"Real-time Connectivity with customers via social medial to build brand equity and humanise your industry fast, easy and tranparently. This is good only if you can keep up, must be active where your customers and audience are. Bad if you can't keep up; provide feedback realtime, monitor every tag, respond to negative feedback immediately etc. So 2019 and beyond, the focus in realtime connectivity is key to the industry and survival is based on whether you are on the social platform or not."
- Irine Lopez, Director, ILO Simple Solutions Sdn Bhd, Malaysia

"2019 should be a great year for the customer from the perspective of increasing sophistication and availability of self-service options. The only negative thing I see becoming more prevalent is the trend for companies to not advertise their number or email address, forcing people to deal with self-service help, which isn't always effective."
- Sharon Melamed, Managing Director, Matchboard, Australia

"With employment numbers strong in North America, the pursuit of talent will make it harder to find good agents and more expensive to retain them. But the payback is measurable - you do get what you pay for."
- Jeff Epstein, VP Product Marketing and Communications, Comm100 Network Corporation, Canada

"The contact center industry has seen a disruption in the recent past unlike any witnessed in previous years. Companies can no longer rely on the traditional way of running their contact centers as an ancillary service. They are now pivotal to the overall business strategy. How an organization effectively navigates through this evolution can dictate overall market competitiveness. A key to success will lie in how well companies manage their talent, both in terms of acquiring scarce capabilities and upskilling/reskilling impacted workforce."
- Shirley Hung, Vice President, Everest Group, United States

"Good and i think that Executives are understanding the importance of Contact centers and are investing more because they can see the positive impact on the business."
- Amer Moussa, Contact Center Manager, DMCC, United Arab Emirates

"This year, at least in my acting areas/countries, will be difficult and good. Difficult in terms of revenue, and good in terms of innovation.
Most of the innovative ideas i've seen has been developed from shortage, not abundance."
- Rodrigo Borgia, CEO, Gamifica, Argentina

"Good - as long as we can hire the best available people. Some companies like Apple in particular are compromising their standards to meet cost and diversity targets. The decrease in the caller experience is dramatic. AT&T has been guilty of this for the past few decades."
- Allan Fromm, President, AnSer Services, United States

"Just like other industries, such as retail and travel, ours is being redefined by market forces and consumer expectations. The status is no longer quo. This means your business model must change with the times and shifting views. What worked yesterday might no longer produce results today. So, examine how innovation from other businesses might apply to ours. Changeover and cross-pollination should be standard operating procedures. Also, this year will be tougher than 2018. The economy is predicted to slow. Trade wars dampen consumer spending as politics continue to run amok. Headlines create business headaches. I believe it’s wise then to take a hard look at your call center operations now, shore up any shortcomings and prepare to run leaner in-house for the foreseeable future—with outside resources at the ready."
- Kimber Houlne, CEO, Working Solutions, United States