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At CCW, the human side of AI was a headliner

For all the talk about AI at the recent Customer Contact Week (and it was everywhere), many discussions homed in on the human element of customer experience. Striking the right balance of humans and technology in the contact center, associates’ evolving roles in the AI age, empathy in CX, and the need for tech investments to be customer-centric were all hot topics at the Las Vegas event. 

CCW took place June 22-25 and drew an estimated 5,000 attendees. A lot of sessions focused on AI – how best to deploy agentic AI, how to foster an environment of innovation, how to build trust in AI among associates and customers – but many CX leaders also were eager to discuss humans’ role in delivering great experiences.

The consensus was clear: AI isn’t replacing humans in CX but it’s drastically changing their jobs, and brands still have some work to do in finding the right partnership between the two.

Frontline associates are feeling AI’s impact
Many brands have rushed to integrate AI into their contact centers, but the impact it’s having on frontline associates isn’t yet clear, according to experts from Customer Management Practice (CMP), the organizer of CCW.

“Agents’ attention today is being pulled in a million different directions,” said Audrey Steeves, lead content analyst at CMP. They’re carrying an “intense cognitive load,” having to learn and navigate a lot of new technologies. At the same time, they’re handling increasingly complicated customer interactions as the simple ones are being deflected to AI.

An abundance of new tools brings lots of potential but also challenges.

“When you’re bouncing between systems, guess what you’re not doing? Really listening to those customers,” said Brian Cantor, CMP’s managing director of digital.

Increasingly, associates feel over-burdened and under-prepared for their evolving roles, he said.

“If we don’t make it easy for them, they can’t be valuable for the customer,” Cantor said.

Cantor and Steeves presented new research from CCW Digital that found:

  • 74% of leaders admit associates must jump between multiple systems during a single customer interaction
  • 52% of leaders recognize that employees spend too much time on non-interaction work, such as knowledge lookups or data entry
  • 49% of leaders see the excessive number of approvals required to deliver “above and beyond” resolutions as an operational challenge
  • 96% of leaders say improving employee experience and productivity is a priority when evaluating and buying new contact center technology, yet just 27% of teams provide their frontline agents with a unified, single source of truth
  • Only 32% of leaders have a comprehensive, real-time view of how all individual associates are performing

Against this backdrop, CMP found, 37% of customers believe customer experiences have gotten worse since last year and most CX leaders (68%) believe supervisors and managers aren’t yet prepared to manage the next-generation associate.

37% of customers believe customer experiences have gotten worse since last year

Unifying tools and technologies and providing associates with a “single source of truth” should be a priority for brands going forward, said Steeves.

Customer, associate trust are paramount to AI success
At a standing-room-only panel about trust and transparency in agentic AI, panelists spoke about the need for customers and associates alike to buy into a brand’s AI efforts. Tools won’t work if associates don’t want to use them or customers don’t trust them, they said.

When audience members were polled, most said they were in the midst of deploying agentic AI. Many were in the pilot phase, and some had moved into full-on deployment. Panelists urged them to embrace and learn from what doesn’t work as much as what does work – and to take employee feedback into account when choosing and implementing tools.

AI is a solution that should be deployed intentionally to solve a problem, said Amanda Pennington, vice president of sales enablement at UnitedHealth Group. People will trust technology more if they believe it will help them.

“Trust is built in consistency,” she added.

She and other panelists shared about the experimenting their companies have done and mistakes they made along the way in their AI journeys: a rollout that was too fast, trying to implement new tools across too large of a team at once, and assuming different customer profiles would want to use AI in similar ways, among others.

Trying to take on too much at once is a common misstep, said Lisa DeFalco, CEO of Anna. “Start small, prove the case, move on,” she advised.

Seen and heard around CCW
With more than 100 panel discussions, workshops, and breakout sessions, there were many perspectives about humans’ role in CX to take in at CCW. Here’s a sampling of what the Customer Strategist Journal team heard while we were there:

“You have to consider more than the short-term gain or win [with AI]. You have to consider the long-term ramifications.”
– Brian Cantor, managing director of digital at CMP

“What you need is the core following of the brand to come back and enjoy following you again. A lot of people cracked their first crab legs at Red Lobster. The history and the love is there. Everybody has those stories. That’s a good way to galvanize the organization; it means a lot to a lot of people. My focus is on restoration versus evolution.”
– Damola Adamolekun, CEO of Red Lobster

“I don’t want to go to any frontline person and say, ‘You have three minutes to solve the problem,’ because they’re not going to be curious. They’re not going to ask questions.”
– Heather Arthur, vice president of global client experience at Scotiabank, on why AHT is no longer on the company’s metric scorecard

“You never know what someone is carrying. The employee who may seen distracted may have sat in a hospital all night. The customer that seems angry, even excessively so, may have just received the worst phone call of their life. They’re not looking for perfection. They’re looking for another human being, someone who reminds them, even for a moment, that they matter.”
– salon owner, hair stylist, and television personality Tabatha Coffey

“The worst experience for your customers is not delivering on what you say you’re going to do. And the thing that travels the fastest in CX is word of mouth.”
– Shantel Love, global vice president of customer success, clinical and school assessment at Pearson

“People and our customers are our biggest assets. We have to be crystal clear with where we are on AI and communicate clearly to get people on board. Some people are scared and need training on AI. Jobs will change, but people and their judgement and decision making are still needed.”
– Tiffany Meriweather, chief administrative and legal officer at Five9

The best BPOs for CX transformation in 2026

Defocused shot of a female standing against illuminated LED digital display screen in the dark. Futuristic concept. Connecting to the future. Interaction between human and technology. Technology and innovation. Smart technology

Outsourcing customer experience (CX) through business process outsourcing (BPO) used to be a fairly transactional decision. Companies chose a vendor based on price per seat, geographic availability, and the ability to handle call volume. That calculus has changed dramatically.

