More 2009 Contact Centre Predictions - Datamonitor

My last post ("My Contact Centre Top 5 Predictions for 2009") seems to have had a lot of interest, so thank you to all the readers who liked it.

I was sent today Datamonitor's latest contact centre reports ("2009 Trends to Watch: Contact Center Markets and Technologies", published 22nd Dec) and can recommend it. We have a corporate subscription to Datamonitor and and I've tended to like Datamonitor's research as it's focused more on the market trends and the buyers needs than on the vendors and their products. I also must admit to using them extensively in the past when I was working in consulting and needed insight into sectors of the retail financial services markets.

The report has some very good points to make about potential growth in the contact centre mid-market and around SaaS offerings. It also highlights that the super-large contact centre (so common in financial services) will probably not be driving forward technology spend in the current market conditions in the way that this segment has driven functionality in the past. I'm not sure about Datamonitor's view on the 'rehabilitation of outbound', at least for Europe and the UK. It is true that companies do want to use the outbound phone channel more proactively and better, but most to date have managed to damage their reputation with outbound (See my blog posts: "Barclays, silent calling & we've been here before..." and "Banks criticised by BBC for automated calls "). I fully agree with Datamonitor's view on the importance of business process (see my blog: "My Contact Centre Top 5 Predictions for 2009", though Datamonitor have an interesting and slightly different view) and the potential growth in contact centre analytics. I think they've got some very good insight on those subjects and I've got some interesting things to think about.

In short, I've found this Datamonitor report one of the better analyst assessments of the contact centre market in 2009 and it's well worth buying.