Call centers (Russian market)

The main factors contributing to the growth of call center services are:

• transition from the services of internal contact centers to outsourcing;
• affordable cost of services provided;
• possibility of reducing costs when moving the site to the regions;
• raising the level of awareness of potential customers;
• a more loyal attitude of business leaders to outsourcing.

Factors that hinder the development of the market include:

• Inadequate assessment by customers of the cost of service of calls in the contact center and, as a result, the request for too low a price
• low-quality dumping offers that create a negative experience among users;
• fears of information leakage risks;
• low activity of medium and small businesses

Call Centers (Global Market)

Main Article: Call Centers (Global Market)

2023

Growth of the outsourcing contact center market by 7.3% to RUB 30.35 billion

At the end of 2023, the volume of the Russian market for outsourcing contact centers reached 30.35 billion rubles. This is 7.3% more than the result for the previous year, when costs were estimated at 28.29 billion rubles. Such indicators are reflected in the iKS-Consulting study, the results of which were released in early April 2024.

The report says that the main factors in the growth of the industry under consideration are an increase in demand from financial companies, telecom and retail, as well as the replacement of the business of organizations that left Russia due to the emerging geopolitical situation. At the same time, in the segment of outsourcing contact centers, there is a strong personnel shortage: it is due to the low unemployment rate in the country as a whole, including in those regions that have historically been a source of labor for contact centers. During 2023, a significant increase in personnel costs was recorded - both on the salaries of operators and managers of contact centers, and on the selection of employees. The increase in labor costs affects the overall economic performance of contact centers and limits their opportunities for growth and investment.

The study says that the salaries of call centers operators and managers in 2023 showed record growth, an increase of 28-30% compared to 2022. The costs of paying operators accounted for 60.1% of all expenses of contact centers. At the same time, the share of remote employees working from home rose on an annualized basis by 11% to 36.6%. At the same time, prices for contact center services rose sharply - plus 30-35% compared to 2022.

In 2023, the total number of places in contact centers decreased. Moreover, the pace of closure of sites for the first time exceeded the pace of opening. The area of ​ ​ camera rooms decreased by 6% compared to 2022, and the total number of seats in them - by 10%. In addition, in 2023 there was a significant increase in the refinancing rate, which practically led to the impossibility of attracting credit resources.

Companies are faced with the need to optimize business processes in order to adapt to new conditions and manage costs more efficiently. Against this background, the share of non-voice services continues to grow, the report says.

The rating of the largest outsourcing contact centers in Russia in 2023 is headed by Voxys with a share of approximately 19% in total revenue. Neovox is in second place with a score of 7.4%, and Rostelecom Contact Center closes the top three with 7.2%. It is noted that the level of business concentration in the market slightly fluctuates around constant values, and large contact centers still occupy a significant part of the industry.

In 2023, according to iKS-Consulting estimates among outsourcing call centers, software products remain the most popular ready-made solutions: the Naumen share of companies using this ON reached 53%. The most commonly encountered foreign products are solutions. Avaya At the same time, the number of companies with software products Cisco and Digium Asterisk has decreased. Among large and medium-sized companies, the practice software of own developments on the basis of a particular platform for the needs of a contact center is widespread. In most cases, these are solutions for operator scripts (pop-ups), CRM as well as reporting and additional accounting subsystems. This is largely due to the lack of flexibility of the proposed ready-made solutions for the needs of the outsourcing contact center, as well as the import substitution policy.^[1] Market^[2]

Crisis and sanctions did not force Russian contact centers to abandon development plans

The international and economic situation for July 2023 caused crisis phenomena in. industries contact centers Meanwhile banks , companies do not RUSSIAN FEDERATION abandon plans to digitalize customer service, implementing large-scale programs. import substitution Such conclusions were made based on the results of the study "Trends and Prospects for the Development of Technologies for Customer Contacts," conducted in May-June 2023 by Contact Center Benchmark, commissioned National Association of Contact Centers in partnership with the company, BSS which announced this on July 17, 2023.

The study involved more than 260 top managers, heads of client services and contact centers. The most widely represented are financial industry and, insurance outsourcing contact centers, CC telecom companies and services. providers The objectives of the study were to identify opportunities and ways to improve the efficiency of the CC in the context of the current uncertainty, the impact of the departure of foreign IT companies, as well as to determine the prospects, expectations and plans of companies for the development of automated customer service services.

Almost 23% of respondents confirmed that they have problems with software from foreign vendors in the CC. In 2022, about 30% of respondents reported such problems. The main problems are the inoperability of foreign solutions, the lack of technical support and the possibility of scaling.