Today, the best BPO relationships are strategic partnerships — and selecting the wrong outsourcing partner can mean stalled digital initiatives, unmet customer expectations, inconsistent outcomes, and a technology investment that never pays off. Brands must be able to separate a true CX transformation partner from a vendor that’s simply along for the ride.

What to look for in a BPO for CX and contact center optimization

  • A genuine technology roadmap, not just licensed tools. The BPO market is full of companies that purchase third-party platforms, rebrand them, and present them as proprietary capabilities. When evaluating a potential partner, press them specifically on what they have built, not just what they have deployed. Do they have in-house engineering teams that can customize AI models, conversational flows, or data analytics dashboards to your specific environment? Can they demonstrate those capabilities in a live setting rather than a slide deck?

    A BPO that has invested in building its own technology, even if it also leverages best-in-class third-party platforms, will be a far more flexible and responsive partner — one built to genuinely streamline operations as your CX strategy evolves.
  • The ability to integrate transformation and operations under one roof. One of the most common failure modes in CX transformation involves a disconnect between the teams designing the future state and the teams responsible for day-to-day customer service operations. Many BPOs offer consulting or digital strategy as a separate engagement with separate leadership, separate incentives, and separate accountability.

    Look for a partner whose transformation capabilities are genuinely embedded in its delivery model, where the same organization designing your AI-assisted workflows is also responsible for running your contact center and hitting your SLAs. When strategy and execution are aligned, transformation stalls far less often.
  • Demonstrated expertise in your vertical. CX transformation looks different in healthcare than it does in financial services, retail, or technology. Regulatory constraints, customer data sensitivity requirements, the emotional weight of customer interactions, and the complexity of product ecosystems vary enormously by industry.

    A BPO that has built deep expertise in your sector will move faster, make fewer costly assumptions, and bring genuinely relevant benchmarks and best practices to the relationship. Ask for case studies from clients in your specific vertical, and go beyond the polished summary to understand what the actual implementation journey looked like.
  • A workforce strategy built for retention. In an industry where turnover rates regularly exceed 30 to 40 percent annually, agent attrition is one of the biggest hidden costs and quality risks in any CX program. Every time an experienced associate leaves, institutional knowledge walks out the door and the team’s knowledge base erodes and service quality dips while replacements ramp up. The best BPOs treat workforce experience as a competitive differentiator, investing in compensation, culture, coaching, and career development not just to hit attrition targets but because they understand that engaged associates deliver better customer experiences. Ask potential partners for their current attrition rates, how those compare to industry averages, and what specifically they do to drive long-term engagement.
  • Transparent, outcomes-based performance measurement. The shift from input-based to outcomes-based measurement is a reliable indicator of a BPO’s transformation maturity. Cost per contact and average handle time tell you how efficiently a program operates, but they say nothing about whether customers are coming away with their problems solved and their trust in your brand strengthened.

Look for a partner willing to commit to measurable outcomes — tying accountability to customer satisfaction scores, first-contact resolution rates, net promoter scores, and even downstream metrics like retention and lifetime value. If a BPO only wants to discuss operational metrics, it may not be confident in what its work does to actual customer outcomes.

  • Scalability paired with flexibility. CX needs are rarely static. Seasonal spikes, product launches, regulatory changes, and market disruptions can dramatically shift the volume, complexity, and channel mix of customer interactions in a short period of time. The right partner should be able to handle rapid scaling without sacrificing quality — and should have a delivery model flexible enough to shift resources across geographies, channels, and skill sets as your needs change. Rigidity in capacity planning is a warning sign; the best BPOs treat flexibility as a core design principle, not an exception to be negotiated.

Finding a BPO that checks all of these boxes is not easy, but it is possible. These top BPO companies have each built meaningful capabilities in these areas, and together they represent the current best of what the CX outsourcing industry has to offer.

1. TTEC

When it comes to CX transformation, TTEC stands in a category of its own. For more than four decades, TTEC has operated at the intersection of humanity and technology, delivering end-to-end customer care and experience solutions that go far beyond answering calls. The company serves some of the world’s most recognized brands across healthcare, financial services, retail, government, and technology sectors — and it does so with a combination that few can match: proprietary AI-powered platforms, a global delivery footprint spanning six continents, and an unwavering commitment to the human side of customer service.

What truly differentiates TTEC is its dual-engine model — an approach consistently recognized as best-in-class for combining strategy, technology, and operations in a single integrated stack. TTEC Digital designs and builds the technology infrastructure (CRM integrations, conversational AI, digital self-service tools, analytics dashboards) while TTEC puts that technology to work through tens of thousands of highly trained associates delivering live interactions. This model means clients don’t have to manage a disjointed stack of vendors; TTEC handles the full arc — CX strategy, design, implementation, and contact center operations — under one roof to deliver seamless experiences at every customer touchpoint.

TTEC’s investment in AI and automation is not performative. The company’s proprietary platforms — including its RealSkill AI coaching tools and its omnichannel orchestration capabilities — are actively deployed to improve agent performance, reduce handle time, and surface real-time insights that help supervisors and clients make faster decisions. TTEC’s particular strength in AI-driven customer service modernization sets it apart: the same organization architecting the AI solution is also running the contact center that depends on it. TTEC doesn’t just talk about digital transformation; it has built the tools and trained the workforce to make it real.

The company’s culture is another competitive weapon. TTEC has consistently earned recognition as a top employer globally, a distinction that translates directly into lower attrition, more experienced frontline teams, and better outcomes for the customers those teams serve. In an industry often plagued by high turnover, TTEC’s ability to retain and develop talent is a material advantage.

For organizations that want a full CX overhaul — not just consulting slides — and need deep enterprise CX transformation capability that spans strategy, technology, and live operations, TTEC is the clear first call.

