)

SMS Email Telephone(self-service)

Telephone(live agent)

Letter Fax

How do you think inbound channels will change in your contact center in the next 12 months?

Don't know

Greatly decrease

Somewhat decrease

No major change

Somewhat increase

Greatly increase

59

COST PER CONTACT

Cost per call is a very difficult metric to work out for a business, and even more difficult to

benchmark in any meaningful way, as calls can vary massively in cost even within the same contact

centre, and there is no universally agreement over which elements of cost to include within this

metric.

As we would expect, respondents from Central and Eastern Europe experience significantly lower

call costs than other regions, with a median around three or four times lower than Western

industries.

Western Europe has a slightly higher cost per call than the UK and US, with the Nordics slightly less.

Figure 39: Estimated cost per inbound call / email / web chat, by region

Region Average

Phone

Email Web chat

CE Europe Mean €2.21 €2.23 €2.54

Median €1.20 €1.75 €1.48

Nordics Mean €4.00 €1.75 €2.90

Median €3.50 €1.67 €2.50

W Europe Mean €5.81 €4.30 €3.44

Median €4.50 €4.50 €3.10

UK Mean €4.48 €4.14 €3.64

Median €3.84 €4.07 €3.08

US Mean €4.93 €3.13 €2.71

Median €3.93 €2.50 €2.28

While email and web chat have had a reported cost advantage over telephony in past UK and US

surveys, the differential is not as large as it could be, perhaps caused by relatively low levels of

automation being used to answer either emails or web chats. This is a significant opportunity for

businesses and solution providers.

Western industries report cost differentials of varying significance (the UK shows little major

difference), with CE Europe actually reporting higher costs per email / chat than for telephony.

60

As there were relatively few respondents that stated outbound call cost, care should be taken when

considering these figures.

In the UK and US, there certainly seems to have been a considerable decrease in cost per outbound

call over the years, possibly as a result of an increased use of outbound dialling automation, with

smaller operations now being able to benefit from this technology through the use of cloud-based

solutions: certainly, the significant historical drop in the 1st quartile (the most expensive calls)

showed that there are now far fewer operations paying high costs for each outbound call.

CE European respondents reported the lowest median cost, with the Nordics also lower than other

Western industries, at a mean level at least.

Figure 40: Estimated cost per outbound call, by region

Region Average

Phone

CE Europe Mean €3.14

Median €2.00

Nordics Mean €3.00

Median €3.00

W Europe Mean €5.56

Median €3.00

UK Mean €4.09

Median €3.04

US Mean €5.04

Median €3.40

61

HOMEWORKING

Homeworking and homeshoring promise contact centres significant benefits, but is perhaps not for

every agent or organisation. Amongst the potential advantages are:

• the environmental benefits of working at home, reducing carbon emissions and decreasing

congestion on the roads

• businesses are looking at ways to cut costs without necessarily moving to an offshore

location

• increased flexibility in working hours means rapid response and reduced idle time

• increasing costs of recruiting and retaining staff allow agents outside the commutable

distance to work as well.

Remote working opens the door to the sorts of people who might not otherwise seek employment

in a typical contact centre but who would happily work in their own home taking calls. For an

industry facing cyclical difficulties in recruitment of employees who themselves are having to

become more highly skilled and deal with more complex issues year-on-year, this opportunity to

deepen the labour pool without widespread pay increases should not be ignored. The contact centre

could also use limited homeworking (for example, one day a week) as a reward for its top agents,

encouraging their loyalty and offering a tangible promise to others.

Remote agents, whether working at home, or in a telecottage (small, remote sites), can be a part of

the larger virtual contact centre by being linked to the main operation via DSL or a leased line (in the

case of telecottages). Some solutions permit least-cost routing and redundancy, where if the IP voice

quality deteriorates, the call can be switched onto a back-up connection until the IP quality improves

sufficiently to move it back to IP. Agents need only a PC which may act as a softphone, a headset (or

IP phone) and a data connection.

62

CURRENT USE OF HOMEWORKING

The US and Nordics show the greatest use of homeworking, with 45% and 40% of respective

respondents already using homeworking.

CEE and the UK are the lowest users of homeworking, with Western Europe showing great interest

in increasing its current figure of 24%.

46% of CEE respondents have made a firm decision that homeworking is not for them, whereas in

the other geographies, a greater proportion of respondents have not yet made a decision either

way.

Figure 41: Current use of homeworking

15%

40%

24%17%

45%

14%

5%

7%

23%

5% 10%

19%

12%

15%

35%

19%36%

21%46%

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5% 2% 2%

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100%


Current use of homeworking

Don't know

We will not use homeworking

Not made a decision yet

Researching this, but nodecision has been made

We are running a trial / willrun a trial shortly

We use homeworking already

63

The following charts show the proportion of homeworking agents in 2017, and the respondents’

prediction for 2019.

