Hosted Speech and Outbound IVR Services (Strategic Focus)
Market Research Report

Hosted Speech and Outbound IVR Services (Strategic Focus) Market Research Report

The introduction of hosted speech and outbound IVR services is helping vendors scale up the value stack in a rapidly commoditizing and price-competitive hosted IVR market. Enterprises are choosing this model for scalable solutions when they have high call volumes, to minimize CapEx and where they need expertise with developing sophisticated speech projects.

Scope of this report

• Analyses the key trends, drivers and inhibitors in the hosted IVR market for DTMF and speech.
• Provides an overview of the industries where hosted IVR is gaining traction and lists typical applications.
• Assesses the leading vendors for hosted IVR and outbound services.
• Assesses the future trends and provides recommendations for hosted IVR vendors.

Research and analysis highlights

Hosting is becoming more accepted and this model is gaining traction for IVR. Growth in hosted speech is increasing at a faster rate than for DTMF: speech applications are often complex to develop and enterprises have limited internal expertise meaning that hosting is a more feasible option.

Outbound services are being offered in addition to hosted speech in order to maximize IVR port usage and generate an additional revenue stream for vendors when hosted IVR growth is sluggish. Outbound automated speech services can be used for identification verification to identify the caller before other applications are introduced to the caller.

The current economic climate is helping to drive business for outbound IVR in debt collections. In order to communicate with the rapidly increasing number of customers in debt, loans companies and banks are looking for cheaper alternatives to reach out to customers.

Key reasons to read this report

• Understand significant trends in the hosted IVR market in order to plan your go-to-market strategy.
• Learn about the key industries where hosted inbound and outbound services are deployed and discover customers' motivations for investment.
• Gain insight into the global market size and discover Datamonitor's predictions for revenue growth for hosted speech and DTMF.

• Overview
  • Catalyst
  • Summary
• Key Messages
  • The hosted IVR market is changing and there is an increasing demand for hosted speech
  • Outbound IVR solutions offer significant advantages over predictive dialers and direct mail
  • Financial services, travel & tourism and healthcare are early adopters of outbound IVR
  • The competitive landscape is fragmented but vendors are broadening their offerings
  • The future will see an increased use of standards and better infrastructure integration
• Table of Contents
• Table of figures
• Table of tables
• Market Opportunity
  • Defining the market
    • Hosted IVR
    • Premise-based managed IVR services
    • Outbound IVR
  • The changing IVR market
    • Avoiding commoditization and moving up the value stack
    • The hosted model is becoming more acceptable
    • Outbound IVR services help to maximize port usage and reduce pressure on agents
    • The benefits of outbound IVR over predictive dialers
    • The benefits of outbound IVR over direct mailing
    • Vendors are offering multichannel solutions
  • Market drivers
    • Cost pressures are driving investments in hosted speech solutions
    • While the economy is struggling, customer retention is vital
    • High call volumes and scalability
  • Market challenges
    • Driving awareness for hosted speech and IVR applications
    • The cost of speech recognition outside the US
    • Investments in contact center staff and legacy infrastructure
  • Market size and trends
    • Growth in DTMF is stagnant but there has been an increasing demand for hosted speech solutions
    • Premise-based managed services are becoming more popular
    • North America represents the largest market for hosted IVR through 2013
    • Outbound services are currently a very small proportion of IVR but there are growth opportunities
• Customer Impact
  • Hosted inbound IVR: early adopters
  • Communications
    • Financial services organizations have large contact centers to address customer queries
    • Travel & tourism firms need to provide high levels of customer service around the clock
    • Retail, entertainment, media & leisure and technology are also beginning to use hosted IVR
    • Early adopters of outbound IVR
      • Increasing debt is creating a market for outbound applications in debt collections and billing
      • Outbound IVR is increasingly part of emergency notification solutions
      • Reducing administrative costs and providing better patient care is driving growth in healthcare
      • Outbound services are used within the travel & tourism industry to gain a competitive advantage
    • Customer pain points and technology limitations
      • Control and security
      • Total cost of ownership is high
      • Customer acceptance
    • When to invest: ROI model
• Competitive Landscape
  • Hosted inbound and outbound IVR services vendors (in alphabetical order)
    • Adeptra
    • Angel.com
    • Convergys
    • EDS
    • Eckoh
    • Eliza Corporation
    • First Data
    • Intervoice
    • LiveVox
    • MessageOne
    • MIR3
    • Nortel
    • Nuance
    • Rightnow
    • SendWordNow
    • Silverlink
    • SoundBite
    • Teleperformance
    • Tellme
    • Telephonetics VIP
    • Tuvox
    • Varolii
    • VoltDelta
    • West
    • Voxeo
    • Voxify
• Go to Market
  • Channel partners and pricing
    • Pricing options
• Future trends
• The hosted IVR market will see vendor consolidation and an increasing use of standards