2. Teleperformance

Teleperformance is the world’s largest CX services company by revenue, with operations in more than 80 countries and a client roster that includes some of the most demanding brands in technology, e-commerce, and financial services. The company’s global reach is unmatched, and its ability to spin up multilingual operations quickly is a genuine capability that many competitors struggle to replicate.

In recent years, Teleperformance has made significant moves to modernize its technology story. Its acquisition of Majorel in 2023 deepened its European footprint, while continued investment in its TP Cloud Campus remote workforce model demonstrated an ability to adapt its delivery model in the face of changing workforce dynamics.

Teleperformance’s primary value proposition remains scale, geographic coverage, and cost reduction — which can make it an excellent fit for high-volume, globalizing programs. Organizations seeking deep co-innovation or highly bespoke transformation partnerships may find Teleperformance’s model more standardized than they need, but for reliable global execution, it is a formidable provider.

3. Alorica

Alorica has carved out a strong position in the CX outsourcing market by focusing intently on a few things: competitive pricing, domestic and nearshore BPO delivery flexibility, and a service culture that emphasizes empathy at scale. The company serves millions of customer interactions daily for clients in retail, healthcare, financial services, and technology — and it does so with a consistent quality standard that has earned it a loyal client base.

Alorica’s investment in analytics and workforce management tools has accelerated in recent years, giving clients better visibility into performance data and making it easier to optimize programs in real time. Its IntelliSolution platform consolidates AI, automation, and insights into a single operational layer that supervisors and clients can both access.

While Alorica may not have the technology depth or consulting capability of the top-tier transformation-focused players, it delivers strong operational outcomes at scale and serves as a reliable partner for clients whose CX programs benefit from cost-effective, high-quality voice and digital support.

4. Foundever

Formerly known as SITEL Group (following the merger of SITEL and Sykes in 2021), Foundever rebranded with a clear message: it intends to plant something lasting in the CX industry. With approximately 170,000 employees across more than 45 countries, Foundever offers extensive multilingual support capabilities and a solid track record in financial services, insurance, and consumer electronics.

Foundever’s CX Lab innovation program is worth noting — it functions as an internal think tank that helps clients explore emerging technologies including conversational AI, augmented reality-assisted support, and predictive routing. This gives the company a credible innovation narrative beyond simple outsourcing. Its MyFoundever digital workplace platform also reflects genuine investment in associate experience as a genuine driver of productivity and customer experience quality.

Foundever competes most effectively on geographic breadth, language capability, and mid-market pricing. For enterprise clients seeking a transformation partner with global presence and a modernizing technology portfolio, Foundever is a competitive option.

5. Concentrix

Concentrix is one of the largest offshore BPO and CX outsourcing companies in the world, and its scale is both its greatest strength and its most defining characteristic. Following its acquisition of Webhelp in 2023, Concentrix employs well over 400,000 people across more than 70 countries, making it a go-to partner for global enterprises that need consistent service delivery across time zones and at enormous volume.

Beyond headcount, Concentrix has invested meaningfully in its technology portfolio. Its Catalyst consulting arm helps clients reimagine CX strategy before implementation begins, and its proprietary tools — including AI-driven agent assist, workforce optimization, and voice-of-the-customer analytics — give clients a coherent technology story. The company is particularly strong in complex, regulated verticals like financial services and healthcare.

Where Concentrix sometimes faces challenges is in the agility and personalization that smaller, more specialized BPOs deliver. At its scale, consistency of quality across geographies can be harder to guarantee, and mid-market clients occasionally find themselves competing for attention against the company’s largest accounts. Nevertheless, for enterprise buyers seeking a single global partner with proven scale, Concentrix belongs on every shortlist.

6. Conduent

Conduent occupies a distinctive position in the BPO market, operating at the intersection of complex business process outsourcing and customer experience. Originally spun out of Xerox in 2017, Conduent has built deep expertise in government services, healthcare administration, transportation, and financial services — verticals where transaction accuracy, compliance, and process integrity are as important as the quality of the customer interaction itself.

The company’s CX capabilities have grown alongside its core BPO strengths, and it now offers omnichannel engagement platforms, digital self-service solutions, and analytics tools that help clients modernize aging customer-facing processes. Conduent’s strength is particularly evident in programs where back-office and front-office workflows are tightly intertwined, and where a partner needs to manage both sides of the customer journey.

For organizations in highly regulated industries that need a BPO partner capable of handling complexity at scale, Conduent brings a depth of process expertise that few pure-play CX outsourcers can match.

7. Sutherland Global Services

Sutherland has built a reputation as a technologically sophisticated BPO, particularly for clients in the technology, media, and financial services sectors. The company employs more than 60,000 people across 20 countries and differentiates itself through a strong emphasis on digital engineering — the ability to build custom automation, AI tools, and technical support workflow solutions alongside its managed service delivery.

Sutherland’s SmartLeap AI platform and its broader suite of robotic process automation and analytics tools reflect genuine in-house engineering capability, not just third-party licensing. This makes Sutherland an attractive partner for technology companies and digital-native brands that want a BPO willing to customize its platform to fit their specific architecture.

The company’s scale is smaller than the top-tier global players, which for some clients is actually a feature — engagements tend to feel more collaborative and tailored. For mid-to-large clients seeking a tech-forward BPO that will build alongside them, Sutherland is a serious contender.

8. TaskUs

TaskUs has emerged as one of the most interesting new-generation BPOs in the market, built from the ground up to serve digital-first and technology companies. Founded in 2008 and publicly listed since 2021, TaskUs has quickly become the partner of choice for fast-scaling startups and mid-size tech companies that need a BPO flexible enough to keep up with rapid product and operational change.

The company’s three service pillars — Digital CX, Trust & Safety, and AI Services — reflect a clear-eyed view of where CX demand is heading. Its content moderation and AI training data capabilities make it especially relevant for clients building or scaling AI-powered products, and its culture of rapid iteration and transparency resonates strongly with tech-sector buyers.

