May 2, 2018
The contact center has come a long way. The days of agents with bouffant hairdos sitting at switchboards fielding telephone calls on a first come, first serve basis have been replaced by agents leveraging omnichannel capabilities to gain a single view of the customer – increasingly from the comforts of remote offices. The contact center is no longer the passive, red-headed stepchild of an organization but rather a dynamic and proactive engagement center responsible for driving real business results – including revenue and long-tern loyalty.
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Technology has played a significant role in this shift given it’s the foundation for delivering experiences – and cloud advancements have only improved capabilities that help ensure consistent delivery of these experiences. Cloud-based contact center providers have popped up by the dozens in recent years, with the larger players growing even larger through acquisition. According to Gartner, UCaaS revenues will grow to $19.5B and surpass on-premises system revenues by 2021. The move to cloud is inevitable in many respects. So who are the most notable cloud players and what does Gartner have to say about them?
Today we’ll take a snap shot view of the current market leaders and what exactly makes them market leaders. Specifically, we’ll look at:
- Five9
- inContact
- Genesys
- Broadsoft
Five9
Five9 is one of the oldest players in the Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) space, offering their solutions since 2003. Five9 has a bit of an edge over other providers as their solution was built on the Five9 platform as opposed to another provider’s platform. This has given Five9 greater control over what, when, and how they advance their offerings.
According to Gartner, Five9 is well-suited for the SMB market and large enterprises. Services are delivered from three data centers located in the U.S., U.K., and Netherlands. In the last year, Five9 has invested in “global voice infrastructure with AWS voice points of presence in locations around the world.” Five9 is a good choice for any organization looking for a completely cloud-based contact center solution.
Some of the highlights for Five9 as noted by Gartner:
- Strong brand recognition
- Longevity – CCaaS offering has been in the market since 2003
- Simple administration and setup
- Premium level support for even the most complex deployments
- Close relationship with Salesforce for deep integration into their CRM, among others like Desk.com, Microsoft Dynamics, NetSuite, Oracle, etc.
- Strong social media customer service
- Native natural-language understanding engine to deliver real-time insights and predictions on how best to respond with next steps
Nice inContact
inContact has been offering CCaaS solutions since the early 2000’s. The company was acquired by Nice in 2016 which greatly helped improve the overall service. It’s “purpose-built customer interaction management platform” was combined with cloud-based WEM functionality from the parent company of Nice to form a robust, comprehensive offering.
Service is based out of the U.S. and Germany with 2 AWS locations in the U.S. and another in Europe. inContact has strong brand recognition and Gartner recommends them specifically for midsize or larger solutions and deployments, especially those that benefit from integration with enterprise WEM solutions.
Some of the highlights as noted by Gartner:
- Strong brand presence within the CCaaS market with the ability to serve midsize and large deployments in the U.S. and Europe
- Expanding global footprint due to greater corporate financial assets brought with the Nice acquisition
- Expanding market presence due to channel partners with telco’s like AT&T and Verizon and UCaaS providers like Fuze and Vonage
Genesys
Genesys recently entered the leader quadrant in the Gartner Magic Quadrant CCaaS study, the only change compared to the 2016 quadrant, primarily due to the acquisition of Interactive Intelligence. Genesys offers PureCloud with a wide range of platforms serving various customer requirements. PureCloud is really aimed at large and very large customers with over 750 agents. PureConnect Cloud supports midsize and larger clients with 150-750 agents.
The PureCloud services are delivered through two U.S. data centers as well as two Canadian data centers, and one data center in the U.K, Netherlands, Australia, India and Singapore. Meanwhile PureConnect Cloud is provided through two data centers in the U.S., two in Canada, one in the U.K and Germany, two in Australia and two in Japan. Genesys has a sizable global footprint, ideal for large organizations with operations around the world. Genesys covers every level of these markets with varying levels of customization.
Some additional highlights as noted by Gartner:
- Genesys offers solutions for a wide range of customer sizes and complexity levels
- Cloud solutions use similar code bases to their on-premise solutions, enabling simple on premise to cloud migrations
- Strong brand recognition and global presence delivers broad geographic support
Customer Journey Platform (CJP)
Cisco acquired Broadsoft – now named Cisco Customer Journey Platform – very recently, so no Gartner Magic Quadrant data is available at this time. BroadSoft has historically focused on selling UCaaS and CCaaS platforms to service providers who leverage these platforms to offer services to their own customer bases. In contrast, Transera, acquired by Broadsoft in 2016, has historically focused on providing CCaaS services directly to large and very large, complex contact centers. Transera began to execute in the midsize contact center space in recent years.
Broadsoft will deliver a full cloud portfolio that includes unified communications, team collaboration, and contact center solutions, with advanced mobility capabilities. One of the key differentiators being touted is the ability to deeply integrate into a service provider’s mobile network, enabling the world’s largest mobile telecommunications companies such as Vodafone to offer compelling mobile UC solutions to medium-sized businesses. Another example is Verizon One Talk, a unique industry-first solution that will enable small businesses to share a single mobile number on both mobile and office phones.Bottom of Form
Some additional observations made by our contact center solution architects:
- BroadSoft has a strong BI/reporting/analytics interface
- BroadSoft’s CCaaS solution can overlay over multiple contact center platforms
- Broadsoft is sold by telco providers under different brands
- The company has a large footprint in unified communications
- Cisco branding across multiple geographies
Moving to the Cloud Requires Careful Consideration and Perhaps a Hybrid Approach
We hope this blog has provided some insights into the more notable players in the CCaaS space. The Gartner Magic Quadrant ranks all providers, so it’s highly recommended such studies be reviewed before diving into conversations with any provider.
Our experience with contact center clients in recent years has shown a hybrid approach being taken, with roadmaps leveraged to plan the migration and ongoing management. The reality is, a hybrid approach is often the best first step in moving to the cloud. Mindsight offers a Contact Center Roadmap capability that will help you evaluate whether the cloud is right for your organization, including a step-by-step process for migrating. As part of this exercise, we also identify business process improvements, application integration opportunities and recommendations on the latest and greatest tools. Contact Mindsight to speak with one of our experts and we can help you get started on your roadmap today.
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