cloud-based contact center infrastructure market report

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Page 1: Cloud-Based Contact Center Infrastructure Market Report

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Cloud-Based Contact Center Infrastructure Market Report

Reprint

Reprinted for:

Page 2: Cloud-Based Contact Center Infrastructure Market Report

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Table of Contents

1. Cloud-Based Contact Center Competitive Landscape 1 2. Cloud-Based Contact Center Infrastructure Vendor Satisfaction Analysis 5

2.1 Summary of Survey Findings and Analysis 7 3. Adoption of Cloud-Based Contact Center Applications 11 4. Pros of a Cloud-Based Contact Center Solution 14

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1. Cloud-Based Contact Center Competitive Landscape

The cloud-based contact center infrastructure market is highly competitive and crowded. At last count, DMG identified over 80 competitors, with more still coming into the market. Although the vendors take a number of routes to enter the cloud-based contact center infrastructure market, an increasingly common one is when a premise-based vendor is asked by a customer to “support them in the cloud.” When asked, vendors come up with creative ways to address the needs of important and profitable customers who want them to provide their services “in the cloud.” However, many of these approaches are really a “one-off” and do not transform these vendors into highly effective and technically capable cloud-based vendors. Unfortunately, many of these vendors do not have the experience or knowledge to appreciate the importance of building multi-tenant systems that are supported in an active-active or active-passive manner in two geographically dispersed data centers, for example, and they put up their “shingle” claiming to be something they are not. DMG estimates that close to half of the cloud-based contact center infrastructure vendors have come to market with this approach. This method for entering the market would be fine if these vendors then made the necessary investments to convert their solutions into true cloud-based contact center systems and applications. These are highly scalable and agile solutions that come with well-developed provisioning and administrative environments that allow customers to manage them by themselves without the ongoing support of the vendor. A true cloud-based contact center infrastructure environment is costly to set up but highly cost-effective to run, once in full production, because they are multi-tenant and virtualized. True cloud-based vendors know how to implement their solutions remotely (or on-premise, when desired by a customer) and to perform integrations to other third-party cloud or premise-based applications. The experienced cloud-based vendors know how to keep their platforms up and running without unexpected downtime and service disruptions, or the need to take their solutions down to make application upgrades. This is just a partial list of capabilities expected from effective cloud-based contact center infrastructure vendors, but it’s useful for differentiating vendors in the market. Prospects of cloud-based contact center solutions should pay a great deal of attention to the underlying platform and architecture of all products they are considering, despite claims to the contrary by some vendors. Inexperienced cloud-based vendors will often tell prospects that they do not need to evaluate the platform’s underlying technology because end users are not responsible for the hardware or software. Companies considering a cloud-based vendor should

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heed this warning carefully and when they hear it, take a closer look at the vendor’s set-up, as it likely means that it’s in transition or not yet truly optimized for the cloud. It’s fine to go with a vendor with an immature cloud-based platform and architecture, but buyers need to be aware of the risks, one of which often turns out to be unexpected downtime. A Market Shake-Out is Looming Considering that there are over 80 cloud-based contact center infrastructure vendors and more entering the market each year, it’s high time for a shake-out in this sector. As of August 2013, there were 1,146,754 seats of cloud-based contact center infrastructure in use around the world. A deeper analysis of this market shows that there are many vendors with fewer than 50 customers and technical environments that have not been designed or optimized to cost-effectively and dependably deliver cloud-based services. The market has already started to undergo a round of mergers and acquisitions. Genesys, a leading premise-based contact center infrastructure provider, purchased three cloud-based vendors, Angel, SoundBite Communications and Echopass, during the past 18 months, and is using these three vendors as their foundation for entering the cloud-based market. Aspect acquired Voxeo for the same reasons. DMG expects the cloud-based contact center infrastructure market to follow the same path as the hosted IVR market. Looking back ten years, there were likely more than 50 to 60 hosted IVR vendors. Many of these vendors have been acquired or seem to be in the process of winding down, still taking care of existing customers but not adding many new ones. A majority of the deals in the hosted IVR market are being won solely based on the price per minute, which is another way of saying that end users believe that these solutions are commodities. Many of the remaining stand-alone IVR vendors – and there are surprisingly few based on a recent market study conducted by DMG – are looking to partner with cloud-based ACD (also known as contact center infrastructure) vendors in order to provide a more complete contact center infrastructure offering to satisfy prospects’ demands. If we apply this precedent to the cloud-based contact center infrastructure market, it means that this sector will run its course in approximately 15 – 20 years. During the next few years, more premise-based contact center infrastructure vendors are expected to buy cloud-based providers to enhance their offerings. Then the cloud-based contact center infrastructure vendors will start to merge; or putting it another way, the leading vendors will buy smaller, weaker but opportunistic competitors that have something to add to the buying vendor’s portfolio – be it customers, revenue, interesting technology,