Figure 42: Proportion of homeworking agents in contact centres, 2017

Figure 43: Expected proportion of homeworking agents in contact centres, 2019

85%

60%

76%82%

48%

20%

18% 4%

3%

8% 20% 5%

22%

6% 3%

5%

8%3%

19%

3%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

CEE Nordics WE UK (2016) US

Proportion of homeworking agents in contact centres, 2017

Don’t know

More than 25%

16-25%

5-15%

Up to 5%

None

13%

30%21%

14%

25%

25%

25%

29%

20%

38%

25%

15%15%

20%

25%

5% 15%

12%

25%

15% 6%

29%

25%

10% 13%7%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

CEE Nordics WE UK (2018) US

Expected proportion of homeworking agents in contact centres, 2019

Don’t know

More than 25%

16-25%

5-15%

Up to 5%

None

64

Although asking survey respondents to predict the future is a risky business - much of the time,

organisations tend to be somewhat overenthusiastic, and underestimate how long is needed to

achieve anything - it is interesting to see that the proportion of contact centres not using any

homeworking is predicted to decline very significantly. (Note that these tables do not include

respondents which stated firmly that they would not be using homeworking).

Although we would be extremely surprised if this level of growth in homeworking materialized in

reality (bearing in mind the low growth seen in the past two years), it is indicative that there is a

broadly positive expectation around the future of homeworking, even amongst many of the contact

centres that do not use it today, but have not made a firm decision against it.

65

CLOUD-BASED CONTACT CENTRE SOLUTIONS

‘CLOUD’: TERMS & DEF INITIONS

The modern contact centre has a multitude of applications supporting it, with hardware, middleware

and networking equipment around and inside it. The traditional method of deploying these

resources has been on a CPE (customer premise equipment) basis, with the business's IT resource

implementing and maintaining it. Now, the vast majority of this equipment, functionality and

supporting resource is available in a third-party hosted environment, through one of the various

types of cloud-based delivery.

Cloud-based solutions are the latest in a line of alternatives for businesses to owning and running

their own technology. Here are explanations of some of the terms that readers may have

encountered in researching cloud-based contact centres.

• Cloud is the delivery of computing and storage capacity as a service to different business,

organisations and individuals over a network. It can be said to consist of Infrastructure as a

Service (IaaS) - servers and storage space, Platform as a Service (PaaS) - operating systems and

web servers, and Software as a Service (SaaS) - the functionality of software available on

demand without the need to own or maintain it. The cloud is characterized by huge scalability

and flexibility, (often, but not always) shared resources, a utilities approach to billing (pay for

what you use, for example) and an abstraction of obvious on-site infrastructure.

There are various deployment models:

o Public cloud: applications, storage, and other resources are made available by a service

provider, often offered on a pay-per-use model. Public cloud service providers own and

operate the infrastructure and offer access via the Internet

o Private cloud: infrastructure operated solely for a single organisation, whether managed

internally or by a third-party and hosted internally or externally. They require

management by the organisation or a third-party

o Virtual private cloud: a deployment model that pulls in public cloud infrastructure-as-a-

service (IaaS) while running the application on premise or in a private cloud, in order to

improve disaster recovery, flexibility and scalability and to benefit from Opex-based

costing while avoiding expensive hardware purchases

66

o Community cloud shares infrastructure between several organisations from a specific

community with common concerns (security, compliance, jurisdiction, etc.), whether

managed internally or by a third-party. The costs are spread over fewer users than a

public cloud (but more than a private cloud), so do not gain as much from cost

reductions. It may be an appropriate deployment model for departments within

government or public sector bodies, rather than within commercial organisations (for

example, a department could share Contact Centre as a Service with other departments

or agencies within their network)

o Hybrid cloud is a composition of two or more clouds (private, community, public or a

linked cloud/CPE solution) that remain unique entities but are bound together, offering

the benefits of multiple deployment models. By utilizing "hybrid cloud" architecture,

companies and individuals are able to obtain degrees of fault tolerance combined with

locally immediate usability without dependency on internet connectivity. Hybrid Cloud

architecture requires both on-premises resources and off-site (remote) server-based

cloud infrastructure.

• SaaS (Software as a Service) is a model of software deployment whereby a provider licenses an

application to customers for use as a service on demand. SaaS software vendors may host the

application on their own web servers or download the application to the consumer device,

disabling it after use or after the on-demand contract expires. The on-demand function may be

handled internally to share licenses within a firm or by a third-party service provider sharing

licenses between firms.

On-demand licensing and use alleviates the customer's burden of equipping a device with every

conceivable application. It also reduces traditional End User License Agreement (EULA) software

maintenance, ongoing operation patches, and patch support complexity in an organisation. On-

demand licensing enables software to become an operating expense, rather than a fixed cost at

the time of purchase. It also enables licensing only the amount of software needed versus

traditional licenses per device. SaaS also enables the buyer to share licenses across their

organisation and between organisations, to reduce the cost of acquiring EULAs for every device

in their firm.

Using SaaS can also conceivably reduce the upfront expense of software purchases, through less

costly, on-demand pricing from cloud providers. SaaS lets software vendors control and limit

use, prohibits copies and distribution, and facilitates the control of all derivative versions of their

software.

67

• Hosted solutions have similarities to SaaS in that the application is hosted off the customer's

premises, but may not actually be managed by the service provider. A hosted solution may be an

individual instance of an application running on a single server dedicated to the customer,

restricted in scalability by its finite nature. Although this may allow greater control and flexibility,

it can be more expensive and there is less redundancy. It may be thought that all SaaS solutions

are hosted, but not all hosted applications are SaaS.

