Many companies today consider artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to be highly important tools for improved efficiency and cost savings, and business processing outsourcing (BPO) companies are rushing to implement them.
However, there is some evidence that the customers themselves aren’t exactly convinced.
According to a new report from research and advisory firm Information Services Group (ISG), outsourcing deals involving AI and automation are on the rise, even as enterprises rate their customer experiences (CXs) in those technology domains lower than in others. Based on average CX scores in the second quarter, clients were less satisfied with engagements that involved those technologies. Generative AI (GenAI), which has generated exceptionally high interest and expectations this year, still received the lowest average CX score of any emerging technology.
ISG’s research examined CX scores across four broad categories of technology-based provider services: BPO, IT outsourcing (ITO), ecosystem (i.e. covering specific vendors) and emerging technology. Customer satisfaction, the report noted, "may be influenced by how common a technology is, the complexity of implementing it, the benefits it delivers, the availability of talent to support it, and how proactive vendors are about introducing it."
Overall satisfaction with providers in the second quarter, as measured by the average enterprise CX score across all technologies, industries, and regions, declined by more than 3% from a year earlier, to an average score of 71.5 on a scale of 1-100.
The report found that enterprises gave providers the highest average score for BPO services, at 72.9, the report shows. Marketing technology received the highest score within the BPO segment, with rapidly changing consumer needs driving more companies to demand tools to differentiate themselves. Supply chain services scored lowest, as ongoing disruptions and macroeconomic challenges sowed dissatisfaction with supply chains. Average CX scores for ITO were slightly lower at 71.6, indicating that providers must improve clients’ experience when delivering technology services, according to the report’s authors.
“In the wake of global technology outages this year, customer experience is more important than ever to enterprises when choosing outsourcing partners,” said Heiko Henkes, ISG director and principal analyst in charge of the study. “To succeed under these conditions, providers need to understand the wide range of factors that can influence a client’s satisfaction at each stage of an engagement.”
Edited by
Alex Passett
