Demand for cloud technology is growing. These days, companies need more than just a cloud environment for unified communications; they need the same flexibility and versatility for the contact centre too. CCaaS, or contact centre as a service, provides today’s companies with infinite scalability and freedom. It also ensures that teams can continue to offer customer support wherever they are.
Gartner, one of the leaders in market analytics, has finally released the Magic Quadrant report for CCaaS in 2020.
Interestingly, there’s only one report this year, covering the entire globe (rather than Western Europe and North America separately). This decision to consolidate 2 reports into one has caused some upset in the industry already, leaving many to wonder if it was the right choice.
Let’s take a closer look.
The Four Pillars of Customer Service
According to Gartner, by 2024, CCaaS solutions including functionality from all of the four pillars of technology for customer service, will represent around 70% of all deployments. That’s an increase from 20% in 2019.
In 2019, Gartner identified four pillars for exceptional customer service:
- Exploring digital applications to enhance efficiency
- Prioritising and improving digital experience
- Gaining control over service websites
- Meeting increasing pressures and demand for accountability internally
As always, the 2020 Magic Quadrant for CCaaS divides each vendor into one of four segments: Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries, and Niche Players. Here’s who made the cut this year.
The 2020 CCaaS Magic Quadrant Leaders
Leaders in the Magic Quadrant show excellent commitment to the four pillars of customer service and can serve multinational organisations with support and sales solutions. Leaders are also more likely to serve customers with support from channel partners, according to Gartner. This year’s choices are:
- NICE inContact
- Genesys
- Talkdesk
NICE InContact
Nice inContact earned a leadership position in the Magic Quadrant with the CXOne solution for CCaaS. This service is available both directly and through channel partners that span the globe. One of the major channel partners for NICE inContact is a leading UCaaS provider, RingCentral – who bundles the service for SMBs. NICE inContact demonstrates an excellent commitment to the pillars of customer service and provides an integrated approach to service delivery.
Genesys
Another leader for the CCaaS Magic Quadrant is Genesys, with Genesys Cloud. The specialist CCaaS platform is available through both direct sales and channel partners. Unique solutions are available for different geographical regions. With Genesys Cloud, Gartner notes that Genesys highlights a commitment to the four crucial pillars of customer service, delivering more agile solutions on demand. Genesys also has an extensive operational presence in various places around the world, allowing for better contact centre platform consolidation.
Talkdesk
Talkdesk also earned its spot as a leader in the 2020 CCaaS Magic Quadrant with CX Cloud. The specialised CCaaS platform is available through channel partners and direct. Talkdesk started life focusing on the US market, but it has proliferated over the years. Today, the company offers a fantastic service proposition for various multiregional organisations. Talkdesk also demonstrates a deep commitment to the pillars of customer service, with an excellent vision for analytics-driven engagements for both the employee and customer.
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Gartner Magic Quadrant for CCaaS 2020[/caption]
The 2020 CCaaS Magic Quadrant Challengers
Challengers in the CCaaS Magic Quadrant have large install bases, but they won’t always have the same level of brand awareness as the market leaders. These companies might be less mature than Leaders when it comes to tackling the market and focus more heavily on certain subsets of the market. This year’s challengers are:
- Five9
- Content Guru
- 8x8
- Vonage
Five9
Five9 stood out as a challenger for this year’s 2020 Magic Quadrant, although the company’s CEO spoke out, saying that he believed that five9 should have remained in its leadership position. Five9 has nearly 2 decades of experience offering high-performance contact centre solutions, initially starting in North America. However, the brand has recently begun expanding outwards into Europe and Latin America. The Intelligent Cloud Contact Centre has a multi-region footprint, and Five9 delivers excellent results for the four pillars of customer service.
Content Guru
Another challenger in the Magic Quadrant for CCaaS, Content Guru provides the storm CONTACT platform for CCaaS through a mixture of indirect and direct channels. The company has grown its footprint massively over the years, expanding across various markets. Usually, the brand appeals most to companies with more complicated contact centre requirements. Content Guru delivers on the four pillars of customer service through in-house innovation with things like Symphony for resource management, and the AI framework.
8x8
8x8 is another major challenger in the Magic Quadrant for CCaaS. The 8x8 Contact Centre is a valuable part of the 8x8 cloud collaboration platform, either bundled as a component of the X Series or delivered as a standalone solution. The 8x8 brand has a strong footprint within the global market, and it’s a great solution for CCaaS, particularly when it comes to serving small and mid-sized businesses. 8x8 has made excellent progress in strengthening its commitment to Gartner’s 4 pillars of customer service, and it has various partnerships for workforce engagement management as well as virtual customer assistants.
Vonage
The final challenger in the Magic Quadrant for CCaaS this year is Vonage. The Vonage Contact Centre comes as part of a comprehensive programmable communications platform solution, which incorporates CPaaS and UCaaS too. After acquiring NewVoiceMedia, Vonage has expanded its market in Europe, but it’s quickly growing on a more global scale too. Vonage is an excellent choice for European multinational companies, according to Gartner, and its vision of an integrated platform that meets the needs of all communication requirements is sure to make an impact in the future.
The 2020 CCaaS Magic Quadrant Visionaries
Visionaries in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for CCaaS are described by Gartner as companies with strong multi-channel service and product solutions. Visionaries set themselves apart from other players with innovative and unique functionalities, which helps them to expand brand awareness across their target markets. This year’s visionaries are:
- Odigo
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Odigo
Odigo stands as a visionary in the Magic Quadrant this year for a specialist CCaaS platform offered through Capgemini and direct sales. The company was previously Prosodie until 2019, when it rebranded. The strongest proposition for Odigo, according to Gartner, is European multinational companies. Odigo has a strong development vision for natural language capabilities in the contact centre, and automation. Gartner also notes that the company has a strong commitment to the four pillars of great customer service.