The North American contact center outsourcing market will see revenues reaching $27.5 billion in 2013, up from $20.7 billion in 2006, according to a recent report from market research firm Front & Sullivan.

According to Frost & Sullivan’s (News - Alert) “North American Contact Center Outsourcing Markets” report, companies are increasingly outsourcing their contact center operations for several important reasons. First, organizations today are increasingly looking to focus on core competencies, while also striving to improve service quality by building brand equity and loyalty through exceptional customer interactions.

A well run outsourced contact center can accomplish both of these things: It lets company management focus on the core business – and at the same time, most outsourcers today are offering superior customer service, simply because they have the luxury of focusing entirely on the contact center, including recruiting and training agents and keeping up with innovations in technology. For these two reasons alone, organizations will continue to outsource their contact center services and the market will continue to see impressive growth.

“On the whole, outsourcing providers continue to prove their mettle by managing customer interactions at a lower cost with consistently better results than in-house contact centers,” said Frost & Sullivan Strategic Analyst Michael DeSalles in a press release. “Work-at-home agent (WAHA) providers play an important role in engagements that span the full spectrum of industry verticals including financial services, retail, travel and hospitality.

” Indeed, the home-based or remote agent trend has put a new spin on contact center outsourcing. Numerous contact center outsourcing firms are now using the remote agent model exclusively, as it enables them to more easily attract and retain experienced agents who deliver superior customer service. Whereas traditional contact centers were ham-strung by the fact that they could only attract talent from the immediate geographic region, the remote agent model -- facilitated through the power of IP -- means centers now have a “national pool” of candidates who work from home and therefore can be located anywhere in the country.

That means outsourcers can go out and find the best agents possible agents for delivering quality customer service regardless of where they live – and they can even go out and recruit agents with specific skill sets. Furthermore, the vast majority of remote or home-based agents are incredibly happy with their jobs, which in turns helps reduce attrition rates, which in turn helps lower recruiting and training costs. (In addition, happier agents tend to deliver better customer service). However, as the report points out, “Outsourcing firms must contain cost, improve agent efficiencies and deliver high-quality interactions in order to remain competitive in this market.

” Obviously, competition is growing in this market, and as outsourcers come to undercut each other on price they are going to have to continue to provide the same level of quality if the industry as a whole is to continue growing. Furthermore, the contact center outsourcing market is now largely driven by global economics. Many of the leading North American contact center outsourcers, in an effort to meet the needs of their global clients, are establishing centers off-shore and near shore as well, so that they can provide continuous, round-the-clock (or “follow the sun”) coverage for their clients all over the world. As outsourcing companies increase the number of locations they manage globally, there will obviously be challenges in managing all of those locations and providing a consistent customer experience across all centers. Also making the picture complicated is the fact that today’s centers must increasingly blend inbound and outbound services and be capable of handling all forms of contact – from phone to email to Web chat to SMS – in order to meet the demands of their customers. As businesses come to expect contact center outsourcers to adopt new technologies to deliver better customer service, they will be challenged to make wise technology investments and to implement technology properly.

As contact centers must now learn to handle different forms of contact effectively, complexity will only increase, particularly as consumers increasingly demand faster service and the ability to choose their own preferred mode of contact. “In this highly competitive market, organizations are looking to drive process improvements by moving the needle on service quality to enhance brand equity,” DeSalles said. “Meeting end-user demand for quality and speed in a multi-channel environment is a challenge for even the most experienced outsourcers.” “North American Outsourced Contact Center Services Market,” part of Frost & Sullivan's “Contact Center Services Subscription,” includes a complete analysis of key market challenges, drivers, restraints and trends that are impacting market penetration as well as growth. The expert analysis outlines market size, market share of major providers, and pricing strategies. Author: Patrick Barnard, TMCNet