TaskUs is not the right fit for every client — its sweet spot is digital-native companies rather than legacy enterprises — but within that market segment, it delivers with a speed and creativity that larger, more structured BPOs often cannot match.

9. EXL Service

EXL Service has built a differentiated position in the CX and BPO market by leading with analytics. Where many BPOs offer data and insights as a feature layer on top of their operations, EXL treats analytics as the core product — a philosophy that attracts clients navigating an increasingly data-rich competitive landscape and who believe better data leads to better customer outcomes.

The company’s strength is deepest in insurance, healthcare, banking, and utilities — industries where customer interactions generate enormous amounts of structured and unstructured data that, when properly analyzed, can drive meaningful operational and experience improvements. EXL’s proprietary analytics platforms and its team of data scientists embedded within client programs give it a consulting flavor that sets it apart from purely operational BPOs.

For data-intensive industries where CX transformation must be grounded in evidence and measurement, EXL is one of the most capable partners available.

10. iQor

Rounding out this list, iQor has built a solid BPO call center business by combining a people-first culture with an increasingly sophisticated technology stack. The company operates across North America, the Philippines, and several other locations, and its focus on associate development — including its proprietary mPath training methodology — reflects a genuine belief that agent quality is the most important lever in CX performance.

iQor serves clients in retail, consumer electronics, healthcare, and financial services, and has made meaningful investments in its digital customer engagement capabilities in recent years. While it does not command the scale or global footprint of the top-five players on this list, iQor consistently earns strong satisfaction scores from its clients and delivers reliable performance in the mid-market and domestic-delivery segments.

For companies seeking a BPO that will invest in its people and build authentic relationships — and that values quality over volume — iQor is a dependable and underrated partner.

Find the right BPO for you

The BPO landscape continues to evolve rapidly as AI, automation, and changing consumer expectations reshape what great customer experience looks like. The companies on this list have each demonstrated a meaningful commitment to transformation — but choosing the right BPO ultimately depends on the specific goals, verticals, and operational complexity of your program.

The state of CX: A new era needs new rules

By Vineet K. Singh, Director of Corporate Strategy, TTEC

The goalposts have moved again. What delighted customers five years ago barely registers today. What used to differentiate brands as customer experience (CX) leaders has quietly become the baseline expectation. 

CX experts have been noticing this trend of nice-to-haves becoming non-negotiable for a while, but suddenly the pace of this shift is accelerating. Customers want more, they want it faster, and they are much less forgiving when brands fall short. 

What does this mean for organizations? Rising customer expectations are no longer just a strategic challenge; they’re a serious threat to brand reputation and profitability.

TTEC research shows that what we used to call “trends” are now the bare minimum. But the rules for winning have changed. They now include: 

  • Personalization requires “social permission.” Emailing customers by their names is not enough. And having their data doesn’t give you a blanket license to interrupt them. Context matters: a customer might love a proactive call from their airline about a gate change but find one from a clothing brand annoying. Personalization is about knowing which channel fits your brand’s role in customers’ lives.
  • Seamlessness is just basic logic. Omnichannel isn’t a buzzword anymore. It’s the expectation that a brand has a memory. If customers move from a chatbot to a live associate, they shouldn’t have to start over. Seamlessness today means brands’ internal “logic” follows the customer, so they never have to repeat themselves.
  • Privacy is the trust-to-value exchange. Transparency is a prerequisite for the data exchange that fuels CX. But brands often mistake compliance for permission. True privacy maturity means recognizing that a customer’s willingness to share data is tied to the perceived value and the nature of the industry. If the trust isn’t there, the most personalized offer in the world feels like surveillance, not service. 

These three intensifying trends are converging for a reason: in a successful CX ecosystem, they’re all interconnected. Brands can’t deliver personalized and well-orchestrated experiences without trust in data privacy.

And in all three areas, the stakes are high. Customers don’t just expect these things; they’re actively leaving brands that can’t deliver. 

Seventy-five percent of consumers won’t buy from organizations they don’t trust with their data and less than 40% of consumers will forgive a brand once trust is lost. 

When it comes to personalization, 71% of consumers expect companies to tailor interactions to them and 76% get frustrated when it doesn’t happen.

Fragmented experiences have also become deal-breakers for many consumers. Eighty-one percent want associates to continue a conversation without backtracking, including across channels, and 74% get frustrated when they have to repeat information. Most customers (70%) expect all company representatives to have the same information about them.

Against this backdrop of high expectations and higher stakes, brands must rethink their CX strategies. 

A new playbook for the new CX landscape

Whenever customer expectations evolve, it presents a new set of challenges and opportunities for brands. In the modern CX era, a winning playbook should focus on seven foundational shifts that are happening.

1. Devices are autonomous actors

What’s changing: Technology is enmeshed in most aspects of daily life, and consumers expect it to work. When it doesn’t, they quickly become frustrated.

What it means for CX: As smart devices move from novelty to necessity, the “tech” has become invisible. Customers don’t see it as tech support anymore; they just see it as a brand’s responsibility to keep their life running smoothly.

Device are playing a growing role in people’s lives, but they’re also acting on customers’ behalf. Increasingly, customers are using AI-powered autonomous agents to contact brands, and contact centers must be ready for that. 

What brands can do about it: The “machine as buyer” is a shift brands can’t afford to ignore. Support the machine buyer with in-device and app-embedded CX, where support can be triggered directly from devices or mobile interfaces. 

Contact centers need to establish machine-triggered resolution workflows. They also must be able to support (and remedy) automation errors. The line between customer support and tech support will keep blurring, so make sure self-service tools and associates are good at both. 

