The Best Contact Center Outsourcing: The 2023 CRM Industry Leader Awards

THE MARKET

Though the exact dollar value varies among analyst and research firms, the worldwide contact center outsourcing market stands somewhere between $80 billion and $100 billion today and could reach up to $160 billion by 2030. And though firms largely agree that the market is poised for growth, that growth isn’t expected to be as robust as it had been just a few years ago. Most projections call for compound annual growth rates of between 4 percent and 8 percent.

The growth of the market depends on several factors, including geopolitical, social, and economic factors, all of which are uncertain and can change at a moment’s notice. Also impacting the market are the rise of emerging countries as call center destinations, increasing use of automation in call centers, and a focus on reducing operating costs.

Due to the low operating costs, call center organizations have long outsourced operations to countries such as India and the Philippines. These companies are now expanding their business in Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Egypt, and Malaysia, among other countries.

While largely used to field inbound calls, contact center outsourcers are increasingly being asked to handle outbound interactions as well. And as customer interactions move to other channels beyond the phone, industry demand is forcing outsourcers to adopt more omnichannel strategies.

THE TOP FIVE

Alorica manages more than 2 billion customer interactions per year on behalf of its clients. The Irvine, Calif.-based company has more than 115,000 employees working in 17 countries and speaking more than 35 languages. It recently added operations in Egypt and Poland and launched Alorica IQ, a digital foundry that unifies all of its digital solutions, analytics, and consulting in one end-to-end suite. Alorica IQ provides a deep dive into customer preferences, call drivers, and friction points across channels and processes and guides companies to uncover blind spots in their customer journeys.

Even before COVID-19 forced many contact center operators to send their agents home, LiveOps has based its operations on the work-from-home model since its founding in 2000. The Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company has a workforce of 25,000 onshore agents for customer service and sales and operates on a pay-per-use basis. And while other companies were having a labor shortage, LiveOps was hiring. The company points to its unique VirtualFlex Platform, which attracts people who desire autonomy and flexibility to work around their lives, as the reason for this growth. LiveOps handles 70 million interactions a year for 250 clients.

Movate (formerly CSS) offers a diverse pool of more than 12,000 full-time agents across 20 global locations and a gig network of thousands of technology experts across 60 countries, speaking more than 100 languages. Together, they manage more than 1.2 billion customer interactions per year for their clients. The company, which is based in San Jose, Calif., “has carved out a niche for itself in today’s new age of digital-led value propositions for clients, and this has facilitated the company’s substantial growth over the last few years,” said Sanjay Chakrabarty, managing partner of Capital Square Partners, the private equity firm with a controlling stake in Movate, in a statement.

Despite a failed attempt to merge with Majorel, Foundever (formerly Sitel Group) is one of the top three largest contact center outsourcing firms in the world. With more than 9 million customer experiences delivered daily by 170,000 employees in 45 countries supporting more than 60 languages, it has the global strength and scale that its more than 750 clients demand. The Miami-based company gained a lot of strength in its 2021 acquisition of Sykes Enterprises and continues to build momentum through technology partnerships this year with Sprinklr and Genesys.

When it comes to size and scope, few companies can compare to Teleperformance, which has a team of nearly 420,000 people working in 88 countries and speaking more than 300 languages and dialects. The company, which is based in Paris, also has an annual revenue of $8.6 billion and serves more than 1,000 clients in 170 markets globally.