Prominent research firm Metrigy has released the results of its 2022 MetriStar Awards for Workforce Optimization (WFO) platforms.
As these become evermore mainstream within contact centers – in part due to greater accessibility through the cloud and the switch to hybrid working – the competition between WFO platform providers is heating up. Untangling the best solution for a contact center is a tricky challenge.
Luckily, Metrigy has assessed the solution of 14 market leaders that provide WFO solutions on a global scale, identifying four MetriStar Top Providers.
The Definition of Workforce Optimization Platforms
WFO platforms aim to enhance the efficiency of contact center operations and the teams that work within them through various applications, data, and analytics.
Such applications include quality assurance (QA), workforce management (WFM), and speech analytics software. Call recordings, task management, and desktop tools are further examples.
Either available as stand-alone solutions or as a full suite, many WFO providers now offer the entire set, often packaging the solution as a Workforce Engagement Management platform.
Research Methodology
According to its MetriStar Awards report, Metrigy engaged with over 1,840 research participants across ten countries in three regions – North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.
In doing so, the market analyst collated information regarding each company’s: “Current and planned spending, provider adoption, plans for changing providers (and why), applications in use, provider ratings, business success, and more.”
Digging into the results of WFO implementations specifically, Metrigy splits its research into two distinct categories “top customer business success” and “top customer sentiment”.
Assessing changes to crucial business, customer, and agent outcomes – post-WFO implementation – Metrigy aims to measure how big of a bang each provider delivers for a buck. Such a process enables them to assess “top customer business success”.
In terms of “top customer sentiment”, participants were asked to rate their WFO provider across several areas, including specific capabilities, support, and reliability.
Providers that score above average in the “top customer business success” and “top customer sentiment” categories are heralded as MetriStar Top Providers.
MetriStar Top Provider
The four WFO platform providers below received high customer sentiment scores and achieved well-documented business success. In doing so, they continually delivered a positive impact on revenues, mission-critical CX metrics, and agent efficiency.
- Alvaria
- Avaya
- Five9
- NICE
Alvaria
Formerly known as Aspect Software, the report highly commends Alvaria for how it embeds AI and analytics into its WFO proposition. Having gained additional WFO capabilities and knowledge following its merger with Noble Systems – Metrigy pinpoints the technical features of the Alvaria proposition as a particular strength.
Avaya
Avaya, another stalwart of the WFO market, receives praise from Metrigy for its ability to assist companies with their CX initiatives. Alongside its well-scored product offering, the provider seemingly harnesses its global team of experts to great effect, offering high levels of support from consulting to deployment.
Five9
Five9 has gained significant market traction over the past year following its failed acquisition by Zoom. Yet, the unrest seems not to have knocked the company off its stride, as end-users praise the vendor for its reliability and top-notch support. Metrigy also notes that the company is a market leader in its use of AI in the WFO space.
NICE
Metrigy notes that NICE offers a comprehensive set of WFO tools, tightly integrating its solutions with a wide range of third-party providers of CRM, ERP, and collaboration solutions. The analyst also highlights that the vendor has a reputation for being “reliable” and is innovative in its approach to augmenting sophisticated analytics into its solutions to benefit broader CX initiatives.
Top Customer Sentiment
Those that score well in this category are highly regarded by end-users, fostering relationships that often deliver successful implementations. While the results of these implementations – through the lens of the wider business, customers, and agents – seemingly do not match the MetriStar Top Providers, these WFO platforms often meet critical goals. This year’s top sentiment platform is:
- Cisco
Cisco
Scoring above average for every criteria Metrigy uses to gauge customer sentiment, Cisco has a track record of delivering a reliable, feature-rich platform. As the winner of a CX Award 2022 for its WebEx CCaaS solution, WFO will likely become a growing focus area for Cisco as they become a well-rounded, market-leading contact center vendor.
Top Business Success
According to the MetriStar report: “At least 43.7% of these providers’ customers achieved above-average business success while using their products or services.” However, while many clients speak highly of them, the sentiment levels of end-users are lower than those of the four MetriStar Top Providers. This year’s top business success platforms are:
- Elevēo
- InVision
- Verint
- WalkMe
Elevēo
Headquartered in Prague, Elevēo has garnered praise from Metrigy for its proven ability to improve agent experiences. Automating manual functions, supporting simple channel shift, and boosting performance management processes have enabled the provider to enhance key agent outcomes, positively impacting revenues and CX metrics.
InVision
Invision offers AI and analytics capabilities that drive encouraging outcomes for most significant contact center stakeholders – customers, the broader business, and agents. While the vendor primarily focuses on collaboration tools – as opposed to most of the others on our list that are more CCaaS-orientated – Invision empowers operations through greater connectivity.
Verint
As one of the more familiar brands in the WFO-space, Verint offers an array of WFM, analytics, and quality management tools that have a track record of delivering ROI. With a strong global presence, Verint is also quick to offer support to help companies squeeze more value from their extensive WFO portfolio.
WalkMe
WalkMe offers solutions across the enterprise that support everything from onboarding new employees to enabling digital transformation projects. Yet, even with such a broad focus, Metrigy commends the technical features of its service, which are proving successful in driving revenues and delivering on other crucial contact center objectives.
Special Plaudits Go To…
Despite noting four WFO leaders, Metrigy reserved its MetriStar Top Provider Award for NICE, as the provider scored highest across the business success and customer sentiment categories.
The award marks the sixth Top Provider award that NICE has won in this year’s MetriStar awards program, underpinning the success its comprehensive CX portfolio is delivering to clients.
Meanwhile, Metrigy also attempted to assess the WFO offerings of Concentrix, Microsoft, and Salesforce. However, the analyst failed to acquire sufficient data to rate them fairly.
Calabrio, Nuance, Talkdesk, and Twilio also feature in the report. Yet, Metrigy did not include them within the MetriStar Top Provider, Top Customer Sentiment, and Top Business Success categories.
Learn more from Metrigy’s team of experts by reading our article: Metrigy’s Top Drivers for AI Spend in CX Revealed