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development resources, etc. During this time, some vendors will drop out due to lack of execution. (Once the venture capital and private equity investments slow down, many of these companies will have to be able to succeed on their own. Many will, and others will not generate enough revenue to succeed.) When the dust settles, approximately 10 to 20 cloud-based contact center infrastructure vendors will remain. Carriers are Expected to Come on Strong The carriers or network service providers (NSPs) are the wild card in the cloud-based contact center infrastructure market. A growing number of NSPs already offer cloud-based contact center infrastructure services to their customers, although it seems that only a couple of these vendors are doing a good job. NSPs are ideally positioned to capture a significant portion of the market, as they all have relationships with many enterprises. The challenge for NSPs is that while they know how to deliver cloud-based services, as this is what they have always done, they totally underestimate what it takes to deliver contact center services from the cloud. And even if they have experience delivering IVR in the cloud, they still underestimate what it takes to deliver ACD and dialer capabilities from their operating environments. (At a high level, the issue is that carriers are accustomed to delivering services and not best practices. While the carriers want the additional business, which has the potential to generate a great deal of revenue for them and to help them retain their carrier minutes, they have not yet accepted the other responsibilities that accompany these new offerings; specifically, the need to help their customers implement and optimize the use of ACDs and dialers. While it’s taking carriers around the world much longer than it should have to begin to adopt to the cloud culture, they will ultimately get there, because their customers will force the issue. The Impact of the Cloud on Premise-Based Competitors The cloud is here to stay. More contact center solutions are being acquired in the cloud, and the rate of adoption is picking up. This is not to say that premise-based contact center solutions are going to disappear; there are still very compelling reasons to purchase them. For starters, organizations that plan to buy a contact center infrastructure solution and keep it for many years without making many upgrades will find it more cost effective to go with a premise-based solution. And there are a surprisingly large number of organizations that fall into this category. Other companies simply prefer premise-based solutions; some claim that they are concerned about security, and others are not yet comfortable with the new cloud-based model.

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However, over time, more and more companies are going to include cloud-based contact center solutions in their selections, particularly as the offerings from these vendors strengthen and become more competitive. It will not be a matter of selecting the acquisition model and then selecting the vendor. It will simply be a matter of finding the right vendor partner for the job, and how they sell their solution will become increasingly irrelevant. It’s Time for Leaders to Emerge As previously mentioned, the cloud-based contact center infrastructure market does not yet have clear leaders. A few vendors are fighting to differentiate themselves, and many are claiming to be market leaders, but the facts do not support their claims. For example, a vendor that predominantly sells outbound solutions and can only support one or two of the channels cannot be a leader. A vendor whose solution is narrow and supports only core contact center functionality – routing, queuing, IVR, CTI and recording – is not going to be a leader, as they lack vision. And vendors that offer broad solution sets but have only a few customers and a limited number of seats are also not leaders. DMG expects a leader to emerge in the next two years. As reflected in Section 14 of this Report, the leader will offer a truly differentiated solution that will allow them to capture a significant share of the market. This leader will execute effectively from a highly dependable infrastructure that has little to no downtime. This company will listen to their customers and respond to their needs on a timely basis, as being agile and rapidly delivering innovation to the market is a characteristic of leadership.

