Spending On Customer Service Buoys APAC Contact Centre Applications Mkt

While the Asia-Pacific is still the preferred off-shore destination for contact centres, keen focus on quality customer service has attracted business from domestic enterprises across the region. Organisations have begun to leverage customer service as a key differentiator to stand out in an intensely competitive environment. This higher interest in customer services has triggered investments in the advanced contact centre features and capabilities.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, Asia-Pacific Contact Centre Applications Market, 2011, finds that in 2011, the market registered more than 13 percent annual growth. To meet the rising customer demand, the region recorded a 9.7 percent growth in contact centre agent seats to reach 2.5 million, increasing the investment in contact centre applications.

The market will sustain double digit growth in 2012 despite the overall economic slowdown due to the continued deregulation of markets and growth in verticals such as online retail, telecom, government and education. Among countries, Japan, Australia, Korea, the Philippines and India were the key growth markets in 2011. By 2018, India and China are likely to account for over 30 percent of the total market revenue.

Multi-channel conversation and social media integration has gained extreme mind share across markets and is expected to grow rapidly across Asia-Pacific markets. Contact centre applications such as multimedia and speech found high uptake, particularly in Australia, due to the growing importance of self service and social media. Even high-growth markets like India, China and the Philippines are investing in self-service applications and optimisation tools. BFSI and Telco continue to be the leading verticals in terms of investment and are expected to drive the growth of the contact centre applications market, during the forecast period.

“Cost is a vital purchase factor for contact centre operations in the Asia-Pacific,” said Frost & Sullivan Industry Manager Krishna Baidya. “Therefore, several contact centres are looking ways to optimise their operations, generating strong demand for workforce Optimisation (WFO) and analytical tools.”

Across the region, many organisations are shying away from setting up in-house contact centres and instead, are seeking the services of small-sized contact centres offering customer contact services. Despite end users being at varying stages of growth, contact centre spending has increased across the board.

“Meanwhile, the rising popularity of cloud computing has encouraged the growth of alternative models such as hosted contact centre service with its pay-per-use model,” noted Baidya. “This is an attractive option in the Asia-Pacific, as it lowers upfront investments and prompts higher investments in contact centre services.”