Meanwhile, a large number of respondents reported plans to increase automation (70%), integrate information systems (51%), increase customer loyalty (49%) and develop digital channels (42%).

Among the measures implemented to minimize the above problems, almost 70% of respondents named the implementation of anti-crisis plans and the transition to domestic software.

More than 90% of respondents noted that domestic solutions are widely used in their CCs. A little more than 5% do not use any domestic software in their CCs, the main reason is that there are no analogues or they are not satisfied.

More than 45% of respondents did not feel problems with foreign decisions, since even before the imposition of sanctions they used or switched to domestic software. Almost 17% of those using domestic software declared its restrictions on work or functionality.

More than 50% reported that they are considering the acquisition of domestic solutions. Most interested in voice analytics (almost 62%), WFM systems (55%), voice assistants and chat bots (50%) and knowledge management systems (48%).

Thus, the potential for choosing domestic solutions for CC is high and has serious prospects. The CC leadership faces a complex question of the right choice that would eliminate the problems of a patchwork of technology and many integrations.

When choosing Russian technologies for contact centers, it is necessary to carefully study the capabilities of domestic vendors and give preference to solutions based on a full technological stack and relevant cases in the developer's portfolio. So contact centers will be able to most profitably carry out import substitution, invest effectively and win in the long term, - commented Dmitry Aristarkhov, Executive Vice President of the National Association of Contact Centers.

2020

The market for outsourcing contact centers showed an increase of 4.6%, to 14.7 billion rubles

The volume of the Russian market for equipment and software, services for the creation and modernization of contact centers and services of ausoursed contact centers by the end of 2020 amounted to 14.7 billion rubles, which is 4.6% more than a year earlier. The study containing these figures was released by analysts J'son & Partners Consulting at the end of December 2021.

In the period from 2018 to 2021. experts identified about 2.2 thousand purchases on the Russian market of contact centers for a total of 46 billion rubles. During the specified period of time, the number of purchases grew actively, in monetary volume the annual growth was 3%. 70% of the market was formed by the 30th largest projects and the top 9 customers, analysts say. They also identified several main trends in the market of contact centers of the Russian Federation:

• Increased use of human resources and resource optimization (WFM/WFO) WebRTC1 and systems
• increasing information security requirements during remote interaction with clients (especially in the banking sector) and, as a result, developing appropriate solutions to counter telephone fraud;
• maintaining the popularity of voice interaction as the omnichannel of contact centers develops;
• the introduction of artificial intelligence - voice assistants or chatbots as an addition to the classic telephone interaction with a "live" contact center operator. The main driver of the introduction of virtual assistants and other similar solutions is the tendency for banks to withdraw their products and services to the remote channel, to strengthen the role of remote service and remote interaction with customers;
• the introduction of voice biometrics in bank contact centers, which is expected to significantly strengthen the security of many transactions;
• integration of the contact center with the existing corporate telephone infrastructure of the company.

J'son & Partners Consulting noted the absence in Russia of large publicly announced projects implemented using the CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service) cloud model - a contact center as a service that allows you to deploy the system without significant investment and maintenance costs. Some of these projects in the Russian Federation were announced a few years ago: for example, the introduction of CCaaS in the Rendez-vous chain of footwear and accessories stores in 2013 and in the State Tretyakov Gallery in 2017.

In 2020, cloud solutions began to master outsourcing contact centers, often this is done to organize a second remote service line. CCaaS services are used by microfinance companies, collection agencies, online stores and other representatives of small and medium-sized businesses.

Cloud contact centers contain a number of powerful tools, including human resources management (WFM) solutions, multichannel routing, customer interaction management, and telephony solutions, analysts said.

The demand for contact center services is caused by the desire of customers to expand the reach of a potential audience and ensure uninterrupted feedback with customers. The choice of an outsourcing project depends on the specifics and scale of the company. For example, large companies - banks, insurance companies, telecom operators often prefer their own local call centers, since for them a call center is a client's entry point that affects customer loyalty and increased sales. Small and medium-sized businesses are often limited in resources to create their own call center, and it is easier for them to outsource this service.^[3]

The contact center market in the Russian Federation showed an increase of 16.7%, to 24.5 billion rubles. Leaders

The volume of the Russian market for outsourcing contact centers at the end of 2020 reached 24.5 billion rubles, an increase of 16.7% compared to 2019. This is evidenced by the data of the consulting agency iKS-Consulting, released in December 2021.

