The Market

Not surprisingly, vendors of cloud-based contact center solutions this year showed the most momentum, given how important cloud capabilities have become in the current economic climate. Ovum, in its annual Decision Matrix for contact center solutions, estimated that 10 percent of all U.S. call center agent seats are now provisioned by hosted service providers, and expects this number to more than double to 23 percent by 2018. In addition to cost savings, companies cited simplified deployment, scalability, and access to the latest technology upgrades as reasons for choosing the cloud.

In 2013, companies also showed a continued emphasis on purchasing much—if not all—of their contact center infrastructure from a single source in the pursuit of easier and enduring integration. In this environment, leading contact center infrastructure vendors offering complete portfolios of solutions, comprising their own products and those of partners, are being favored over those that offer piecemeal solutions, according to Gartner.

While the industry will likely continue to struggle with multichannel integration, Ray Wang, principal analyst at Constellation Research, says a broader push needs to happen: “The key area will be beefing up analytics—yes, still analytics after twenty years of this being a problem,” he says. “Whoever gets this right will win key deals in 2014.”

The Leaders

Aspect Software, a newcomer to the leaderboard and a company whose main focus has been on cloud-based deployments, put up strong numbers in depth of functionality (4.1) and customer satisfaction (4.2), but its greatest asset was its company direction. It scored a 4.3 in that area, primarily on the strength of a number of new appointments at the senior executive level. “Aspect’s new management team helped breathe new vitality into what had been a declining brand,” says Sheila McGee-Smith, principal analyst at McGee-Smith Analytics.

The company was bolstered by its summer acquisition of Voxeo and the release of Zipwire, a cloud-based contact center offering. “Aspect has embraced its contact center roots and is doing all the right things,” says Paul Stockford, principal analyst at Saddletree Research. 

InContact, a cloud-based solutions provider and newcomer to the leaderboard, earned scores of 4.0 in company direction, customer satisfaction, and cost. Hot off a number of sizable customer wins and key partnerships, this is a company on the move. “InContact is one of the ones to watch in 2014,” McGee-Smith says. “Solid product improvement, coupled with strong reseller agreements with [companies such as] Verizon and Unify, have been key to its growth.”

Interactive Intelligence has grown quickly to a point where it can now effectively compete with and win out over many larger rivals. “From being a supplier of systems with basic capabilities to [providing more robust solutions for] the midmarket, they are moving effectively in both directions to challenge the top companies in this segment,” Stockford says. The company topped all competitors in its scores for customer satisfaction (4.3) and cost (4.2). “They have an aggressive pricing structure and a strong dedication to their customer base,” Stockford says.

“Company direction is where Interactive Intelligence really shines,” McGee-Smith adds. “The same strategy has been articulated and followed for several years, giving customers and prospects confidence when selecting this solution.”

The Winner

Cisco Systems continues to impress analysts this year. The company, Stockford says, “is the gold standard in infrastructure,” and it has the numbers to back that up. It led all competitors, with a score of 4.4, in depth of functionality, and pulled in scores of 4.2 in company direction and customer satisfaction. “They have a fully developed contact center strategy that they are effectively executing upon,” Stockford says.

And things are only going to get better as the company further develops and markets its Packaged Contact Center Enterprise offering, McGee-Smith adds. Partner and market acceptance of that solution set have already “helped deliver strong performance,” she says.  —Leonard Klie

ONE TO WATCH

Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories slid off the leaderboard for the first time in many years. The company’s rankings dipped considerably in customer satisfaction and company direction, but its depth of functionality remains unparalleled (with a score of 4.5). “Genesys’ customer-facing portfolio offerings are among the broadest,” observes Leslie Ament, senior vice president and principal analyst at Hypatia Research. But analysts remain cautious about the company as it continues to distance itself from Alcatel-Lucent. “The transition was rough in early 2013, but it seemed to hit its stride by [the fourth quarter],” Wang says. A big part of that transition was its recent acquisition efforts—the company acquired Angel, SoundBite Communications, and Echopass—something that shows an aggressive move to the cloud and promise as well.  —L.K.