Customer Experience Outsourcing Services in North America, Forecast to 2029

During the forecast period (2023 to 2029), the North American (NA) customer experience (CX) outsourcing services market is expected to expand, mainly due to 2 factors: 1) the growing recognition of CX as a potent tool for competitive advantage and 2) the increasing motivation for businesses to outsource their CX activities.

This market is poised for a moderate level of disruption due to the emergence of generative AI technology, whose high potential will drastically elevate agents’ productivity levels and allow companies to leverage self-service to a greater extent, increasingly without human intervention, in many cases.

Gen AI's impact will not be the same on the overall customer service landscape (including inhouse and outsource) as on the outsourcing industry, as an increasing number of organizations will be outsourcing more due to the rising complexity of running CX operations, which will provide a positive push to service providers´ growth rates.

Frost & Sullivan expects gen AI to have a negative impact on full-time employee (FTE) numbers, but this will be compensated by new types of customer interactions, which will require the re-skilling of contact center agents.

Companies expect continuous process enhancement and rapid and constant innovation. As organizations must adapt to changing market conditions, they are looking to partner with agile CXSPs to accelerate time to market. The right mix of people, processes, and technology is the key to success and will help providers bring reliable and agile transformation capabilities to their clients.

As more customer interactions continue to become automated, calls that reach live agents will grow in complexity, leading to an increase in average handle time (AHT). Companies are trying to improve agent productivity by providing the right tools and support, such as real-time recommendations, next-best-thing suggestions, and intelligent routing.

Many companies see contact centers as profit centers that open up new opportunities for cross- and up-selling. Companies also realize that conversion is exceptionally high when they harness customers’ natural touchpoints (e.g., at contract renewal junctures or during billing cycles), typically involving the contact center. Therefore, contact centers are becoming an essential element of an effective revenue growth strategy.

This study provides a detailed assessment of the NA CX outsourcing services market, discussing market share, segmentation, and forecast for several variables, including FTE numbers, markets served, industry verticals, born-digital versus traditional companies, channels of contact, and service functions. The study’s base year is 2022, and forecasts reach to 2029.

Author: Sebastian Menutti