Convergys Intervoice Acquisition Thoughts

On Wednesday, Convergys announced that it had acquired Intervoice. Many of our customers and partners have asked us for our thoughts on the acquisition.  We are very excited about this transaction for the following reasons:

The acquisition validates the market trend that positions contact automation as the most critical technology in the call center.

This acquisition signifies a major shift in the contact center outsourcing market. Contact automation/IVR is now recognized as its most critical technology, requiring specialized, expert attention to ensure that consumer enterprises are optimizing their customer service investments.  Convergys is investing $335 Million to build out a complete customer relationship story that integrates contact automation/self-service and live agents.  This is a huge commitment to contact automation by one of the world’s largest call center outsourcing companies. For our industry, this transaction confirms the importance of telephone self-service solutions as the means to delivering high levels of customer satisfaction. This acquisition raises the profile of the IVR and contact automation as the most critical piece of technology in the call center industry.

Improving contact automation is critical to every company’s success and demands attention. CSI is the leader in this space.

CSI invented the contact automation concept Continuous Improvement supported by six critical Centers of Excellence.  No company on the planet approaches contact automation with the level of detail and focus of CSI, from our attention to application development, monitoring, reporting, return on investment analysis, and integration. We help call centers save millions of dollars by improving their contact automation rates.

The rest of the call center outsourcer industry will need to build out their contact automation positioning.

Convergys’ actions will force the other contact center outsourcers to take a harder look at their contact automation strategies around the IVR.  Our commitment to working with partners has proven to be the best solution for consumer enterprises that need to ensure the highest level of customer service.  We look forward to working with our partners to continuously improve their contact automation strategies.