Mumbai, May 21 India is ahead of global counterparts in customer engagement readiness and investment in technology, according to the Verint Engagement Capacity Gap (ECG) study.
The report is based on a survey conducted amongst 2,742 decision-makers across 13 key global markets including US/Canada, UK, Australia/New Zealand, Japan, France, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Mexico and Brazil. Out of these, over 250 CXOs were from India who oversee customer engagement and experience solutions for their organisations.
As per the report, “Indian firms were the top investors in customer engagement solutions in 2021, which has made them more resilient and better poised to close the customer engagement gap (what organisations need to do to meet customer expectations and the resources available for them to do it).”
74 per cent of the Indian CXOs had invested in Quality/Performance solutions in 2021 followed by Knowledge Management (49 per cent), and Experience Management (49 per cent) to improve overall customer experience.
The survey further found that the Indian market has shown solid improvement following the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, buoyed by significant investments in customer engagement solutions which has prepared them better for 2022.
“The study shows that Indian CXOs have been able to strike the right balance between automation and the human touch to better serve customers. They achieved this by deploying efficient self-service solutions for customers to decrease transaction load and by enabling employees with better tools and training to support consumers when required. Cloud, AI/ML, Knowledge Management and Workforce Optimization are the tools that Indian firms most need to invest in, to keep the momentum going,” the report said.
In terms of hiring, many organisations had previously cut down on hiring. However, this year saw a marked change with 86 per cent of Indian firms are planning to increase staffing levels to support customer engagement.
Further, the investments done in 2021 have made 88 per cent of the Indian CXOs confident and highly prepared to deal with remote workforce challenges in 2022.
The report also highlighted some of the major challenges expected in India in 2022 including building enduring customer relationships (77 per cent), understanding and quickly acting on changing consumer behaviours (72 per cent), using customer feedback to improve efficiency (72 per cent), and improving back-office operations (72 per cent).
Anil Chawla, Managing Director, Customer Engagement Solutions, Verint India said, “We are seeing Indian CXOs consistently striving towards delivering deeper, more meaningful, and valuable customer relationships by efficiently using cutting edge technologies like AI, Blockchain, Cloud and Data.”
“By investing in the right customer engagement solutions at every touchpoint, be it customer-facing or at the back-end, they are already witnessing tremendous RoI in the form of increased brand-customer stickiness with simultaneous reduction in customer management costs,” added Chawla.
Global trends
Globally, Quality/Performance solutions were the most implemented and expanded Customer Engagement & Experience solutions in 2021.
These are likely to remain a top budget expenditure in 2022.
“2022 Business Priorities show continued importance of acquiring new customers and improving customer experience, but also show the increased importance of employee wellness and recruitment of skilled talent,” the report further said.
76 per cent of respondents globally believed that the challenges associated with managing customer engagement and experience will continue to increase in 2022. Further, 60 per cent plan to increase staffing levels to support customer engagement in 2022 . For 47 per cent of survey respondents, half of their workforce or more is likely to remain remote in 2022. However, 62 per cent said that they are “highly prepared” to support the challenges of a remote workforce.
Published on
May 21, 2022