According to experts, contact centers were able to rebuild and successfully conduct a forced experiment on the transfer of a significant part of operators to a remote mode due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

The company held the lead in the market in question for the second year in a row. Voxys Its share at the end of 2020 exceeded 18%. The company Teleperformancе followed with a result of 15%, and closed the top three "" Telecontact(11.1%).

According to the results of the study, iKS-Consulting analysts recognized Voxys as the market leader in terms of the number of installed operator jobs, which in August 2021 reached 7466 against 5952 as of the beginning of August 2020 (an increase of 25.4%). The growth dynamics is ensured by the development of the remote recruitment system and the expansion of the geography of presence.

Voxys processes the largest number of voice calls daily - 544.5 thousand, and the total number of calls and messages in voice and non-voice channels processed daily by Voxys specialists exceeds 1 million.

According to the executive director of Voxys Yulia Molchanova, the company in 2020 was focused on building internal business processes and investments in development.

Customers of communication projects continue to note an increase in the demand for remote service channels for their consumers. The drivers of the market were retail, e-commerce and the banking and financial sector. Over the next few years, we see the market on a stable double-digit growth trajectory. We intend to actively increase the market share, expanding the geography of our presence and introducing IT solutions that optimize business processes, "she said.

According to analysts' forecasts, in 2021 the volume of the market for outsourcing contact centers will amount to 28.9 billion rubles, which will surpass the figure one year ago by 17.8%.

The main growth factors of the contact center market are the need to increase customer loyalty amid growing competition and the specific factor of 2020 - a significant increase in online sales, the transition of many businesses to remote service.

The second factor manifested itself quite sharply and unexpectedly, which to a certain extent contributed to the transfer of the functions of the contact center to outsourcing, analysts say.

According to their estimates, by the beginning of 2020, the number of jobs involved in outsourcing contact centers increased by 13.4% compared to the data for 2018, and reached 33.38 thousand places. Contact centers continue to open new sites and increase the number of jobs in existing ones, despite the coronavirus crisis. By the end of 2020, 37.5 thousand jobs were expected to be used, taking into account home operators.

The study notes that in 2020, companies less actively announced possible expansion of sites, an increase in employee salaries and planned, if possible, to restrain the increase in tariffs for contact center services.

According to iKS-Consulting, the level of business concentration in the outsourcing contact center market in Russia slightly fluctuates around constant values. So the Herfindal-Hirschmann index (equal to the sum of squares of market shares of the largest companies and characterizing the level of concentration in the market) in 2006-2007 was equal to 0.063 and 0.057, respectively. The Herfindal-Hirschman index, which is directly dependent on changes in the degree of monopoly power of leading companies, did not exceed 0.1 in 2006-2018. This indicates that the contact center industry in Russia is weakly concentrated and weakly mono-polished. In 2019, the Herfindahl-Hirschmann index is 0.095.^[4]

2016: iKS-Consulting: Outsourcing contact centers in Russia (11.7 billion rubles, plus 21.7%)

Since the end of 2015, many contact centers have begun to talk about the revival of the market. Active growth in the number of requests for outsourcing services began in 2016: the number of tenders and their volume increased. As a result, according to the results of 2016, we observe market growth by 21.7% to 11.7 billion rubles.

The market for outsourcing contact centers developed mainly due to the growth of traditional segments - financial services, telecom and retail. The story is the revival of the economy as a whole, the growth of competition in the market and the need to retain existing customers and attract new ones.

The market share of outsourced contact centers in the total volume GDP Russia in 2016 increased to 0.013% and exceeded the indicators over the past 5 years.

According to our estimates and data provided by market participants, as of May-June 2017, the number of jobs involved in outsourcing call centers increased by 20% compared to the data for May 2016, and before-stigma 23.4 thousand places. When recalculating data at the end of the year, it turns out that in 2016 the number of jobs involved increased by 14%. This increase was on the back of a notable market recovery that began in 2016.

In the European part of Russia, 92% of Russian sites of contact centers as a whole and outsourcing contact centers are concentrated. First of all, this is due to the gravitation to the customer accommodation center, which is located in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The first belt of contact centers is located in the Central Federal District, which accounts for more than a third (38%) of all sites and 40% of all operator jobs in outsourcing contact centers (taking into account foreign sites).

Market Leaders by Revenue

Large contact centers still occupy a significant part of the market. In 2016, the 10 largest contact centers held 77% of the market compared to 70% in 2015. The share of the four largest contact centers after a three-year downward trend in 2016 increased by 2 percentage points to 45%.

