Market analytics leader Gartner has released its much awaited 2021 Magic Quadrant report for Contact Center as a Service.
With the effect of the pandemic still panning out, demand for CCaaS solutions is only increasing as companies cater to more complex demands from customers globally.
This more global perspective already spurred Gartner to consolidate its separate contact centre reports for Western Europe and North America into one last year, with the practice continuing into the new report.
Editor-in-Chief David Dungay recently spoke to Zeus Kerravala, Founder of ZK Research, about the significance of the latest CCaaS quadrant.
The Definition of Contact Centre as a Service
According to Gartner, CCaaS refers to any SaaS application that helps customer service companies manage customer interactions across channels in a single location.
Gartner identified the one core capability of a CCaaS solution as being the capacity to deliver channel-agnostic customer service journeys, including intelligent self-service. Three optional CCaaS capabilities were also identified:
- Process orchestration to support complex customer engagements
- Resource management and employee engagement
- Customer and operational knowledge and insights
Based in part on their adherence to these pillars, the 2021 Magic Quadrant for CCaaS divides each vendor into one of four segments: Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries, and Niche Players. Here, we run through them all.
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Gartner Magic Quadrant for CCaaS 2021[/caption]
The 2021 CCaaS Magic Quadrant Leaders
Leaders in the Magic Quadrant support the four aforementioned pillars of customer service and are capable of serving multinational organisations. Leaders are also more likely to serve customers through channel partners and have strong brand recognition stemming from large install bases or market growth. This year’s leaders are:
- Genesys
- NICE CXone
- Talkdesk
NICE CXone
NICE CXone once again features as a leader in the 2021 Magic Quadrant, albeit under a new name having rebranded from Nice inContact. The CXone specialised CCaaS platform is offered directly as well as through channel partners cuh as leading UCaaS provider RingCentral. Gartner said the company’s recent acquisition of knowledge management firm MindTouch further bolstered its strength across the pillars of customer service, with particular strength in AI thanks to NICE CXone’s capacity for self-learning customer interaction models.
Genesys
Genesys’ Cloud CX CCaaS platform secured its place on the Magic Quadrant. The company is one of the more venerable companies included, having been founded in 1990 - though Genesys Cloud CX was launched in 2015. Gartner said the company was strongly committed to the four pillars of customer service, with strengths in its broad geographic spread and customer journey analytics and orchestration capabilities. Genesys also differentiates itself through pricing, including policies for compensating customers in the event of missed SLA commitments.
Talkdesk
Talkdesk took its place as a leader in the 2021 CCaaS Magic Quadrant via its specialised CCaaS platform CX Cloud. Gartner said the company has a strong service proposition for multinationals based in both North America and Europe, with the company strongly committed to all four pillars of customer service. Talkdesk’s solution includes industry and vertical-specific products in areas such as healthcare and life sciences, retail, e-commerce and consumer goods, with the company also having upgraded its AI capabilities with a nontechnical AI training solution.
The 2021 CCaaS Magic Quadrant Challengers
While Challengers have large install bases, Gartner says they don’t necessarily rival Leaders in terms of brand awareness or adoption. Challengers are also more restricted geographically, focusing on market subsets, customer segments and specific verticals. This year’s challengers are:
- Five9
- Content Guru
- 8×8
- Vonage
Five9
Challenger Five9’s place is secured via its Intelligent Cloud Contact Center CCaaS platform, with particular strength in the Americas where it is capable of serving US multinationals. The company continues to expand in Europe and Latin America, however, with growth in sales to the international offices of US-based customers. Having acquired Inference Solutions late last year, Five9 has strong self-service and automation capabilities such as process orchestration and natural language understanding.
Content Guru
Content Guru’s specialised CCaaS platform is known as storm CONTACT, and is offered to customers both directly and via indirect channels. Having been founded in the UK, Content Guru has particular strength in the European region, with Gartner saying that it is suited to organisations with larger and more complex contact centre requirements (although it also offers a dedicated SMB product). The company’s commitment to the four pillars of customer service are being boosted via built-in CRM and service management functionality.