• Network-based solutions are marketed as solutions with equipment physically located in

multiple locations, permitting users to access the various services via a combination of the

contact centre’s internet connection and the standard PSTN networks. This allows complete

geographic independence and disaster recovery (DR) solutions.

• Multi-tenancy refers to where a single instance of the software runs on a server, but serves

many customer organisations. Clients’ data and configuration are separated virtually but the

same actual hardware, software versions and databases are used. This deployment model is

likely to be able to offer functionality at a lower cost due to the economies of scale possible, but

is less customizable than other options

• Multi-instance occurs where separate software instances or versions (and possibly actual

physical hardware) are provided for each individual business. This deployment option is

considered most effective for complex and deep integration, but is unlikely to be offered at a

similar cost to a multi-tenant option

• Hardware virtualization masks from users the physical characteristics of the platform, hosting

multiple isolated instances of an application on one or more servers. The same image can be

used on multiple sites, whether customer-owned or hosted.

For more information on cloud-based solutions, please download ContactBabel's in-depth, updated

report, "The Inner Circle Guide to Cloud-based Contact Centre Solutions (3rd edition)".

http://www.contactbabel.com/

68

DRIVERS FOR CLOUD-BASED SOLUTIONS

The many factors influencing the uptake of cloud-based solutions can be grouped into several areas,

and it is important to remember that a factor (e.g. security) can be both a driver and an inhibitor:

Financial: how does cloud affect the investment and ongoing expenditure connected with

technology and the operations of the contact centre? Cloud offers contact centres a way forward

without relying on capital investment:

• Businesses can scale down future customer premises equipment (CPE) investment, with a

resulting decrease in capital expenditure

• Services are bought using a per-concurrent-user or even per-hour pricing model, which helps

to keep operating expenses manageable and controllable

• Outright purchase of equipment isn’t for everyone, perhaps for reasons of budget or the

ability to maintain the systems

• There is the opportunity to scale up quickly as demand dictates, without purchasing lots of

redundant licenses or the hardware to support them

• Low-risk ability to start up, move, expand or trial new functionality without changing existing

business plans or budgets

• Business retain the freedom to downscale, change targets and react to meet demand, rather

than commit themselves to long-term arrangements needed to justify CPE investments.

Flexibility & Agility: how can cloud-based solutions help businesses with changing interaction

volumes and distributed operations?

• Reduced need for IT support and implementation: having hardware and software based in

the cloud means that ongoing system maintenance is significantly reduced, as it is the cloud

provider’s job to do this

• Larger pool of agents to choose from: cloud enables advanced features to be deployed

across sites without complex and possibly unreliable call flows, while offering disaster

recovery and risk minimization. For example, queueing interactions in the cloud allows for

the searching and identification of relevant agents based on skill and requirements before

the call is routed

• Short-term scalability: cloud offers great flexibility in adding or shedding agents and user

licenses, of particular relevance to businesses which have substantial changes in call volumes

over a year (such as the seasonality experienced by healthcare providers in the US, retailers

and travel agents), or which have to react quickly to handle event-driven call spikes (e.g. an

emergency weather situation affecting utilities companies).

69

Functionality: what is the effect of cloud-based solutions on the functionality available to the

contact centre?

• Trial new applications quickly using a low-risk pilot: using a pay-per-use model allows

businesses to start a contact centre or move at low risk or increase for a temporary

campaign or try out new functionality without having to spend excessive amounts of time

and money first

• Future-proof the contact centre: a competitive, open cloud environment should mean that

vendors will be motivated to innovate and provide better service, enhancing and developing

their services ahead of the mainstream market.

Security: does cloud bring a greater risk to security, or the opposite? Organisations should expect

that data should be at least as secure in a third-party environment that is dedicated solely to

providing a high-quality cloud-based service, as this is one of the factors by which the solution

provider will succeed or fail.

Potential cloud clients should look for:

• multiple levels of firewall protection

• continuous intruder detection systems

• a two-person rule for changes to code or hardware

• frequent scheduled password changes

• external testing and audit trails

• data encryption used both in storage and in transit, under the control of the user

• additional layers of user authentication and privilege

• vetting of employees with access to sensitive information or hardware

• internal traffic and server monitoring.

70

Control: can a cloud contact centre change how it operates quickly enough?

• Control, visibility and reporting: loss of control is of as much concern to some businesses as

fears over integration. A service provider may not be as responsive as an in-house team, and

it may take hours or even days to make changes to the system, so service level agreements

should include agreed response times

• Cultural considerations: making the move to cloud is seen as a far bigger proposition than

deciding whether to implement or replace a particular contact centre application such as call

recording or workforce management. However, many vendors offer options for customers

to keep what they feel that they need on-site - for example call recordings and sensitive data

- while moving offsite the elements of the contact centre solution that businesses are most

comfortable with outsourcing.

Integration & Customization: while out-of-the-box functionality can be quick and cheap enough to

get things moving, what if businesses need more a personalized approach? Being able to continue

using relevant existing CPE systems, and access databases and back-office systems is a minimum

requirement for all businesses considering cloud-based solutions. Some solution providers note that

the private cloud option is becoming more popular, where a third party is responsible for the

management of dedicated infrastructure, especially in environments which require complex

integration and customization.

