Latin America's Contact Center Market Is Booming

New research from Frost & Sullivan has found a flourishing contact center applications market in Latin America, driven by the need to ensure higher quality customer interactions, an investment-friendly atmosphere, and the rapid development of new markets in the Andean region.

The Frost & Sullivan report, "Overview on the Latin American Contact Center Applications Markets," has found that the market earned revenue of more than $407.1 million in 2011 and is expected to reach $757.9 million in 2018, at a compound annual growth rate of 9.3 percent. The Latin American contact center applications market in the Andean and Southern Cone regions is expected to grow at 10.3 percent and 9.8 percent respectively through 2018. Brazil will be the regional revenue leader with a 51.6 percent share of the market.

"Market expansion in Latin America will lead to substantial contact center application development to ensure efficient customer interaction," said Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Martin Ramirez. "Proactive tools will also be in high demand as contact centers will be focusing on business intelligence in order to implement a personalized approach to customer relationships."

Among some of the other findings are the following:

• Agent performance optimization (APO) will be the most sought-after application by companies. Interactive voice response (IVR) tools are popular in industries such as banking and telecommunications, which are looking to simplify certain processes. End users have also become accustomed to and prefer IVR.
• Inbound contact routing (ICR) system income is expected to reach $500.2 million in 2018. Since ICR is the primary contact center tool needed to attend to end users, it will remain in demand as new companies enter the region and expansion plans continue.
• Brazil's dominance makes the rest of the region overly dependent on its economic future, putting the market's long-term growth in jeopardy. Economic insecurity in key countries such as Argentina and Colombia could restrain expansion.
• The low penetration of social media technologies is mainly due to the fact that companies have no clear understanding of its real value for the business. Indeed, despite the awareness of the benefits of social media, pricing concerns force companies to evaluate the return on invest of these solutions.

"However, demand for new and effective solutions may lead to increased interaction through social media," concluded Ramirez. "As the large-center segment reaches maturity, vendors must come up with new strategies to penetrate the small and medium business market and stay competitive."