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2. Cloud-Based Contact Center InfrastructureVendor Satisfaction Analysis

On an annual basis, DMG Consulting conducts independent customer satisfaction surveys to measure end-user satisfaction with vendors and their products, as well as their service, support, professional services, training and innovation. DMG conducts these analyses because they provide great insights into end-user issues and concerns, as participants are open and candid in sharing their successes and challenges with us.

This study evaluates the performance of the 10 vendors analyzed in detail in the 2013 – 2014 Cloud-Based Contact Center Infrastructure Market Report: 3CLogic, 8x8, Connect First, Cisco, Echopass, Five9, inContact, Interactive Intelligence, NewVoiceMedia and Verizon. For each of these vendors, DMG obtained a completed survey from three customers. Since confidentiality is important to the survey participants and respected throughout our process, the names of references and the companies that they represent are not directly attributed to any of the comments or ratings contained in this Report. The research for DMG Consulting’s customer satisfaction survey was conducted as follows:

1. The cloud-based contact center infrastructure vendors were asked toprovide contact information for 5 customers who had agreed in advance toparticipate in the satisfaction survey. These references could not be thesame ones provided for the prior year’s cloud-based contact centerinfrastructure Report.

2. DMG Consulting sent the participating customers an email with a link to aWeb survey.

The survey consisted of 13 questions, broken down into the following categories:

1. Customer background – name of cloud-based contact center infrastructurevendor, the contact center applications provided by their vendor, thecontact center activities and channels they were using their vendor tosupport, primary drivers in the decision to implement a cloud-basedcontact center infrastructure solution, biggest concerns they had toovercome in choosing a cloud-based contact center infrastructure solution,and top 3 to 5 benefits gained from using the cloud-based contact centerinfrastructure solution.

2. Product satisfaction – detailed questions about product satisfaction across23 components including: ease of configuration/use/maintenance, ease of

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integration with third-party applications, routing and queuing, agent interface, supervisor interface, overall product features and functionality, IVR feature set, inbound ACD features and functionality, outbound features and functionality, blended capabilities, compliance features, multi-channel capabilities, scripting capabilities, dashboards, real-time reporting, historical reporting, ability to improve agent productivity and efficiency, ability to improve supervisor efficiency, ability to improve the customer experience, Design environment, system flexibility, system security, platform reliability and scalability.

3. Vendor performance – satisfaction with the vendor’s performance in implementation, professional services, training, service and support, system upgrades, product innovation, responsiveness to product enhancement requests, communication, product pricing, and ratings for the customer’s overall satisfaction level with the vendor.

4. Open-ended questions – areas where the cloud-based contact center infrastructure vendor excelled; things their cloud-based contact center infrastructure vendor could do better; product enhancements that respondents would like to see; and an open invitation for participants to express general thoughts about their experience with the vendor.

DMG received three completed response for each vendor, with the exception of Verizon, for whom we received 2 completed responses. A total of 29 customer responses were received and analyzed. The vendor satisfaction ratings reported in this analysis were calculated by averaging the scores provided by customers for each vendor and category, using the point scale illustrated in Figure 1. Customer insights, which are a compilation of the open-ended responses from reference customers of all 10 vendors analyzed for this Report, are also reflected in this analysis. Figure 1: Customer Survey Rating Categories Satisfaction Rating Points Assigned

Completely satisfied 5

Highly satisfied 4

Satisfied 3

Somewhat satisfied 2

Not satisfied 1

Source: DMG Consulting LLC, December 2013

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2.1 Summary of Survey Findings and Analysis

The following Figures and analysis represent the results of DMG Consulting’s 2013 – 2014 cloud-based contact center infrastructure customer satisfaction survey. 8x8, Echopass, Five9, inContact, Interactive Intelligence, and NewVoiceMedia participated in the prior year’s satisfaction survey. 3CLogic, Connect First, Cisco and Verizon are new to this analysis.