Performance & Reliability: how does cloud affect the contact centre’s ability to deliver its service?

Service providers will test their systems on an ongoing basis, and a few will even guarantee their

availability to 99.999% (the '5 9s target of carrier-grade availability), backed by penalties if they do

not achieve this. This level of reliability is the standard for very large contact centres which have paid

significantly for this in a CPE environment, but is likely to be an improvement on what SMEs are used

to, with their much smaller budgets.

71

CURRENT USE OF CLOUD-BASED CONTACT CENTRE SOLUTIONS

The use of the cloud for at least one contact centre solution was very consistent across all

geographies:

• Central & Eastern Europe: 46%

• Nordics: 60%

• UK: 46%

• US: 57%

• Western Europe: 54%.

Respondents who used at least one cloud-based application or solution were asked about the

contact centre functionality that they currently had within the cloud, and what their plans were for

the next two years.

CRM, call recording and call routing functionality were the most likely to be deployed through cloud-

based solutions, with CRM and call recording functionality also popular.

It should be noted that low levels of response to this particular question from CEE & Nordics

respondents mean that these results should be taken as approximate for these regions.

Figure 44: Current use of cloud-based contact centre solutions, by application type, by region

Application / Region

Central & Eastern Europe

Nordics Western Europe

UK US

Call routing / ACD functionality 40% 67% 50% 43% 59%

IVR / speech recognition 20% 33% 44% 30% 44%

Automated outbound dialling 40% 17% 11% 11% 20%

Call recording 40% 60% 22% 37% 51%

CRM/agent desktop software 60% 33% 60% 26% 51%

Workforce management software 0% 33% 67% 19% 31%

Speech analytics 0% 0% 0% 4% 9%

Figure 45: Predicted use of cloud-based contact centre solutions (2019), by application type, by region

Application / Region

Central & Eastern Europe

Nordics Western Europe

UK US

Call routing / ACD functionality 50% 100% 80% 61% 63%

IVR / speech recognition 20% 66% 77% 47% 51%

Automated outbound dialling 40% 50% 33% 22% 21%

Call recording 60% 100% 44% 53% 70%

CRM/agent desktop software 60% 100% 80% 53% 70%

Workforce management software 0% 100% 67% 43% 34%

Speech analytics 0% 33% 11% 20% 15%

72

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Respondents were asked to choose the three most important factors impacting upon customer

satisfaction from a list of eight, with the graph below showing the most popular choices.

Regardless of the region, the most important factors were almost always said to be short queue

times, first contact resolution and polite, friendly agents.

Short call duration, which has been slipping as a primary metric in the UK and US for a number of

years, was picked as the most important factor in achieving customer satisfaction by very few

respondents in any region, further evidence that average handle time is becoming increasingly

irrelevant in the modern day contact centre, in businesses’ opinion at least. Due to customers’

willingness to use self-service, it has been the case for many years that the average phone call has

been increasing in complexity, which is borne out by the gradually increasing average call times. As

such, customers will tend to expect calls to take as long as it takes to resolve their issue, with a

successful resolution far more important to them than the call length itself.

For the sake of completeness, each region’s results are shown below.

Figure 46: Factors most valued by customers using a contact centre (CEE)

33%

11%

17%

28%

6%

6%

12%

29%

12%

12%

12%

6%

12%

6%

23%

8%

15%

8%

15%

8%

8%

15%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%


Short queue times

Polite and friendly agents

Not having to re-explain if moving between channels

Short IVR menus

Long opening hours

Short call times

No call transfer between agents

Agents based within your country

Factors most valued by customers using a contact center (CEE)

1st 2nd 3rd

73

Figure 47: Factors most valued by customers using a contact centre (Nordics)

Figure 48: Factors most valued by customers using a contact centre (WE)

20%

40%

10%

10%

10%

10%

29%

14%

14%

14%

14%

14%

25%

25%

25%

25%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

Short queue times



Short IVR menus

Long opening hours


Short call times



Factors most valued by customers using a contact center (Nordics)

1st 2nd 3rd

23%

55%

14%

5%

5%

30%

10%

20%

10%

5%

10%

5%

10%

24%

6%

24%

24%

12%

6%

6%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%



Short queue times


Short IVR menus

Long opening hours

Short call times



Factors most valued by customers using a contact center (WE)

1st 2nd 3rd

74

Figure 49: Factors most valued by customers using a contact centre (UK)

Figure 50: Factors most valued by customers using a contact centre (US)

69%

12%

15%

3%

1%

17%

27%

24%

13%

7%

5%

3%

3%

2%

5%

24%

20%

18%

10%

8%

9%

3%

4%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%



Short queue times

Not having to repeat issues if moving between channels

UK-based agents

Short IVR menus


Short call times

Long opening hours

Factors most valued by customers using a contact centre

1st 2nd 3rd

38%

22%

20%

7%

6%

3%

2%

1%

1%

29%

23%

22%

11%

2%

6%

2%

2%

2%

9%

25%

15%

13%

10%

5%

10%

7%

6%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%



Short queue times

US-based agents


Long opening hours


Short call times

Short IVR menus

Factors most valued by customers using a contact center

1st 2nd 3rd

75

John Seddon uses the term “failure demand” to describe calls that are created by the inability of the

business’s systems to do something right for the customer:

