The Aragon Research Globe™ for Intelligent Contact Centers, 2021 Data and AI Will Power Next-Generation Customer Experiences Author: Jim Lundy July 15, 2021 | Research Note 2021-24 Video Producer: Adam Pease Topic: Intelligent contact center Issue: Who are the intelligent contact center providers and how will they evolve? SUMMARY Key Findings: Aragon Research releases its third Aragon Research Globe™ for intelligent contact centers (ICCs). The ICC Prediction: By YE 2021, virtual agents (e.g., digital market is in the midst of consolidation as the demand for labor) will become a key feature of intelligent contact center offerings. This will force enterprises to do contact centers has grown during the pandemic. As planning for the ratio of human labor to digital labor. digital labor continues to grow, the 15 major vendors in this report are offering different levels of virtual agent Cost per Case Humans vs. Bots: capabilities. Virtual Agents: $1-$4 Human Agents: $15-$100 Prediction: By YE 2022, AI-based contact centers will be able to identify the real issue a customer is facing 50% faster than traditional approaches. Copyright © 2021 Aragon Research Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Digital Workplace Service RESEARCH NOTE Number: 2021-24 July 15, 2021 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3 The Contact Center in a Post-Covid Economy ............................................................................................ 3 Customer Experience and the Universal Customer Profile .......................................................................... 5 Omnichannel Communications—Voice, Email, Chat, and Video ................................................................. 5 Key Trends Driving Digital Transformation ................................................................................................... 6 Hybrid Cloud—Why Containerized Applications and Data Residency Matter ............................................. 6 Virtual Contact Center Comes of Age .......................................................................................................... 6 The Convergence of UCC and ICC—Better Together .................................................................................. 7 Building a Knowledge Base for ICC—Profiles and Graphs .......................................................................... 8 Knowledge Graphs, Sentiment, and Customer Data Platforms Will Power Advanced Analytics for Humans and Virtual Agents .......................................................................................................................... 8 The Current State of Artificial Intelligence .................................................................................................... 9 Deploying Virtual Agents Now .................................................................................................................... 10 Preparing for the Rise of Digital Labor ....................................................................................................... 11 Contact Center Feature Wars Give Way to More Use Cases ..................................................................... 11 Workforce Optimization—Integrated Vs. Best of Breed ............................................................................. 12 The Intelligent Contact Center Is Here ....................................................................................................... 12 Voice Analytics Go Realtime ...................................................................................................................... 13 Conversational AI—Providers Go Their Own Way ..................................................................................... 14 Virtual Agent Capabilities are a Must-Have for Modern Contact Centers ................................................. 14 The Increased Need for Profiles and Knowledge Repositories .................................................................. 15 The Aragon Research Globe™ for Intelligent Contact Centers, 2021 ....................................................... 17 Leaders ....................................................................................................................................................... 18 Contenders ................................................................................................................................................. 25 Innovators ................................................................................................................................................... 31 Getting Started With ICC ............................................................................................................................ 33 Aragon Advisory ......................................................................................................................................... 33 Bottom Line ................................................................................................................................................ 33 Dimensions of Analysis .............................................................................................................................. 34 The Four Sectors of the Globe ................................................................................................................... 35 Inclusion Criteria ......................................................................................................................................... 36 Copyright © 2021 Aragon Research Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Aragon Research and the Aragon Research Globe are trademarks of Aragon Research Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This publication may not be distributed in any form without Aragon Research’s prior written permission. The information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Nevertheless, Aragon Research provides this publication and the information contained in it "AS IS," without warranty of any kind. To the maximum extent allowed by law, Aragon Research expressly disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information and shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in such information. This publication consists of the opinions of Aragon Research and Advisory Services organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. The opinions expressed here-in are subject to change without notice. Although Aragon Research may include a discussion of related legal issues, Aragon Research does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Aragon Research is a private company and its clients may include firms or financial institutions that have financial interests in entities covered by Aragon Research. Further information about the objectivity of Aragon Research can be found at aragonresearch.com Digital Workplace Service RESEARCH NOTE Number: 2021-24 July 15, 2021 Introduction If there was any doubt about the strategic importance of contact centers, that doubt went away during the pandemic. Many contact center providers were able to react quickly to provide enhanced services, including virtual agent capabilities for remote contact center associates. While demand for cloud contact centers is at an all-time high, the reason for this is the need for a modern offering that is increasingly intelligent. The race to the intelligent contact center is on, and going forward, the base capabilities for ICC will be assumed. The challenge will be for automation and intelligence, both for human agents and now, increasingly, for the computer-based virtual agents. This Research Note evaluates the trends in the market and identifies 15 key providers that are making a difference in intelligent contact centers. One of the things that is driving the demand for the contact center is better customer experiences. The need to understand who the customer prospect is one of the foundational elements that leads to a better experience both during the call and often during the post-call correspondence. Regarding customer experience, omnichannel capabilities are also now given. The need to be able to offer multiple levels of customer interaction will continue to be a differentiator for some providers. The need for better customer experiences has put pressure on both contact center operators and the providers that supply them. The need to offer omnichannel communication options is important to enable individualized customer service experiences. Since incoming customer service requests will vary widely in context and technology used (laptop, smartphone, etc.), contact centers must have a sufficient communications framework in place to support variations in customer experiences. The Contact Center in a Post-Covid Economy We are in the midst of a post-Covid return to work, which also means being able to do more things virtually and provide better levels of customer support. While hybrid work is now a de facto standard for knowledge workers, Aragon feels that some enterprises will continue to let contact center agents work virtually. However, in many industries, we do feel that there will be a push for agents to return to the contact center due to the efficiency of scale. The other reality is that customers