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Figure 2: Average Satisfaction Ratings, by Category

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3CLogic 4.29 3.67 4.33 4.33 4.0 4.33 4.0 4.33 5.0 5.0 4.33

8x8 3.48 4.0 4.33 4.0 4.0 4.0 3.67 3.0 3.67 3.0 3.67

Cisco 3.61 4.67 3.33 4.33 3.67 4.33 3.33 3.0 4.0 3.33 4.33

Connect First 4.71 4.67 4.0 5.0 4.67 4.33 4.67 4.67 4.67 4.33 4.67

Echopass 3.61 3.33 3.67 4.0 3.67 4.0 3.67 3.33 4.0 4.0 4.0

Five9 4.17 4.33 4.33 4.33 3.67 4.67 4.0 4.33 4.33 4.33 3.67

inContact 4.36 4.33 4.33 4.0 3.67 4.33 4.33 4.0 4.33 3.0 4.33

Interactive Intelligence 4.31 3.67 3.33 4.0 3.67 4.67 4.67 4.0 4.33 4.33 4.0

NewVoiceMedia 3.81 4.33 4.0 4.0 4.33 4.33 4.33 4.0 4.33 4.0 4.33

Verizon 3.52 4.5 4.0 4.0 3.5 4.0 3.5 2.5 3.5 4.0 3.5 Category Average 3.99 4.15 3.97 4.20 3.89 4.30 4.02 3.72 4.22 3.93 4.08 Range 1.23 1.34 1.0 1.0 1.17 .67 1.17 2.17 1.5 2.0 1.17 Notes:

1. Product satisfaction scores were derived by averaging the results of the 14 product satisfaction components in Figure 3. 2. These scores do NOT represent the average of the other categories; this is a separate category where customers were asked to rate their overall satisfaction

with all aspects of their vendor relationship.

Source: DMG Consulting LLC, December 2013

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Figure 3: Product Satisfaction Ratings by Category

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Ease of configuration/use/ maintenance

4.67 4.33 3.33 5.0 3.33 4.33 4.67 4.67 3.67 4.0 4.20 1.67

Ease of integration with third-party applications 4.67 3.67 3.33 4.33 3.0 4.33 4.0 3.33 4.0 2.5 3.72 2.17

Routing and queuing 4.67 3.67 4.33 5.0 4.0 4.33 4.67 4.67 4.0 3.5 4.28 1.5

Agent interface 4.33 3.67 3.67 4.67 4.0 4.0 4.33 5.0 4.0 3.5 4.12 1.5

Supervisor interface 3.67 3.67 3.67 4.67 3.67 4.0 4.0 5.0 4.0 3.5 3.99 1.5

Overall product features and functionality 4.67 3.33 4.0 5.0 3.67 4.67 4.33 4.67 4.0 3.0 4.13 1.67

IVR feature set 4.0 3.33 4.33 4.67 4.0 4.33 3.67 4.67 3.67 3.0 3.97 1.67

Inbound (ACD) features and functionality 4.33 3.33 4.33 5.0 4.0 4.67 4.67 4.67 3.67 3.0 4.17 2

Outbound features and functionality 4.67 3.0 3.0 4.67 3.0 4.67 4.33 5.0 3.67 3.0 3.90 2

Blended capabilities 4.0 3.0 3.33 4.67 3.67 4.33 3.33 5.0 4.0 3.5 3.88 2

Compliance features 4.0 2.67 3.67 4.67 4.0 4.33 4.0 4.67 4.0 3.5 3.95 2

Multi-channel capabilities 4.33 3.67 3.0 4.67 3.33 2.67 4.33 4.33 4.0 3.5 3.78 2

Scripting capabilities 3.33 2.67 2.67 4.67 3.33 4.0 5.0 3.33 3.67 3.5 3.62 2.33

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Figure 3: Product Satisfaction Ratings by Category

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Dashboards 3.67 2.33 3.0 4.67 3.0 4.0 4.67 3.67 3.67 3.5 3.62 2.34