“A failure to do something - turn up, call back, send something…causes the customer to

make a further demand on the system. A failure to do something right - not solve a problem,

send out forms that customers have difficulty with and so on - similarly create demand and

creates extra work. Failure demand is under the organisation’s control, and it is a major form

of sub-optimization.”2

Seddon cites the instance of the bank where failure demand created almost half of the calls which

they had to deal with. Another classic example of failure demand is where emails go unanswered,

leading to calls being made (first-stage failure demand). Later, the email will be answered,

unnecessarily, as the customer already has their answer or has gone elsewhere (second-stage failure

demand). This redundant work will then impact on other (still live) messages in the email queue,

creating a vicious circle of failure demand. Redesigning and restructuring the way in which work

flows around the organisation, putting the contact centre at the heart of it, rather than treating it as

a separate silo, will go much of the way to reducing unnecessary contacts. The customer ends up

getting a better service from the whole company, not just the contact centre.

One way in which this can be achieved is to unify and automate the agent desktop, bringing in the

relevant data automatically, depending on who the caller is and what they want. At the end of the

call, the correct data is written back to the relevant places, and the correct processes kicked off

automatically, meaning that the right departments will be provided with the right information, thus

reducing the risk of failure demand, unnecessary calls and irate customers. This also takes the

pressure off the agents to remember which systems to update and how to navigate through them

within the call (which causes long delays, negatively impacting customer satisfaction), or in the

wrap-up, which risks agent forgetting to do things, and also decreases agent availability, increasing

the queue length, and decreasing customer satisfaction. In cases where multiple processes have to

happen in order for the customer’s requirement to be met, automated outbound messaging to the

customer, whether by email, SMS or IVR is likely to reduce the number of follow-up contacts that the

customer feels that they have to make.

Information on failure demand can be gleaned from the contact centre, which can also hold huge

amounts of knowledge about what customers’ views of the products, services, competitors and

company are. Feedback loops will be established in leading contact centres to push information and

insights upwards to those who can make a difference in product development, process

improvements and customer strategies. Interaction analytics offers businesses the chance to mine

huge amounts of data and find patterns and reasons in a timely fashion, and it is vital then to act

upon this knowledge, proving to both customers and agents that the business takes them seriously.

2 Freedom from Command and Control: A better way to make the work, work, John Seddon

76

Customers who take the time to complain are also taking the time to state what went wrong with

your process, product or communication, and this effort should be acknowledged and treated as

being important. Businesses have found that fixing the problem for one customer can help many

other customers, including the ones who never contacted you. Most customers are not complaining

to cause trouble - they want you to know what went wrong, and believe that you can fix it. If one

customer makes a complaint, the chances are that there are many more who are experiencing the

same thing. A customer that has given up on your company will probably not complain, but go

elsewhere and tell everyone who will listen that they are doing so, an issue that is particularly

important in today's world of omnipresent social media.

The following table shows, by region, the proportion of inbound calls received that are complaints,

and also, in the widest sense, what that complaint is about (i.e. internal - such as a rude agent or not

being called back when promised, or external - such as failure demand, which is explained below). Of

course, it is sometimes difficult to divorce one from the other, but this table shows (in order, highest

at the top) the vertical markets with the greatest proportion of their calls being complaints about

the contact centre.

The majority of complaints received by a contact centre are not about the contact centre itself (or its

staff), but rather ‘failure demand’, caused by a breakdown of process elsewhere in the organisation.

However, the contact centre has to deal with the dirty work, and further failures within the

complaints procedure (or lack of it) can see customers calling into the contact centre again and

again, becoming more irate each time, despite the real problem lying outside the contact centre.

There is also the case that there is a blurring of responsibility between the contact centre and the

rest of the business so that lines of demarcation over where the fault lies can be difficult to find. For

example, a telecoms provider that has taken an order for a new line has to rely on the rest of the

organisation to provision and deliver this correctly. If the agent takes the contact email down

incorrectly, the customer will not receive any information about their order, which may have a query

on it. When the irate customer rings in to complain, the problem may appear to be with the back-

office processes where the order has halted, but the fault actually lay with the agent. Whether this is

tracked or reported on correctly is not a certainty, so the split above between contact centre / back-

office complaints should be treated with caution.

There is also a real risk, especially within large contact centres, that a single agent does not have the

capability or responsibility to deal with the customer’s issue, which may reach across various internal

departments (e.g. finance, billing, provisioning and technical support), none of which will (or can)

take responsibility for sorting out the problem.

Figure 51: Proportion of calls that are complaints, by region

Region

% of calls that are complaints

% of complaints about the contact centre

% of complaints about the wider business

CE Europe 16% 17% 83%

Nordics 20% 25% 75%

W Europe 10% 16% 84%

UK 9% 15% 85%

US 14% 17% 83%

77

Respondents were asked to assess which channel they personally would use if they had a complaint

as a customer of their own organisation.

Between 50-75% of respondents said that the telephone would be the best channel, with the digital

channels such as email, social media and web chat having some support. There is little support for

writing a letter - which is the traditional channel of complaint - with even web chat usually being

stated as a far more effective way of complaining.

11% of Western European and 10% of Nordic respondents gave the diplomatic answer that there

would be no advantage to choosing one channel over another within their own organisation.

