Credit: Dreamstime
Spending on customer experience technologies is forecast to reach US$508 billion in 2019, paving the way for specialised channel partners to capitalise on increased end-user demand.
According to IDC findings, the global market is expected to grow at 7.9 per cent compared to 2018, driven by a need for customer differentiation.
Of note to the channel, services tailored to customer experience will represent the largest area of spending at $220 billion in 2019, with most of the total divided between business services and IT services. Software will be the second largest area of spending led by CRM applications and content applications.
Hardware, including infrastructure and devices, will account for nearly 20 per cent of overall CX spending while telecommunications services will be less than 10 per cent of total spending.
“Customer experience has become a key differentiator for businesses worldwide,” observed Craig Simpson, research manager, IDC. “New innovation accelerator technologies like artificial intelligence and data analytics are at the forefront in driving the differentiation for businesses to succeed in their customer experience strategic initiatives.”
Simpson said customer experience can be defined as “a functional activity encompassing business processes, strategies, technologies, and services that companies use, irrespective of industry, to provide a better experience for their customer and to differentiate themselves from their competitors”.
Delving deeper, the customer experience use case that will see the most spending in 2019 is customer care and support followed by order fulfilment and interaction management. Meanwhile, AI-driven engagement, interaction management, and ubiquitous commerce will represent the fastest spending segments.
“The retail industry will spend the most on CX technologies in 2019 ($56.7 billion),” Simpson added. “Digital marketing, AI-driven engagement, and order fulfilment will be the use cases that receive the most funding from retail organisations.
“Discrete manufacturing and banking will be the second and third largest industries in 2019. Customer care and support will be the primary use case for both industries.”
In looking ahead, Simpson said customer experience spending is forecast to reach $641 billion by 2022, achieving a compound annual growth rate of 8.2 per cent.