Based on the results of the collected questionnaires, a rating of companies was compiled, which were more often mentioned by market participants among their main competitors. The leader, recognized by colleagues, for several years in a row is the call center "Telekon-tact." Teleperformance also joined the leadership group. Beeper, Gran and Comfortel contact centers were mentioned several times. The rest of the contact centers were reproached by colleagues as competitors only in isolated cases.

Market Leaders by Jobs

2015: iKS-Consulting: Outsourcing contact centers in Russia (9.4 billion rubles, minus 5%)

Market Size and Number of Operator Locations

The market stopped showing double-digit growth rates. Against the background of protracted economic stagnation in 2015, market dynamics turned in the negative direction. According to iKS-Consulting, the market for outsourcing contact centers in Russia in 2015 decreased by 5% to 9.4 billion rubles.

According to the results of the study "Outsourcing Contact Center Market in Russia 2015-2020," in 2016 the number of jobs involved in outsourcing call centers increased by 4.6% compared to May 2015. Against the background of falling market volumes, the growth of operator seats looks risky. However, representatives of contact centers claim that already in early 2016 they are seeing a noticeable revival in the market, and the increase in the number of jobs is associated with an increase in the volume of services in the first half of 2016.

Workplaces in outsourcing contact centers are concentrated on large sites. Thus, contact centers with 1000 jobs or more contain 60% of the total number of jobs handling outsourcing calls in Russia.

Large contact centers still occupy a significant part of the market. In 2015, the 25 largest contact centers occupied 80% of the market. The share of the four largest contact centers decreased by 9 percentage points compared to 2014 and amounted to 52%. This dynamics in 2015 is explained by the transfer of a large amount of work from Rostelecom to a subsidiary structure. Prior to this, this volume was served by one of the leaders in the outsourcing contact center market.

Based on the results of the collected questionnaires, a rating of companies was compiled, which were most often mentioned by market participants among their main competitors. The leader, recognized by colleagues, is the Telekontakt contact center. The top three also included Teleperformance and Telecom-Express.

The market for outsourcing contact centers in Russia has entered a mature stage of development. Analysis of the outsourcing contact center market shows that the level of competition in the market is high.

2015: Praxiscom data

The outsourcing market in Russia as a whole is assessed as very promising. The volume of services transferred "to the side" is growing by 10% per year and, according to Praxiscom estimates, in 2015 amounted to $6 billion. Mainly retail chains, manufacturers of consumer goods and industrial enterprises are responsible for the staff.

Russian companies are increasingly outsourcing marketing communications. According to RBK.Research, more than 10% of domestic enterprises have already transferred the attraction of new customers and "cold" sales to telemarketologists. Analysts found that in 2012 the volume of the telemarketing market in Russia amounted to 6.74 billion rubles, in 2013 - about 7.6 billion rubles, in 2014 - 8.5 billion rubles, in 2015 - was supposed to exceed 10 billion rubles.

Meanwhile, Russian autosourced call centers have where to strive. The global telemarketing market is valued at more than $25 billion with the prospect of 50% growth in the coming years, according to Deloitte research. In the United States, 53% of companies have contracts with third-party call centers, Everest Group found out. Telephone marketing employs more than 3% of the North American population and just over 1% of Europeans. In Russia, this number does not yet exceed 0.1-0.2% of the country's residents.

According to the Creative Call Project, 130-140 call centers of various levels operate in the country. The largest staff exceeds 700 people, the average employs 100-150 employees, mainly operators and supervisors. Many of them work from home. So, according to the Contact Center Benchmark study, the number of "homeworkers" increased over the year to 5.4% - almost 10 times. This has a positive effect on the industry, notes Dmitry Andreev. Firstly, in itself is an additional advantage of the profession. For example, free work schedules are very important for students or young mothers. In addition, working from home allows people to save significantly: expenses on public transport or gasoline, meals and snacks are excluded. But the most important thing is that such a regime gives people the opportunity to live not only at work, but devote more time to their family, home, children, themselves. And, importantly, the salary of call centers workers is comparable to that received by office clerks. Secondly, the increase in the number of home operators reduces the cost of maintaining the call centers themselves, which partly makes it possible for the latter to keep low tariffs for their services.