While large-scale surveys of customer channel preference rarely put telephony as the channel of

choice, it seems as though this channel is still the method to choose to get things done.

Figure 52: Best channel to use for complaints

75%

50%56%

51%

61%

17%

17%22%

15%

20%

6%

16%4%

20% 6%

3%14%

8%

6%

5% 3%10% 11%3% 3%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%


Best channel to use for complaints

No preference

Letter

Web chat

Social media (e.g.Twitter / Facebook)

Email

Telephone

78

TECHNOLOGY USAGE AND PLANNING

Central & Eastern European respondents report 100% IP telephony infrastructure, with very high

levels of call recording and management information systems too.

The use of web chat was particularly noticeable, at 85% compared to 50-60% in the more mature

industries of the UK, US and Western Europe, which suggests that many CEE operations are newer

and have been built from the ground-up as digital contact centres, rather than primarily telephony-

based.

There is significant short-term investment interest in customer service mobile apps and workforce

management systems, with upgrades to MIS, social and web chat applications are being considered

in many cases.

Figure 53: Technology penetration and implementation plans - CEE

93%

79%

62%

62%

77%

64%

57%

57%

36%

57%

38%

33%

8%

7%

7%

23%

23%

7%

14%

21%

8%

14%

8%

8%

7%

7%

7%

15%

42%

17%

14%

7%

8%

7%

21%

7%

8%

17%

21%

14%

8%

8%

15%

29%

14%

36%

21%

29%

38%

25%

50%

64%

79%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

IP telephony infrastructure

Call recording

Web chat

Management information systems

Touchtone / DTMF IVR

SMS

Email management software

Automated outbound dialler

Social media (for customer service)

Scripting

Workforce management systems

Customer service mobile app / mobile website

Gamification

Automated speech recognition

Speech analytics

Technology penetration and implementation plans – CEE

Use now, no plans to replace/upgrade Use now, looking to replace/upgrade Will implement within 12 months

Will implement after 12 months No plans to implement

79

Respondents from the Nordic region are heavily invested in digital channels, with 100% of

respondents using email management applications and social media customer service.

As there are relatively few Nordic respondents to these questions about technology, the pattern is

less clear than in other regions, but a high level of self-service can be seen, along with much

enthusiasm for mobile service.

Figure 54: Technology penetration and implementation plans - Nordics

63%

86%

88%

86%

50%

63%

57%

57%

14%

29%

50%

25%

29%

25%

25%

38%

14%

25%

13%

14%

14%

57%

29%

13%

13%

14%

14%

29%

14%

25%

14%

25%

25%

13%

13%

14%

14%

25%

14%

13%

13%

14%

29%

50%

38%

43%

50%

25%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%






Call recording


Web chat


SMS

Scripting


Speech analytics


Gamification

Technology penetration and implementation plans – Nordics



80

Western Europe follows a similar pattern to that of the UK, with high levels of MIS, IP telephony and

call recording.

The use of technology to support digital channels is greater than the UK, with 79% using email

management software, 57% web chat and 73% social media customer service support.

WFM, automated speech recognition, gamification and speech analytics are the applications that

respondents state they are most likely to implement within the next 12 months.

Figure 55: Technology penetration and implementation plans – WE

93%

76%

72%

69%

59%

67%

62%

59%

54%

50%

47%

35%

21%

25%

21%

3%

7%

10%

10%

14%

5%

10%

4%

7%

10%

14%

4%

3%

7%

3%

7%

14%

7%

8%

21%

3%

5%

14%

14%

18%

3%

3%

7%

4%

17%

14%

7%

17%

7%

14%

21%

29%

14%

26%

35%

18%

33%

50%

36%

57%

54%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%


Call recording




Scripting


SMS


Web chat



Speech analytics

Gamification


Technology penetration and implementation plans – Western Europe



81

In the UK, DTMF IVR, workforce management, email management and MIS are amongst the most

likely to be upgraded or replaced, with a significant proportion of respondents using web chat also

looking do so. Many legacy call recording solutions are moving to the cloud, removing the need for

on-site storage and maintenance, security management and improving operational flexibility.

In terms of new implementations, web chat, social media, mobile service and analytics are singled-

out in the short term, with AI/machine learning and gamification also receiving a very high level of

attention considering their low current usage. In the longer-term, AI, speech recognition and

analytics were seen by respondents as likely investments. This may show that businesses are serious

about these solutions, or alternatively it may be viewed as something that businesses would like to

do, but find it difficult to get around to as they have more pressing tasks in the meantime.

Figure 56: Technology penetration and implementation plans - UK

83%

59%

61%

48%

45%

54%

47%

47%

43%

37%

23%

18%

10%

8%

10%

5%

12%

19%

8%

14%

15%

6%

13%

9%

10%

13%

6%

2%

4%

3%

1%

3%

1%

6%

4%

6%

14%

12%

10%

18%

15%

26%

4%

15%

8%

17%

7%

16%

2%

5%

1%

6%

8%

6%

7%

11%

12%

3%

17%

17%

21%

10%

10%

3%

9%

9%

17%

15%

16%

18%

17%

15%

10%

59%

38%

56%

38%

51%

49%

1%

5%

13%

14%

3%

5%

6%

2%

7%

2%

5%

10%

5%

13%

21%

17%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Call recording





SMS


Social media as a customer service channel

Mobile app for customer service

Web chat


Analytics


AI / machine learning

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Gamification

Technology penetration and implementation plans

Use now, no plans to replace/upgrade Use now, looking to replace/upgrade

Will implement within 12 months Will implement after 12 months

No plans to implement Don't know / NA

82

Core systems such as telephony infrastructure, IVR, management information systems and call

recording are amongst the most likely to be upgraded or replaced in the next year, with a significant

proportion of respondents using newer functionality such as email, web chat and mobile apps also

looking to improve or upgrade their solution.

