According to analyst firm Ovum, in 2010 contact center outsourcing providers  will be challenged by tight in-house CRM budgets and agent-related challenges.

This is based on a recent Ovum contact center manager survey. It reveals that across North America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand, only 1 out of 5 believed that their budgets would grow, with approximately 80% stating that theirs would contract or remain flat.

Lead analyst Peter Ryan said that this has placed tremendous pressure on enterprises that maintain in-house contact centers, as limited cash on hand means that they are unable to invest in new and leading-edge technology.

“ Agent management will be compromised in terms of investing in ongoing training or increased staff incentives”, said Ryan. “These will result in the erosion of the end-user relationship over the long-term”.

From the perspective of the contact center outsourcer, this means new contract opportunities with firms looking to maintain or improve customer service levels, but that can only work within limited means. This ties directly with changing priorities among enterprises.

There is a marked trend for enterprises to want to use their contact centers for the purposes of developing more revenue opportunities and end-user loyalty.  This is very different from the end of 2008/start of 2009 at the outset of the recession, during which time firms indicated that the over-riding priority was cost management.

However, as enterprises work with outsourcers, they are aiming to find partners that are not only capable of ensuring strong customer interactions; rather they want a superior level of service, in which they can go above and beyond during calls, to the point that the agents’ performance will encourage the end-user to remain with them and to not want to find another provider.

In addition to excellent service levels, enterprises want to engage outsourcers that are able to develop leads on the back of service calls to the extent of converting them into cross-sales/upsales of other products and services.  This will reduce the actual cost of the contact center as a service, while at the same time increasing overall profitability.