2024 will be remembered as a “turning point” year, especially for the customer experience (CX) industry. It was a year when companies in general faced rising inflation and lower consumer spending amid a challenging and volatile post-COVID market. In a bid to reduce operating expenses, many companies focused purely on sourcing the lowest cost CX providers, sometimes to the detriment of service quality – risking what truly matters, the long-term loyalty of customers.
Not only was 2024 a year affected by significant budgetary constraints, but it was also a time of risks and opportunities, where brands were sowing the seeds of tomorrow’s successes or failures based on their outsourcing decisions and partnerships. At the same time, we were also navigating dramatic shifts in technology that forever altered the way we serve customers, as clients assessed which technology and AI investments would eventually pay off.
Unfortunately, many companies focused purely on cost-cutting, which put immense pressure on CX providers to do more with less – a challenge we overcame as a company through sheer tenacity, skill, and a steadfast approach. But what we also learned is that managing budgets at the expense of customer experience is shortsighted. We see this in the steep decline in customer satisfaction scores across industries, as reported in Forrester’ s 2024 CX Index. Even elite brands are being affected, and it is this erosion of consumer trust that needs to be addressed before it’s too late.
When customer retention is at stake, contact centers should not be viewed as financial liabilities, but as opportunities to enhance satisfaction, capture lifetime value, and ensure enduring brand loyalty. Outsourcing partners should not be chosen simply because they provide the lowest cost services, but because they provide efficiency gains and quality experiences through a balance of technology, insight, and capable talent.
The good news is that businesses don’t have to go across to the other side of the world to do this in a cost-effective manner. In 2024, we launched itelligence®, our custom-built, AI-powered platform that combines data analytics, advanced sentiment analysis, and automatic quality scoring to enhance agent performance, and deliver more accurate insights that support data-based business decisions. It has the potential to streamline operations, boost agent productivity, and to deliver more personalized experiences that drive loyalty, and it has just begun to show its potential. We are also currently developing AI agents that are fully responsive, intelligent, and interactive, which we see as a helpful addition to overwhelmed support teams during periods of high consumer demand.
As we move into 2025, clients who made wise decisions about where to invest their outsourcing dollars will soon see the long-term benefits and value in choosing the right outsourcing partner with the right capabilities. Brands will need more than just low-cost CX providers, but ones that can provide reliability, consistency and the technology needed to be successful in global markets that are in some ways more volatile and less predictable than ever before.
Yoni Epstein, CD, is the Founding Chairman and CEO of itel, the Caribbean’s largest homegrown CX provider.
