Frost & Sullivan surveyed 661 IT decision-makers around the globe to IT/Communications to gain a deeper understanding of the impact of COVID-19 and their plans to exceed CX expectations as the world recovers from the pandemic. COVID-19 accelerated the move towards self-service, allowing many companies to invest in technology that deflects calls/live chat but still improves the customer experience (CX). Voice continues to lead, but self-service channels such as virtual agents and IVR will be heavily supported over the next year. restructure their organizations to take advantage of new resource pools and longer tenures. COVID-19 forced organizations to reallocate resources quickly, revealing another aspect of contact center operations that needs attention. Employees had to be trained on new tasks quickly, and some companies did not have the solutions in place to do so. In an industry accustomed to attrition, many companies realize the value of agent retention. They are investing in tools that allow younger generations, gig workers, “retirees,” along with those enlightened by the new COVID-driven work-at-home culture to attain the flexible schedules they want. Companies across regions recognized that agent performance improved when they moved to work from home. This study explores differences in countries with a large number of contact centers. The countries covered include: • United States • Brazil • Germany • UK/Ireland • India • Philippines • Australia/New Zealand The primary goals of this research are to: • Understand the impact of COVID-19 on contact centers • Understand challenges organizations face today • Monitor the status of digital transformation • Assess the current and future use of contact center solutions • Evaluate factors that drive investments in contact center solutions • Gauge market and technology trends • Appraise available IT budgets • Discover opportunities in different regions Channels covered: voice, email/web form, social media messaging apps, social media apps, mobile apps, SMS, Chat with live agents, virtual agents, video chat, video teller/kiosk, and IVR. Technologies covered: conversational AI & virtual assistants/bots, quality monitoring, collaboration tools, performance management, flexible APIs/CPaaS, eLearning for agents, proactive customer care, gamification, and augmented reality. This study is valuable for solution providers to better understand what each region seeks in delivering excellent CX, and end-user businesses to benchmark themselves against the competition and other industries. Author: Alpa Shah