2014: RBC data

In 2014, according to RBKresearch, the market for outsourcing call centers in Russia increased by 11% and reached 9.89 billion rubles. The growth is primarily due to the development of industries where the customer-oriented approach is a key competitive advantage: banking and insurance sectors, retail, telecommunications services. Thanks to the new capabilities of information technology and social media, the range of communication channels with customers is constantly expanding, which leads to a change in the role of contact centers: from an information provider to a key participant in the sales of goods and services. According to a survey of call centers conducted as part of a study by RBKresearch in 2015, the most important criteria for the effectiveness of the largest call centers are the percentage of "lost" calls, operator employment, as well as the average waiting time for a response.

2013: NAC: Contact Centers Market in Russia and Countries of the Region

From January to June 2013, the National Association of Contact Centers of Russia (NAC), together with Apex Berg Contact Center Consulting and the International Institute for Certification of Contact Centers, with the support of NICE Systems, conducted a global benchmarking (comparative) study of the contact center market in Russia and the countries of the region.

During the study, more than 100 contact centers were surveyed, representing various areas of business and sectors of the economy, from small customer telephone service centers (less than 25 operator places) to the largest federal centers with more than 1000 operator places, including the largest Russian banks and mobile operators.

Strategy and Development

1. According to research participants both in Russia and neighboring countries and throughout the rest of the world, the popularity of access channels such as "Telephone," "E-mail" and "SMS" is declining, and "Web," "Social Networks" and "Applications for smartphones" are growing.

The most innovative and beginning active development are access channels such as smartphone applications and voice self-service. The situation in the regions that fell into the study of the NAC practically coincides with the global picture.

The highest development potential in the coming year according to the results of the NAKTs-2013 study is shown by the Web Chat channel. However, compared to global indicators (33.3% plan to introduce its use in the next 1-2 years), we plan to do this with a smaller number of CCs (26.1%).

The Social Media channel is currently distributed slightly more than in the world in the regions included in the NAKTs-2013 study (39% versus 33.1%). However, in terms of the quality of use of this access channel, we are still slightly behind. If we calculate the share of professionally present in social networks from the total number of those present (that is, we do not just post a page on the social network and have a computer with access to the Internet to access it, but professional tools for monitoring and managing this interaction), then we will have it equal to 55.2%, and in the world - 69.4%). The social network Facebook has maximum significance for participants in the NAKTs-2013 study. The VKontakte network is slightly behind.

Market participants acknowledge that standard IVR is inconvenient for customers. It is used mainly to reduce the costs of companies. There is a tendency to gradually reduce the use of standard IVR due to three factors - the development of alternative self-service channels, a decrease in the total share of use of such an access channel as a telephone and the desire of companies to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty in the context of increasing competition. In the world, this trend is stronger than in the regions that were included in the NAKTs-2013 study.

2. Customer satisfaction is included in the strategy for the development of contact centers both in Russia and in the countries of the region and around the world. This was noted by about 90% of the research participants. This factor comes first in terms of inclusion. Factors such as the reduction in the cost of processing contact with the client and the formation of a strategy based on customer requirements are also present in most CC development strategies both in our country and around the world.

In the world, a larger number of CCs (47%) set themselves the task of reducing the costs of the company (not only the contact center) than in the regions that got into the NAKTs-2013 study (34%). We explain this by the greater degree of integration and involvement of global CCs in the processes of interaction between companies and customers

Staff satisfaction is one of the most included factors in the development strategy of world contact centers (65%), and in the regions included in the study NAKTs-2013 this factor is only in 5th place (54%). So far, there is a gap in the prestige of the operator's profession in our country and in the world.

3. Most participants in the NAKTs-2013 study consider CC a cost center, although in the next two years almost 36% of participants plan to make it a profit center based on sales income.

Operational Management

• Only 8.3% of the NAKTs-2013 study participants noted that their control system contains ALL the necessary, according to the requirements of world standards, components of the contact center operational control system.
• Among the study participants, in 37% of cases, the role of expertise of current legislation, including consumer rights laws, is not provided.
• The FCR (First Contact Resolution - the client's ability to solve the problem from the first contact with the company) took first place - it is measured by the smallest number of Russian CCs. At the same time, this indicator ranks second in importance among operating KPIs in world CCs (47.3% of world research participants consider it the most important, and it is second only to the customer satisfaction monitoring indicator).

Customer Interaction Management

1. The share of our CCs that do not measure any of the customer satisfaction indicators is higher than in the world (14.8% versus 6.5%).

At the same time, the situation is worst in the CC of the financial sector - 21.1% of centers do not measure any of the indicators, and best of all - in the sector of trade and transport - there all CCs measure customer satisfaction.