In terms of new implementations, web chat is singled-out as the most likely short-term addition,

with 24% of respondents reporting that they intend to implement it within the next 12 months.

Gamification, analytics, and SMS also receive considerable attention. In the longer-term too, web

chat, SMS and speech analytics are seen as likely investments for other organisations.

Figure 57: Technology penetration and implementation plans - US

74%

70%

57%

55%

52%

51%

37%

36%

35%

35%

30%

20%

17%

10%

15%

18%

15%

13%

10%

10%

8%

8%

6%

4%

4%

3%

5%

4%

5%

3%

5%

6%

12%

9%

13%

24%

14%

9%

20%

15%

9%

11%

1%

3%

2%

3%

6%

9%

10%

12%

10%

16%

18%

10%

6%

4%

4%

8%

17%

16%

17%

24%

17%

32%

49%

21%

34%

53%

45%

3%

13%

5%

4%

3%

8%

3%

3%

3%

10%

10%

5%

23%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Call recording







Web chat

Social media as a service channel

Automated outbound dialer

SMS

Speech/interaction analytics


Gamification

Technology penetration and implementation plans


Will implement after 12 months No plans to implement Don't know / NA

83

Recognizing that the reality of contact centre investment does not always match the intention

shown in the previous chart, the following table gives closer analysis of IT investment priorities.

Respondents were asked to consider 25 technology solutions, and to choose the top five most

important areas of IT expenditure in their contact centre within the next two years. Viewed

together, these data are likely to give an accurate picture of likely investment.

34% of Central & Eastern European respondents put WFM as a top 5 priority, with mobile service,

web chat and omnichannel not far behind.

Figure 58: Top 5 most important areas of contact centre IT expenditure in the next two years (ranked by overall number of top 5 places)

– CEE

Technology solution

1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th

Workforce Management 9% 6% 8% 11%

Mobile Service 4% 6% 9% 8% 4%

Web Chat 6% 13% 8% 4%

Omnichannel (i.e. getting channels to work together) 6% 4% 8% 11%

Self-Service (includes DTMF IVR, Automated Speech Recognition and Web Self-Service)

9% 4% 8% 7%

Interaction Routing (including ACD/CTI-like functionality) 11% 17%

Video/Web RTC 9% 8% 7%

Desktop Automation & Analytics 13% 6% 4%

CRM / Agent Desktop Software 9% 6% 4% 4%

Homeworking 6% 8% 7%

Back-Office Integration 9% 8% 4%

Management Information Systems 11% 9%

Call Recording 4% 11% 4%

Social Media 4% 6% 9%

Hardware (including PCs & servers) 4% 6% 8%

Telephony Infrastructure (including IP) 6% 9% 4%

Email Management 9% 9%

Performance & Quality Management 13% 4%

Voice Biometrics 6% 11%

Speech Analytics 4% 8% 4%

Cloud 4% 7%

Headsets 4% 6%

Gamification 4% 4%

Outbound Automation 4% 4%

Virtual Contact Centres 4% 4%

NB: technology solutions have been ordered by the cumulative score of their appearance as a top 5 priority

84

The Nordic region did not have enough responses to split out these technologies, although cloud,

omnichannel and web chat were again of priority interest, with a small but significant number also

considering video / web RTC.

Western European respondents were strongly focused upon omnichannel, with self-service and

performance / quality / workforce management also figuring highly. Desktop automation and web

chat were also said to be top 5 priorities in 35% of cases.


- WE

Technology solution

1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th

Omnichannel (i.e. getting channels to work together) 18% 20% 8% 18%


6% 13% 8% 18%

Performance & Quality Management 12% 7% 15% 8%

Workforce Management 12% 7% 18%

Desktop Automation & Analytics 12% 15% 8%

Web Chat 20% 15%

Social Media 13% 8% 8%

Email Management 6% 23%

Management Information Systems 17% 9%

Gamification 7% 8% 9%

CRM / Agent Desktop Software 7% 8% 8%

Mobile Service 6% 17%

Speech Analytics 8% 9%

Back-Office Integration 6% 9%

Hardware (including PCs & servers) 9%

Voice Biometrics 8%

Interaction Routing (including ACD/CTI-like functionality) 8%

Telephony Infrastructure (including IP) 7%

Call Recording 6%

Cloud 6%

Homeworking 6%

Outbound Automation 6%


85

In the UK, CRM (including improvement to the contact centre agent desktop and contact

management system, as well as company-wide CRM) has been in no.1 position for a number of

years.

Omnichannel, and the various supporting applications, such as web chat, email management

systems and social media have significant proportions of respondents placing them within the top 5,

especially the former two solutions, although it is noticeable that these numbers are falling year-on-

year as implementations actually happen.


