Europe’s Enterprises Look to Providers to Bridge the CX Gap

Enterprises throughout Europe are rapidly moving from in-house operations to external service providers to meet the growing demand for an enhanced contact center customer experience (CX), according to a new research report published today by Information Services Group (ISG) (Nasdaq: III), a leading global technology research and advisory firm.

The 2023 ISG Provider Lens™ Customer Experience Services report for Europe finds that most executives in Europe and worldwide consider CX a top strategic priority and intend to “completely protect” CX from cost optimization programs. Providers are responding to this increased demand by delivering advanced, location-independent CX with high AI and automation content, the report says.

“Over the past few years, the need for resilient and advanced digital CX has increased dramatically,” said Jill Stabler, partner, ISG Enterprise. “This has led to a corresponding surge of activities in this space.”

Technology has played a crucial role in shaping the CX industry and providing suitable agent experience (AX) in the continental European marketplace and worldwide, the ISG report says. Many organizational and technological changes have occurred during the last three years, including automation and modernization of the CX space. According to the ISG report, these changes have helped to redefine an enterprise’s agility and business flexibility, reduced costs and improved customer satisfaction results.

Many CX solutions offer an array of advanced analytics, including intent prediction and sentiment analytics, the ISG report says. These wide-ranging and powerful set of tools help companies empower agents and enable contextual interactions and proactive interventions while at the same time remaining in line with European data privacy laws and compliance standards, the report says.

Because cloud transition is now widespread among major enterprises in continental Europe, cloud-based CX solutions have become easier to implement and use in these companies, the ISG report says. At the same time, true multichannel CX is recognized as key to extending the customer experience across all modes of communication for enterprise customer contacts, including the rapidly growing non-voice channels, ISG says.

“Advanced CX solutions and services are more critical than ever,” said Jan Erik Aase, partner and global leader, ISG Provider Lens Research. “Choosing the right ones and tailoring them to fit a company’s specific needs is key to an enterprise’s health and market success.”

The report also examines how some enterprises have shifted their contact centers to low-cost but attractive European countries to improve the lifestyle of their employees, thus raising retention rates while reducing overall costs.

The 2023 ISG Provider Lens™ Customer Experience Services report for Europe evaluates the capabilities of 28 providers across four quadrants: Digital Operations, Hybrid Working Solutions, Intelligent CX (AI & Analytics) and Social Media CX Services.

The report names Atento, Capita, Firstsource, Foundever, Teleperformance and Webhelp as Leaders in all four quadrants, while Conduent, Movate, Transcom and Wipro are named as Leaders in three quadrants each. Concentrix and Tech Mahindra are named as Leaders in two quadrants each, while HGS is named as a Leader in one quadrant.

In addition, [24]7.ai is named as a Rising Star — a company with a “promising portfolio” and “high future potential” by ISG’s definition — in two quadrants, while HGS and WNS are named as Rising Stars in one quadrant each.

A customized version of the report is available from Foundever.

The 2023 ISG Provider Lens™ Customer Experience Services report for Europe is available to subscribers or for one-time purchase on this webpage.

About ISG Provider Lens™ Research

The ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant research series is the only service provider evaluation of its kind to combine empirical, data-driven research and market analysis with the real-world experience and observations of ISG's global advisory team. Enterprises will find a wealth of detailed data and market analysis to help guide their selection of appropriate sourcing partners, while ISG advisors use the reports to validate their own market knowledge and make recommendations to ISG's enterprise clients. The research currently covers providers offering their services globally, across Europe, as well as in the U.S., Canada, Brazil, the U.K., France, Benelux, Germany, Switzerland, the Nordics, Australia and Singapore/Malaysia, with additional markets to be added in the future. For more information about ISG Provider Lens research, please visit this webpage.

A companion research series, the ISG Provider Lens Archetype reports, offer a first-of-its-kind evaluation of providers from the perspective of specific buyer types.

About ISG

ISG (Information Services Group) (Nasdaq: III) is a leading global technology research and advisory firm. A trusted business partner to more than 900 clients, including more than 75 of the world’s top 100 enterprises, ISG is committed to helping corporations, public sector organizations, and service and technology providers achieve operational excellence and faster growth. The firm specializes in digital transformation services, including automation, cloud and data analytics; sourcing advisory; managed governance and risk services; network carrier services; strategy and operations design; change management; market intelligence and technology research and analysis. Founded in 2006, and based in Stamford, Conn., ISG employs more than 1,600 digital-ready professionals operating in more than 20 countries—a global team known for its innovative thinking, market influence, deep industry and technology expertise, and world-class research and analytical capabilities based on the industry’s most comprehensive marketplace data. For more information, visit www.isg-one.com.

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Contact information

Press Contacts:

Will Thoretz, ISG
+1 203 517 3119
will.thoretz@isg-one.com

Kate Hartley, Carrot Communications for ISG
+44 (0)20 3457 6403
kate.hartley@carrotcomms.co.uk