In general, the trade and transport sector looks better in terms of measuring customer satisfaction than other sectors of the industry presented in the study NAKTs-2013 - 91.7% of CCs measure both indicators, and 66.7% can share the results.

2. Among the factors that have a significant impact on the level of customer satisfaction NAKTs-2013 the participants of the study put in the first place the parameters that allow to solve the client's issue (professionalism and competence), as well as do it the first time. The next most important factor is the waiting time factor for the client to answer the call.

3. Currently, only 42.59% of CCs who participated in the NAC study can say that they have reached or exceeded the target for customer satisfaction with service in the CC and only 25.93% of companies who participated in the NAKTs-2013 study can say that they have reached or exceeded the target for customer satisfaction with the company's work.

Self-Service Systems

• Web and IVR are the leaders of self-service channels, ranking first two in the ranking of systems used by contact centers worldwide. Our CCs are no exception.
• However, it can be seen that the IVR channel (through pressing buttons) in the world ranking is currently in second place, while we still have it in first. In the world, new access channels are being "taken away" from traditional more and more customers. In the first place in terms of self-service, the Web channel came out there.
• Access channels such as Social Media are already ahead of the prevalence of SMS - both in our country and in the world.

Labour Management

• The ratio of men to women in CC who participated in the NAKTs-2013 study is 19.8% to 80.2%. There are slightly fewer women in the telecommunications and finance sectors (77.3% and 77.7%, respectively). In the CC of the trade and transport sector, the share of women is slightly above average - 85.5%.
• The number of operators per supervisor is almost 20% more than in the world (we have 14 and 12 in the world), and supervisors per manager - on the contrary, 20% less (we have 5, in the world 6).

We have the greatest burden on supervisors in the CC of the telecommunications industry - there are 19 operators "against" 1 supervisor. Coaches in telecommunications CCs also work in Stakhanov - in this sector there are 59 operators per coach.

• Most home operators work in the North and South America region (6.7%). We still have 0.4% home operators - this is about 6 times less than the average in the world (2.3%). Same as our share of home operators in Australia and New Zealand.

Contact Center Technologies

• Among the current technological trends, the most significant both in our country and in the world are:
  • the tendency to use single interfaces to access all applications used in CC,
  • technologies to ensure high levels of service availability and business continuity,
  • trend towards technology consolidation within the contact center

New technological access channels (social media, smartphone applications), as well as cloud technologies are gaining momentum.

In the world, data security technologies attract a little more attention than ours. Thus, 2.2% of respondents consider this technological trend to be the first in importance in our country, and 8.2% in the world. In second place we put it 8.9% of participants, and in the world 13.8%.

The least important for contact centers today are such technological trends as:

• service-oriented architecture migration,
• Transition from CAPEX solutions to OPEX-based solutions.

Most often, the study participants face problems with hardware integration, insufficient flexibility of installed systems and the high cost of updates. NAKTs-2013 study participants also drew attention to problems such as poor implementation and implementation, as well as a lack of knowledge among users of installed systems.

We are ahead of the rest of the world in terms of the share of CCs who have both their own technological strategy and their own technological infrastructure (we have such CCs 48.84%, and in the world 40.41%.

2012: RBC Data

According to RBK.research, the volume of the ACC services market in Russia in 2012 increased by 30.1% and reached 6.78 billion rubles. One of the recognized leaders today is the BEEPER Group. Occupying a market share of more than 12%, the company shows steady growth in all indicators: for example, the revenue of BEEPER Group of Companies is the fourth among the leaders.

The market is expected to grow by another 18-23% in 2013. One of the growth trends is the change in the strategy of large companies: solving the issue of developing their own call centers, they increasingly resort to the services of outsourcing partners, transferring to them a wide range of tasks - from technical support of users to large-scale analytical research. In Russia, the share of outsourcing call centers in recent years varies in the range of 10-12%.

2010: Contact Centers Market in Russia

Contact Center Market in Russia 2010 (PDF)

2009: Frost & Sullivan Data

According to the data of the consulting company Frost & Sullivan, obtained in the course of a new study, the volume of the market for outsourcing services of call-centers in Russia in 2009 amounted to $184.5 million. At the same time, this market is expected to expand in 2010, since reducing pressure on the budget allows companies to spend more money on outsourcing call center services to communicate with customers, the Frost & Sullivan report says.