- UK

Technology solution

1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th

CRM / Agent Desktop Software 26% 9% 12% 5% 3%

Omnichannel (i.e. getting channels to work together) 17% 12% 10% 8% 2%

Back-Office Integration 5% 14% 10% 11% 4%

Email Management 1% 12% 10% 10% 3%

Web Chat 1% 9% 3% 7% 10%


10% 3% 3% 11% 2%

Workforce Management 5% 2% 4% 7% 10%

Performance & Quality Management 5% 3% 4% 5% 7%

Desktop Automation & Analytics 4% 7% 2% 2% 9%

Management Information Systems 2% 2% 8% 3% 9%

Social Media 5% 5% 3% 7%

Cloud 7% 4% 4% 1% 1%

Interaction Routing (including ACD/CTI-like functionality) 3% 5% 3% 3%

Mobile Service 3% 4% 3% 3%

Hardware (including PCs & servers) 2% 2% 1% 8%

Telephony Infrastructure (including IP) 4% 3% 1% 2% 2%

Virtual Contact Centres 2% 1% 4% 2% 1%

Gamification 1% 2% 5% 1%

Homeworking 4% 1% 2% 2%

Speech Analytics 1% 3% 2% 2%

Call Recording 1% 1% 1% 3%

Outbound Automation 1% 1% 1% 2%


Headsets 1% 2%

Voice Biometrics 1% 1% 1%


86

In the US, CRM has been the most popular no.1 priority for many years, but has been overtaken by

omnichannel in the past two years, with supporting applications such as web chat, email

management systems and social media having significant proportions of respondents placing them

within the top five.

Self-service has risen in importance greatly this year, with 26% of respondents stating it is a top-5

priority for them.


- US

Technology solution

1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th

Omnichannel 10% 9% 10% 14% 7%

CRM / Agent Desktop Software 16% 10% 7% 5% 2%

Workforce Management 3% 8% 9% 8% 9%

Performance & Quality Management 4% 12% 2% 10% 5%

Email Management 3% 8% 4% 7% 6%

Web Chat 4% 3% 10% 2% 9%

Self-Service 5% 4% 8% 4% 5%

Back-Office Integration 5% 2% 7% 4% 8%

Social Media 2% 4% 4% 8% 6%

Homeworking 8% 2% 3% 3% 7%

Desktop Automation & Analytics 1% 8% 4% 4% 4%

Speech Analytics 5% 1% 5% 4% 5%

Cloud 7% 4% 4% 1% 4%

Call Recording 6% 1% 6% 1% 4%

Mobile Service 1% 3% 4% 4% 3%

Management Information Systems 1% 4% 1% 3% 3%

Outbound Automation

1% 2% 7% 2%

Telephony Infrastructure (including IP) 6% 1% 1% 2% 2%

Gamification 2% 6% 1%

Interaction Routing (including ACD/CTI-like functionality) 3% 2% 1% 1% 2%

Hardware (including PCs & servers) 3% 1% 3% 2%

Virtual Contact Centres 3% 1% 4% 1%

Headsets 1% 2% 1% 1% 2%

Voice Biometrics 1% 1% 1% 1% 2%


87

CONTACT CENTRE GROWTH

Survey respondents were asked how many agent positions their operation had 12 months ago, how

many they have now, and how many they expect to have in 12 months’ time.

Although we cannot extrapolate industry-wide growth rates from this with any confidence (for

example, by their nature, no contact centres that took part in the survey actually closed down), it

give an interesting side-by-side comparison.

The mature industries of the UK and US both had low median growth in single percentage figures, as

did Western European respondents. The Nordics was a little higher, and CEE respondents were very

positive in reporting the past year’s growth, with a median of 25% and mean of 22%.

Looking to the next 12 months, CEE expectations are still high and the Nordics also expect significant

growth. A few very large operations in the US expect high levels of growth, which drags up the mean

average, although the mature WE, UK and US industries have a median in single figures.

Figure 62: Changes in agent positions, 2017-18

Region Average

Change in agent positions

2017

Planned change in agent

positions 2018

CE Europe Mean +22% +28%

Median +25% +18%

Nordics Mean +14% +15%

Median +8% +12%

W Europe Mean +12% +16%

Median +1% +8%

UK Mean +16% +7%

Median +3% +2%

US Mean +15% +17%

Median +6% +7%

88

APPENDIX: ABOUT CONTACTBABEL

ContactBabel is the contact centre industry expert. If you have a question about how the industry

works, or where it’s heading, the chances are we have the answer.

The coverage provided by our massive and ongoing primary research projects is matched by our

experience analysing the contact centre industry. We understand how technology, people and

process best fit together, and how they will work collectively in the future.

We help the biggest and most successful vendors develop their contact centre strategies and talk to

the right prospects. We have shown the UK government how the global contact centre industry will

develop and change. We help contact centres compare themselves to their closest competitors so

they can understand what they are doing well and what needs to improve.

If you have a question about your company’s future in the contact centre industry, we can help you.

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.contactbabel.com

Telephone: +44 (0)191 271 5269

mailto:[email protected]

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The European Contact Centre Decision-Makers’ Guide · • by region (Western Europe, Nordics,...

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