Real-time reporting 3.67 3.0 3.0 5.0 3.0 4.33 4.67 3.67 3.67 3.5 3.75 2

Historical reporting 3.67 3.0 3.33 4.67 3.0 3.67 4.0 2.67 3.67 3.5 3.52 2

Ability to improve agent productivity and efficiency

4.67 3.67 3.67 4.67 3.67 4.33 4.33 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.10 1

Ability to improve supervisor efficiency 4.67 4.0 3.33 4.67 3.67 4.33 4.33 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.10 1.34

Ability to improve the customer experience 4.67 3.67 3.67 4.67 3.67 4.33 4.67 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.14 1

Design environment 4.0 4.0 3.67 4.33 4.0 4.0 4.67 4.0 3.67 4.0 4.03 1

System flexibility 4.67 3.67 4.0 4.67 4.0 4.33 4.67 4.67 3.33 4.0 4.20 1.34

System security 5.0 4.33 4.33 4.67 4.0 4.67 4.67 4.67 3.67 4.0 4.40 1.33

Platform reliability and scalability 4.67 4.33 4.33 4.67 4.0 3.33 4.33 4.67 3.67 3.5 4.15 1.34

Vendor Average 4.29 3.48 3.61 4.71 3.61 4.17 4.36 4.31 3.81 3.52 -- --

Source: DMG Consulting LLC, December 2013

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3. Adoption of Cloud-Based Contact Center Applications

At a fundamental level, the cloud is simply an alternative acquisition or delivery model for contact center or customer service systems and applications. However, in the world of contact center and customer service technologies and systems, the cloud has been a game-changer. It is playing a major role in revitalizing a mature technology sector. It has helped to transform and enhance the competitive landscape for contact center and customer service applications by making it easier for new vendors to enter the market. End-user organizations have more choices and flexibility than at any time in the past. This also presents prospects with a few challenges, as there are now dozens of companies in many IT sectors vying for their business. In November 2013, DMG released the results of a benchmark study that evaluated the worldwide adoption of cloud-based contact center solutions. This study of 169 participants from 47 countries and 40 states showed that 62.4% of organizations were using some form of contact center system or application in the cloud as of November 2013. It’s as interesting to see the increase in adoption during the last three years. See Figure 4. DMG has been following the adoption of cloud-based contact center solutions in our worldwide benchmark studies since January 2010, when 31.8% of organizations were using at least one cloud-based contact center solution. DMG believes that the majority of companies using a cloud-based contact center solution in 2010 were using IVR or surveying. By November 2011, 40.9% of organizations were using a cloud-based contact center solution. The variety of systems being used by this time was already quite varied.

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Figure 4: Worldwide Adoption of Cloud-Based Contact Center Solutions, based on DMG Benchmark Studies

Source: DMG Consulting LLC, December 2013 The adoption of cloud-based solutions in contact centers and customer service departments is not a passing fad. This is evidenced by the breadth of cloud-based solutions used by enterprises. DMG Consulting’s 2013 The Cloud is In Your Future benchmark study found that a large number of contact center solutions were being acquired via the cloud-based model. Figure 5 reveals that ACD is the most commonly used cloud-based contact center solution; it is being utilized by a majority of companies that are using a cloud-based contact center application. Recording is the second most frequently used cloud-based contact center application. CTI and touch-tone-based IVR are in use by more than half of organizations who are using cloud-based solutions. CRM, Web chat and dialer applications have been deployed by at least a third of organization as hosted services. When the two IVR options – touch-tone and speech-enabled – are combined, this category becomes the contact center application that most users are utilizing in the cloud. This is not surprising, given that IVR solutions have been available in the cloud longer than most other contact center solutions. The adoption data reflected in the 2013 worldwide benchmark study on cloud-based solutions differs from financial analyses that DMG has conducted of the market. Based on our financial analysis, IVR is the system used most often in the

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cloud, followed by contact center infrastructure (ACDs and dialers), recording, WFM, and then a variety of other applications. Although the financial analyses differ from the results of the worldwide benchmark study of enterprises, both sets of research indicate the growing adoption of a broad set of contact center solutions. Figure 5: Cloud-Based Contact Center Applications in Use