2. Customers don’t buy products, they subscribe to experiences

What’s changing: The traditional transactional model, where a customer buys a product and the relationship ends at the checkout, is fading away and being replaced by “subscription experiences.” Customers (especially younger ones like Gen Z) view purchases not as one-off events, but as an investment in their lifestyle or identity. They expect a promise of continuous value.

What it means for CX: Brands that focus the bulk of their efforts on customer acquisition and then forget about customers once they convert will lose market share. Investing in the full customer lifecycle is becoming table stakes. 

What brands can do about it: Take stock of the entire customer journey and work to identify and remove friction points. Be intentional and proactive about customer onboarding but know that the work shouldn’t end there. 

Use AI and analytics to understand and predict customer needs, habits, and preferences on a deeper level. Harness this information to tailor upsell and cross-sell opportunities that are more likely to convert, deliver offers and messaging that will prevent churn, and deliver the type of brand experience that grows loyalty. 

3. Trust and safety are paramount

What’s changing: Consumers know not to trust everything they see online, but they’re counting on the platforms they interact with to keep them safe and maintain high security standards. 

What it means for CX: This trend has especially strong implications for the gaming, entertainment, social media, and e-commerce industries. 

The growing popularity of user-generated content means platforms must be incredibly vigilant in maintaining a safe environment. One bad experience – where a customer is bullied, a child is put at risk, or fraudulent transactions take place, for instance – can quickly ruin a company’s reputation.

What brands can do about it: Be sure to monitor online communities with the right mix of AI-powered tools and human experts. Content moderation and digital safety services need to be top of mind. 

Much of this work can be automated, but there needs to be “humans in the loop” as well, along with an easy way for automation to escalate matters to human experts when certain dangers arise.

In an increasingly digital world, fraud prevention must be prioritized too. Use AI to identify trends in customer data, flag anomalies in real time, and trigger responses (like alerting fraud investigators) when further action needs to be taken. 

4. Smarter customers want smarter associates

What’s changing: The knowledge gap between customers and brands has closed. Armed with powerful LLMs and AI co-pilots, customers now arrive pre-researched – often feeling they know as much, if not more, than the associate or bot helping them. 

By the time they reach out, they’ve already exhausted self-service and navigated their own AI-driven troubleshooting. This raises the stakes: they want an expert who can move beyond what a prompt could tell them.

What it means for CX: Customers have no patience for associates who can’t provide that immediate, high-level value. If an associate can’t help them or must transfer them, frustration doesn’t just mount, it boils over. They need to be connected with a specialist who can help them on the first attempt.

What brands can do about it: Abandon one-size-fits-all CX in favor of tiered product, tech, and customer support. No single associate can be an expert in every domain. With the right routing tools, brands can transition associates from generalist support to specialized expertise through verticalized knowledge pods. 

Organize associates into dedicated hubs: complexity pods for high-tier technical issues, industry hubs to navigate sector-specific nuances in healthcare or fintech, and multilingual pods for high-demand languages.

5. Customers rely on AI, but want a human (fast) when it fails 

What’s changing: Customers are getting used to using self-service tools, but when automation can’t give them what they need, they want to speak to speak to a human – immediately.

What it means for CX: When a bot can’t provide the answer or information customers want, they expect to be connected with an associate who can. They don’t want to repeat themselves, and they’re often irritated when they enter a conversation with an associate because they feel like the bot already wasted their time.

What brands can do about it: Put systems in place to ensure a seamless automation-to-human handoff when needed. Give associates easy access to the information customers already provided to the bot, so they don’t need to ask for the information again. And use AI-powered knowledgebases to serve current, relevant articles up to associates so they can get to what they need quickly.

Since human associates are increasingly handling escalations, train them in how to give empathetic support. But make sure they don’t let empathy stand in the way of a fast resolution. TTEC research shows customers value action over apologies.

6. Critical needs require always-on, remote-ready support

What’s changing: When it comes to urgent, critical needs such as medical-related or disaster relief support, consumers can’t wait for help. They need it now. Beyond aggravating them, failing to deliver can put customers in harm’s way.

What it means for CX: Customer support needs to be fast, efficient, and available around the clock. When every second counts, wait times must be as short as possible and support must be agile enough to ramp quickly.

What brands can do about it: Design workflows to be as streamlined as possible to facilitate fast resolutions. Give associates the tools and training they need to answer questions quickly and train them to provide empathetic support in customers’ time of need. 

Invest in contact center solutions and teams that are agile enough to ramp quickly during demand spikes, and ramp back down once those spikes have passed. Tapping into an at-home workforce is a great way to build scalable CX support without breaking the bank, even for industries like healthcare and insurance that require licensed agents. 

7. Brands must stand for something

What’s changing: A growing number of consumers, especially Gen Zers and Millennials, want to buy from companies that reflect their values. They value things like transparency; ethical sourcing; impact tracking; and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) compliance. 

What it means for CX: How companies act and what they stand for on a day-to-day basis draws people to (or turns them off) a brand. 

What brands can do about it: Embrace values-based CX. Examples include defaulting to eco-friendly shipping options, adding sustainability “nudges” at checkout, such as showing the carbon footprints of various delivery or store pickup options, and being transparent about how customers’ data is being used.

Social impact is often felt most when a brand is accessible to everyone. Audit digital touchpoints to ensure they meet accessibility standards, and train associates (and bots) in inclusive language and empathetic resolutions.

Expectations are changing, CX must also

Customers’ expectations and behaviors keep evolving, and their dwindling patience and forgiveness for companies that don’t keep up can hurt brands’ reputations and bottom lines.

The way CX operations function must change in this new landscape. With so much data at their disposal, brands must deliver more predictive and proactive support. And there’s no time to waste. Customers are leaving brands that can’t get customer experience right.