As you know, the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. led to a slowdown in the growth rate of the Russian market for outsourcing of contact center services. Currently, however, there has been an upward trend in the market due to the growing interest in broadband services, Frost & Sullivan emphasized. At the same time, the implementation of IVR solutions is somewhat slower than predicted several years ago, analysts say. Apparently, consumers are wary of automated services and prefer to deal with live operators, Frost & Sullivan believes.

On the other hand, as Frost & Sullivan analysts noted, IVR solutions are becoming more and more popular among young and technologically sophisticated consumers. In addition, about the forecasts of experts, over the next 3-5 years, the demographic situation will contribute to an increase in the growth rate of the market for outsourcing of contact center services: the consequences of a sharp decline in the birth rate, which was observed in the first half of the 90s.

Along with the demographic factor, a low level of infrastructure development has a significant impact on the development of the Russian market for outsourcing of contact center services, the Frost & Sullivan report notes. According to the company, the level of IT infrastructure in Russia, especially broadband Internet access, is significantly inferior to the level of development of this market in most European countries.

In 2010, the ratio of investments in the IT sector to GDP in Russia, according to Frost & Sullivan, is 4.1%. The Russian government has launched a new policy aimed at financing and creating technology parks in St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Nizhny Novgorod and Dubna. In turn, outsourcing companies have begun to invest in the development of their infrastructure for the provision of multimedia services, since customers are interested in such a communication channel. However, Russia continues to lead the way in live human services, and demand for phone support is forecast to continue to grow in the near future, Frost & Sullivan said.

1998

In 1998, PTT-Teleport Moscow opened its own call center. This center became the second in Russia. The first was created a little earlier by MTU-Inform, but its functions were extremely limited. It worked only in auto-informant (help desk) and televoting machine modes. In turn, the first fully functional Internet call center in Russia was put into commercial operation by the St. Petersburg Information Company (SPiK) on April 5, 2001. It was designed to provide various services to individuals (telephones and addresses of enterprises and organizations, passenger air and railway transportation, the state of the financial market, restaurants and clubs of St. Petersburg) and corporate clients (providing the company's resources - operators, equipment or technology - for full time or part of it). For a firm ordering the services of such a center, the cost of one minute of work of one universal operator ranged from 15 to 25 cents.

Call-center projects have become more complicated. Now companies do not just want to communicate with their customers using call centers. Now it is important to effectively interact with the audience through them. For example, to know the history of customer requests, when and for what reasons there was a call, the deadline for resolving issues, what services is used, what has already been offered. On the other hand, it is important to ensure the operator's timely response and understand how accurately he gives information to customers. And, here for the integrator a large field of activity - various services, applications, etc., which need to be implemented or combined without losing the functionality already created once. And there are even new solutions for the Russian market when you feel like a discoverer.

Over the past few years, companies have been actively building contact centers, so the greatest prospects in the development of these services. Among the current solutions are WFM systems, voice analytics systems to find out the reason for calls to the call center and control the quality of operators, speech recognition and synthesis systems.

Foreign companies in Russia

Companies such as Avaya, Cisco, Genesys, Alcatel-Lucent and Nortel dominate this market. Let's consider the participation of each representative of the conditional "Big Five" in the integration of call centers in Russia separately.

Avaya

Avaya has long and firmly established itself in the international and, in particular, interesting Russian market as an unconditional leader. The main priorities in its work are Avaya to create the ability to serve as many clients as possible by as few operators as possible. Moreover, the implementation of this opportunity, according to the company's general strategy in this direction, should not only not worsen the quality of service for each client as a whole, but, on the contrary, only improve. To achieve this goal, Avaya relies on preventing possible problems even before they occur, creating an algorithm for a set of preventive measures to troubleshoot problems in the working network. This solution allows the system to automatically reconfigure and redistribute the load evenly from the problem node to "healthy." The largest Russian client of Avaya is VimpelCom: the total number of operators of this organization working on Avaya equipment exceeds 1000 people. The integration of equipment has also been established in the call centers of another largest Russian mobile operator - CJSC Megaphone"."

Avaya's total turnover in the Russian market in 2008 grew by 37 %, and Avaya's total share among other participants in the call center equipment market in Russia amounted to 62 %.

Avaya's new products include Avaya Voice Portal 4.0 and Interactive Response 3.0 (one of the most widely used interactive voice interaction platforms). In addition, a new version of Avaya Dialog Designer 4.0, a next-generation self-service application design tool, a basic ON Avaya IP Office Release 4.0, and an Avaya IP Office 500 Media Server, as well as an Avaya Meeting Exchange Express solution for voice conferencing in midsize businesses, were released. Avaya has been successful in active development that is software fully compatible with third-party equipment, making it the most attractive product to compete with. Based on what market share Avaya occupies, We can say with confidence that so far this company has no serious competitors in Russia. Avaya also recognizes this. And yet the presence of other equipment integrators for call centers in Russia is tangible, and it would be shortsighted for Avaya to ignore this fact. The rest of the market players do not sit idly by, constantly attracting customers with new solutions for business.