Source: DMG Consulting LLC, December 2013

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4. Pros of a Cloud-Based Contact Center Solution

The cloud-based business model lets companies acquire functionally rich contact center solutions without a large capital investment or long-term commitment. These solutions are also highly scalable and give users ongoing technical support and access to innovation and upgrades at no additional cost. Ease of provisioning, a reduced maintenance burden, and the opportunity to “try it before you buy it” make cloud-based contact center solutions attractive as a low-risk alternative to on-premise licensed applications. Depending on the needs of an enterprise and the length of time they want to use a cloud-based solution, the financial and operational benefits can be significant. Figure 6 lists the more common benefits associated with using a cloud-based contact center solution. Figure 6: Benefits of a Cloud-Based Contact Center Solution

• Conserves cash; no capital investment and low start-up/implementation costs

• Relatively small monthly payments come out of the operating budget instead of the capital budget

• Generally has a lower total cost of ownership than a premise-based solution

• Vendor is responsible for system installation, implementation and ongoing maintenance

• Rapid implementation – users are generally up and running in 1 day to 3 weeks with a full-featured implementation

• Solutions can be right-sized for small, mid-sized and large contact centers

• Easy to scale up and down

• Browser-based offerings require little on-site technology

• Investment protection: the vendor is responsible for upgrades, and there are no additional costs

• Vendors release new functionality more frequently than premise-based providers; this can be used to achieve a strategic service advantage

• Ongoing technology refresh can be done without forklifts or major disruption to the operating environment

• Reduces internal IT support costs, eliminates need for IT staff and related management overhead (indirect cost allocations)

• Eliminates hidden support costs, e.g., data center real estate (for servers), power, cooling costs, systems administration, database administration, help desk, change management, etc.

• Handles virtual and geographically dispersed locations

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Figure 6: Benefits of a Cloud-Based Contact Center Solution • No (or little) incremental network costs or application expertise required to support

multiple sites and at-home agents

• Reduces the time and complexity of opening additional contact center sites

• Standardized functionality and best practices are easily implemented across departments or the entire enterprise

• Simplifies disaster recovery/contingency planning, testing and implementation

• Users are not locked into a long-term capital investment, and can negotiate a flexible contract

Source: DMG Consulting LLC, December 2013

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About Connect First

Connect First is a leading SaaS telecommunications and cloud contact center software provider that focuses on customer satisfaction and elegant hosted solutions. Connect First offers a reliable platform, designed and supported by a team of highly experienced engineers, architects and business analysts, and backed with award-winning, in-house customer support team. Solutions include Cloud Routing, ACD, Dialing - Predictive and Connect First SAFE Mode, Call Tracking, IVR, Voice Broadcast, Disaster Recovery, Real-Time Telemetry, Extensive Reporting, Live Agent Chat and more. Through a consultative approach with each customer interaction, Connect First builds custom solutions to meet the needs of a discerning customer base and to elevate your business. Visit our website at www.connectfirst.com or call 888-965-1588 for more information. About DMG Consulting LLC

DMG Consulting is the leading provider of contact center and analytics research, market analysis and consulting services. DMG’s mission is to help end users build world-class, differentiated contact centers and to assist vendors in developing high-value solutions for the market. DMG devotes more than 10,000 hours annually to researching various segments of the contact center market, including vendors, solutions, technologies, best practices, and the benefits and ROI for end users. Our research covers Hosted Contact Center Infrastructure, Hosted/Managed Service IVR, Quality Management/Liability Recording (Workforce Optimization), Speech Analytics, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Surveying/Enterprise Feedback Management, Contact Center Performance Management, Workforce Management, and Contact Center Analytics. DMG is an independent firm that provides information and consulting services to contact center management, the financial and investment community, and vendors in the market. This reprint is excerpted from the 2013 – 2014 Cloud-based Contact Center Infrastucture Market Report, which was released in January 2014 with the permission of DMG Consulting LLC. More information about this Report and DMG Consulting is available at www.dmgconsult.com

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