The best contact center outsourcing companies for banking and financial services

The stakes have never been higher in financial services customer experience (CX). Customers expect their bank, credit union, insurance provider, or fintech platform to resolve customer inquiries and complex issues instantly, communicate across every channel with consistent customer service and omnichannel support, and do it all while maintaining ironclad compliance. A data breach, a botched call, or a single compliance misstep can cost millions in regulatory fines and — far more painfully — erode years of hard-won customer trust.

Selecting the right contact center outsourcing partner for banking and financial services isn’t just a procurement decision. It’s a strategic one. The best partners bring more than seats and headcount; they bring industry-specific expertise, purpose-built technology, compliance frameworks, and a measurable commitment to service quality and business outcomes.

Purpose-built for financial services complexity
What separates a capable BPO partner from a generic call center vendor is the depth of domain expertise they bring to financial services interactions. The right partner should demonstrate proven capability across the full spectrum of financial conversations — from new account onboarding and KYC verification, to fraud detection and dispute resolution, loan origination and servicing, collections and hardship programs, wealth advisory support, and regulatory complaint handling.

Associates who are generalists reading from scripts will struggle in this environment; what financial services CX requires are trained specialists who understand the actual products, regulations, and emotional weight behind every customer interaction.

Equally important is the technology backbone the BPO brings to the engagement. Look for partners whose platforms integrate AI, automation, analytics, and workforce management in a way that was designed for complex service environments, not bolted together from off-the-shelf tools.

In financial services, this should translate to AI-driven virtual agents capable of authenticating customers, surfacing customer data and account details, and resolving routine inquiries instantly, while routing nuanced, high-stakes interactions to human agents with the judgment, empathy, and expertise those moments demand.

Compliance as a competitive advantage
In financial services, compliance infrastructure is not a checkbox — it’s a competitive advantage. The right BPO partner should maintain a rigorous, auditable compliance posture — one that safeguards customer communication and covers the full regulatory landscape: PCI-DSS, TCPA, FDCPA, CFPB guidelines, GLBA, SOC 2, and applicable international frameworks. But certifications alone aren’t enough. What distinguishes a truly compliance-ready partner is how deeply those requirements are embedded into day-to-day operations — through dedicated compliance teams, regular third-party audits, and training and QA processes built around regulatory adherence from the ground up. That integration is what allows a financial institution to improve customer experience and stay in regulatory good standing at the same time, rather than constantly trading one off against the other.

For financial institutions and fintech companies evaluating BPO partners, compliance capability shouldn’t be treated as a baseline — it should be a differentiator. The partners who treat it that way are the ones equipped to grow with you as the regulatory environment evolves.

How to choose the right financial services outsourcing partner
With top-tier options available across the spectrum of size, specialization, and price point, choosing the right partner comes down to a few key criteria:

Regulatory expertise matters more than headcount. A large workforce means little if agents don’t understand CFPB complaint protocols, FDCPA collection requirements, or PCI-DSS data handling rules. Probe deeply on compliance track records, certifications, and training methodologies.

Technology is a differentiator, not a differentiating feature. Everyone claims AI and automation capabilities. The question is whether those capabilities are purpose-built for financial services workflows — intelligent authentication, real-time compliance coaching, fraud detection integration — or simply bolted-on generic tools.

Below, we’ve ranked the top 10 contact center and call center outsourcing companies for banking and financial services based on industry depth, technology capabilities, compliance credentials, geographic reach, and proven client results.

1. TTEC

Why TTEC leads the field in financial services CX
When it comes to CX outsourcing for banking, financial services, and fintech, TTEC stands in a class of its own. For nearly four decades, TTEC has been engineering transformative customer care and customer experiences at the intersection of human talent and cutting-edge technology — and nowhere is that dual-engine approach more powerful than in the high-compliance, high-stakes world of financial services.

TTEC serves some of the world’s most demanding financial institutions, including large retail banks, global credit card issuers, mortgage servicers, wealth management firms, insurance carriers, and a growing roster of fintech disruptors. The company’s financial services practice is not a bolt-on vertical; it’s a core competency refined over decades of deep domain experience.

Fintech-ready, future-proof
As digital-native financial brands and embedded finance platforms reshape the industry, TTEC has positioned itself as the outsourcing partner of choice for fintech companies that need to scale fast without sacrificing compliance or quality. TTEC’s cloud-native infrastructure, API-first integrations, and rapid deployment capabilities mean fintech clients can stand up a fully compliant, high-performance contact center operation in weeks rather than months.

Key strengths for banking and financial services:

  • Nearly 40 years of financial services CX expertise
  • Proprietary Humanify® AI and analytics platform
  • End-to-end compliance framework (PCI-DSS, TCPA, FDCPA, CFPB, GLBA)
  • Full fintech scalability with cloud-native infrastructure
  • Global delivery footprint across 50+ countries
  • Outcome-based engagement models tied to client KPIs

2. Teleperformance
Teleperformance is the world’s largest contact center outsourcing provider by revenue and headcount, making it a top-tier option for large financial institutions that require massive scale. The company serves major banks, insurance companies, and financial technology firms across more than 95 countries with multilingual support in over 300 languages.

Teleperformance’s financial services practice covers collections, fraud management, customer onboarding, loan processing support, and claims management. The company has made significant investments in AI-powered quality assurance through its proprietary NEVA (Non-Intrusive Employee Virtual Assistant) platform, which provides real-time agent guidance during live calls — particularly useful in complex financial conversations where compliance language must be precise.

Teleperformance holds strong compliance certifications including PCI-DSS Level 1, ISO 27001, and ISAE 3402, with dedicated data protection infrastructure for financial clients. Its sheer scale makes it a natural fit for global retail banks and insurance conglomerates that need consistent, high-volume service delivery across dozens of markets and time zones.

Key Strengths: Unmatched global scale, multilingual capabilities, AI-assisted agent guidance, strong compliance certifications.

