The ultimate value of independent research reports hinges on the depth and breadth of their approach to the subject at hand. Is the field of evaluated call center software vendors broad enough? Were the criteria evaluated rich enough? And maybe most importantly, were the outcomes directly relevant to the audience’s needs?
In the case of Forrester Research and the Forrester Wave for Cloud Contact Centers, Q3 2018, I think you’ll find all these boxes clearly checked. Best of all, the report’s due diligence can directly supplement your company’s own RFP/RFI efforts, by providing some solid results for many of the Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) players.
A defined and robust methodology
Forrester culled the field by reviewing the cloud offerings of proven CCaaS vendors at scale that service both small/midsized and large companies globally. Their research then filtered another important layer down, focusing in on organizations that offer a complete product that includes routing, workforce optimization (WFO) and call center software analytics capabilities.
Forrester’s rigorous questionnaire evaluated vendors against 32 criteria, grouped into three high-level categories—current offering, strategy and market presence. Per the Forrester Wave report:
“Current offering. Key criteria for these solutions include omnichannel support, analytics, user experience strategy, CRM integrations, voice infrastructure, and a product architecture that is based on microservices. The incorporation of ‘native’ WFO influenced a number of criteria in this list.
Strategy. We evaluated the overall business vision, product road map, geographic strategy, and partner ecosystem.
Market presence. Our market presence scores reflect each vendor’s installed base of customers and agent positions.”
Jumpstart your RFI process
Thanks to Forrester’s 32-point approach, many companies will find the final report aligns quite well with the product capabilities, company resources, customer success model and other critical elements that factor into your typical call center software RFI/RFP preparation. By consulting the Forrester Wave report, you’ll find a plethora of insights to help streamline your RFI decisions from the outset.
We encourage you to read the full report to learn more about the CCaaS vendors evaluated and why NICE CXone took a top-ranked spot in the final results.
Download the full Forrester Wave report.
Next Time: The Forrester Demos – Seeing is Believing