Cisco

In 2008, Cisco launched a line of all-in-one UC500 solutions. These decisions, as follows from this principle, are rightfully considered full-fledged for contact centers. The functionality of the UC500 is very wide: the possibilities for processing all types of messages are open. In addition, it is necessary to note the modularity of Cisco solutions, which allows them to be implemented even in small enterprises. If we consider the perspective more broadly and in detail, then a simple fact becomes clear. When a company favors the products of one of the suppliers for one reason or another, the specialists of this company inevitably become adherents to this equipment through experience with it. When expanding, the company also needs to expand the platforms of its call centers. The most expected will be that the company will not change its choice and will again turn to the same integrator as before. As practice has shown, this is what usually happens. Cisco is becoming more and more confident in the Russian market, finding new partners, direct customers or distributors of its products.

But Cisco has competitors that occupy about the same share of the Russian market. For example, Nortel's BCM (Business Communication Manager) product, which has been on the market for quite some time. The main event here is the release in October 2008 of the new BCM 450 hardware platform, which significantly increased subscriber capacity with the possibility of its further expansion. The new product inherited most of the functions from the well-known BCM 50 3.0 system on the market. Namely: an integrated contact center (Intelligent Contact Center), a conference bridge (up to 120 ports), computer telephone integration interfaces (TAPI), support for unified mail  , etc. All of these services are now available to 300 extensions that can use both conventional (TDM) telephones and IP terminals.

Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent has long released a product that directly competes between UC500 and BCM. This is the OmniPCX Office system, which has been successfully sold on the Russian market for several years. In 2008 , Alcatel-Lucent decided to take a well-established integration approach to midsize companies by introducing Business Integrated Communication Solution (BiCS) for them. It includes Call Server (OmniPCX Enterprise), Voice Mail, Unified Communications Server (OmniTouch UC), Call Center, and Management System (OmniVista 4760). The OmniTouch UC server supports conference calls of various types and support for group work. With its help, you can get remote access to your phone, organize call routing. BiCS is delivered with pre-installed applications.

Genesys

Genesys is also one of Alcatel's divisions. All of this company's solutions are software-based. Genesys received high marks from the IVR Decision Matrix study as a result of constant sales growth and an excellent reputation as a developer with a large base of companies using its IVR systems. Genesys is paying close attention to the development of next-generation applications. The creation of the intelligent Customer Front Door (iCFD) concept testifies to the innovative philosophy of this supplier and the desire to expand the functionality of IVR systems. The iCFD solution provides a wide range of self-service features. According to the experience of foreign companies that applied this solution in their call centers, with the help of iCFD, they managed to achieve an increase in customer satisfaction and profit by 10% and 3 %, respectively.

Large corporations like Genesys compatibility with competitors' products, because even with the takeover of firms with contact centers other than their corporate standard, with the help of Genesys developments, they can be easily integrated into a single system.

Nortel

Another representative of foreign developers of equipment for contact centers is Nortel. This manufacturer constantly offers new solutions for the implementation of call centers. However, in January 2009, due to the difficult situation during the global economic crisis, Nortel resorted to technical bankruptcy proceedings in order to restructure its obligations to creditors. Most partners were very wary of this news. This fact will undoubtedly affect in the future the expansive capabilities of Nortel both in the Russian and world markets. By now, as Nortel assures, the situation has returned to normal and customers and partners should have no reason to worry.

Russian market participants

Call Center and Project Solutions Catalog {{main 'Call centers

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See also:

• Call Centers Project and Product Catalog
• Own call center or outsourcing? TA Details
• Contact Centers (Solution Providers)
• Call Center (Implementation)
• Call centers (Russian market)
• Contact Centers (Russian Market)
• Contact center: in search of hidden reserves
• Call center purpose, types and tasks
• Methods of evaluating the effectiveness of staff recruiters for contact centers and the principles of their motivation
• Call center purpose, types and tasks
• Outsourcing to a call centre
• Outsourcing a business to a call center, put it in good hands
• IVR (Interactive Voice Response)
• Unified Communications Global
• WFM (Workforce Management) - Work Time Planning

Notes