3. Concentrix
Concentrix has built a compelling financial services practice that combines analytical rigor with a strong technology story. A Nasdaq-listed company with operations in 40+ countries, Concentrix has invested heavily in digital transformation capabilities — including its Catalyst innovation consultancy and the Solv integrated technology platform — which gives financial services clients a partner that can help modernize CX operations alongside running day-to-day contact center functions.

The company serves retail banking, insurance, mortgage, wealth management, and fintech clients, with service lines covering customer onboarding, account servicing, fraud and disputes, and regulatory complaint handling. Concentrix’s workforce management capabilities are particularly strong, and the company’s analytics practice can help financial institutions identify churn risk, cross-sell opportunities, and compliance gaps from interaction data.

Concentrix has also grown significantly through strategic acquisitions, including the purchase of Webhelp in 2023, adding European capacity and depth in financial services markets. Its risk and compliance framework addresses PCI-DSS, GDPR, SOC 2, and applicable local financial regulations.

Key Strengths: Strong technology and digital transformation consulting, analytics-driven insights, broad geographic coverage including strong European presence.

4. Genpact
Genpact occupies a unique position on this list: it began as the captive operations arm of GE Capital, which means financial services isn’t a vertical it grew into, it’s the DNA of the company. That heritage translates into a genuinely deep understanding of financial processes, risk management, compliance operations, and back-office integration that few pure-play contact center companies can match.

For banking and financial services clients, Genpact offers a tightly integrated combination of contact center services, BPO, and intelligent automation that spans front-office customer interaction and middle- and back-office processing. This makes Genpact an especially strong partner for mortgage servicing, commercial lending, trade finance, insurance claims, and collections — workflows where the contact center touchpoint is tightly linked to complex back-end processes.

Genpact’s Cora AI platform brings intelligent process automation and machine learning to financial interactions, enabling predictive analytics, next-best-action recommendations, and automated quality assurance. The company also maintains robust compliance capabilities aligned with FFIEC, OCC, CFPB, and international equivalents.

Key Strengths: GE Capital heritage, deep financial process expertise, intelligent automation, strong middle- and back-office integration.

5. WNS Global Services
WNS Global Services is a well-regarded BPO and contact center provider with a particularly strong track record in financial services and insurance. The company’s Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) vertical is one of its most developed, serving clients across retail banking, commercial banking, asset management, capital markets, and insurance.

WNS brings strong analytical capabilities to financial services engagements, with proprietary platforms for data analytics, robotic process automation, and AI-assisted interactions. Its WNS EXPIRIUS digital experience platform integrates CRM, AI, and analytics to drive deeper customer engagement and more personalized financial journeys.

The company’s India-centric delivery model makes it cost-competitive for financial institutions looking to optimize cost-to-serve, and WNS has expanded its global footprint with operations in South Africa, the Philippines, the UK, and Eastern Europe to support nearshore and onshore requirements. WNS holds PCI-DSS, ISO 27001, and SOC 2 certifications relevant to financial services clients.

Key Strengths: Deep BFSI vertical expertise, strong analytics and automation capabilities, cost-competitive India delivery, growing global footprint.

6. Infosys BPM
As the business process management subsidiary of Infosys, one of the world’s largest IT and consulting companies, Infosys BPM brings a distinct technology advantage to financial services outsourcing. The company’s ability to draw on Infosys’s deep enterprise technology bench means financial clients get BPO services backed by one of the strongest IT ecosystems in the industry.

Infosys BPM’s financial services practice covers mortgage and loan processing, account servicing, credit card operations, fraud management, and regulatory compliance support. The company’s Live Enterprise Suite applies AI, analytics, and automation to streamline complex financial workflows and improve both agent efficiency and customer outcomes.

For large financial institutions undergoing digital transformation, Infosys BPM offers the rare ability to combine contact center outsourcing with broader enterprise transformation — including core banking modernization, cloud migration, and regtech solutions — through the broader Infosys ecosystem. Compliance capabilities include alignment with Basel frameworks, GDPR, PCI-DSS, and applicable U.S. financial regulations.

Key Strengths: Backed by Infosys technology ecosystem, strong in mortgage/loan processing, digital transformation integration, enterprise-grade compliance.

7. Alorica
Alorica is one of the largest U.S.-headquartered contact center outsourcers, with a substantial footprint in financial services spanning retail banking, credit card servicing, collections, and insurance. The company has invested in digital CX capabilities through its Alorica IQ platform, which applies analytics and AI to improve agent performance and customer satisfaction in regulated environments.

For financial services clients that prioritize domestic and nearshore delivery — particularly in markets like the U.S., Central America, and the Philippines — Alorica offers a strong combination of scale, compliance focus, and workforce management capability. The company’s collections practice is particularly well regarded, with dedicated expertise in FDCPA-compliant communication strategies and financial hardship program management.

Alorica’s compliance framework covers PCI-DSS, TCPA, and CFPB requirements, and the company provides robust data security infrastructure aligned with GLBA obligations. Its workforce of over 100,000 employees across 100+ locations provides the coverage necessary for large-scale financial services operations.

Key Strengths: Strong U.S. and nearshore delivery, collections expertise, FDCPA compliance, scale and workforce coverage.

8. TaskUs
TaskUs has carved out a distinctive niche as the outsourcing partner of choice for high-growth technology companies — and that positioning translates powerfully to the fintech sector. As embedded finance, neobanks, cryptocurrency platforms, BNPL providers, and digital-first financial products have proliferated, TaskUs has been there to help them scale customer support, trust and safety, fraud operations, and compliance functions.

The company’s modern, millennial-friendly culture and digital-native operational DNA make it especially well suited to fintech brands that want an outsourcing partner that reflects their own values and operating pace. TaskUs has built dedicated practice areas around financial crimes compliance, identity verification, transaction dispute resolution, and KYC/AML support — all critical capabilities for digital financial platforms.

TaskUs operates delivery centers in the Philippines, India, Greece, Mexico, and the United States, with a workforce management approach that emphasizes employee wellbeing — which translates to lower attrition and better CX outcomes for clients. For traditional banks, TaskUs may be a less obvious fit, but for fintech and digital finance companies, it belongs in any shortlist conversation.

Key Strengths: Fintech-native orientation, trust and safety expertise, KYC/AML operations, strong for digital-first financial brands.

9. Helpware
Helpware is a newer entrant on the outsourced customer support scene that has quickly earned a reputation for quality, flexibility, and a highly personalized client experience. While smaller than most others on this list, Helpware’s financial services practice is growing rapidly, serving banks, credit unions, insurance companies, and fintech startups that want a more agile, boutique-style outsourcing partnership.

The company’s delivery footprint spans the United States, Ukraine, Mexico, the Philippines, Germany, Poland, and Japan, giving it multilingual and multicultural capabilities that belie its size. Helpware invests heavily in selecting and developing high-quality talent, which results in above-average CSAT scores and lower attrition rates — both critical metrics in financial services where product knowledge and relationship continuity matter.

For financial services organizations that have felt lost in the scale of larger providers, Helpware offers the attentiveness of a strategic partner with flexible engagement models, transparent communication, and a genuine willingness to customize solutions. Compliance capabilities are aligned with PCI-DSS and SOC 2 requirements.

Key Strengths: High talent quality, flexible and client-centric engagement model, multilingual delivery, strong fit for mid-market financial services firms.

10. FusionCX
FusionCX rounds out our list as a specialized outsourcing provider with a growing presence in financial services CX. The company offers a range of services including inbound and outbound customer support, collections, fraud support, account servicing, and back-office processing for banking and financial services clients.

FusionCX operates delivery centers across the United States, India, the Philippines, and other key markets, providing a blend of onshore regulatory sensitivity and offshore cost efficiency. The company has made targeted investments in digital channels — live chat, email, social media, and AI-assisted service — to help financial clients meet customers on the channels they prefer.

For organizations seeking a cost-effective partner with demonstrated experience in financial services operations and a willingness to engage with clients of varying sizes, FusionCX brings solid credentials and a growing track record in the BFSI space.

Key Strengths: Multi-geography delivery, growing BFSI practice, digital channel capabilities, competitive cost structure.

Find the right partner for your needs
Outcomes, not activities, define value. The best outsourcing partners in financial services are outcome-driven — they measure themselves against your NPS, first-contact resolution, regulatory audit results, and revenue contribution. If a potential partner can’t speak fluently to outcome-based engagement models, that’s a red flag.

Cultural fit with your customer base. The advisor speaking to an anxious mortgage customer, a frustrated fraud victim, or a first-generation banking customer needs more than product knowledge — they need empathy, cultural fluency, and the ability to build lasting customer relationships and communicate with clarity under pressure.

Scalability for what’s next. The financial services landscape is evolving at breakneck speed. The right partner should be growing with the industry — investing in AI, voice calls and digital channels, omnichannel contact centers, new compliance capabilities, and talent development — not simply defending legacy operations. When all these criteria are considered together, TTEC’s combination of four decades of financial services expertise, proprietary technology, global scale, and outcomes-first engagement model makes it the defining choice for banking and financial services organizations that refuse to settle for anything less than

Report: How AI is elevating the airline passenger experience

From the Editors of Customer Strategist Journal
Sponsored by TTEC and Microsoft

Get the report today

The airline passenger experience has become digital, data-rich, and deeply automated — and airlines are racing to meet that reality.

Leading carriers are deploying AI across the full customer journey: machine learning to personalize recommendations and predict delays, dynamic rebooking systems to protect tight connections, real-time translation to break down language barriers, and virtual assistants to handle high volumes of routine inquiries before they ever reach a human associate. AI is optimizing gate assignments, streamlining baggage tracking from check-in to carousel, and pushing real-time travel updates directly to passengers’ hands.

Yet even as adoption accelerates, a paradox is taking shape at the heart of this transformation. Passengers may be embracing biometric boarding and AI-powered apps — but they remain skeptical of AI itself. Trust is fragile. And for airlines, that fragility carries real strategic weight.

The brands succeeding today are deploying AI behind familiar interfaces, maintaining clear escalation paths to human associates, and relentlessly focused on removing friction. They understand that the best travel experiences often don’t feel like technology at all.

That balance — between innovation and trust, automation and humanity — is exactly what this new report explores.

In “How AI is elevating the airline passenger experience,” sponsored by TTEC and Microsoft, we examine what it takes for airlines to meet this moment.

Inside, you’ll find:

  • The state of passenger experience — Where airlines stand today, and where AI can genuinely take them
  • Why AI alone can’t improve the airline passenger experience — The limits of automation and the continued centrality of human connection
  • AI-powered associates take flight — How intelligent tools are elevating frontline performance, not replacing it
  • The invisible upgrade — Why the best travel experiences don’t feel like technology

Get the report today

Customer Strategist Journal: Time is ticking to get CX right

You know the action movie scene – a ticking briefcase full of wires. The heroes manage to open it and are faced with a decision. With the clock counting down in their faces, they need to cut the right wires to stop the clock before everything explodes. Time is of the essence, and without the right expertise, resources, and a little bit of luck, kaboom. 

Today’s customer experience feels a lot like that ticking briefcase. CX leaders are expected to be experts and move fast when it comes to new technology, AI adoption, changing customer needs, and cost reduction. Or else. 

Or else customers will get fed up and move on. Costs will skyrocket. Employee attrition will rise. Performance will drop. Brand and product reputation will suffer. In other words, kaboom.

The state of CX right now is full of contradictions. It’s exciting and full of anxiety. It’s digital-first and powered by humans. It’s about getting back to basics while creating entirely new business models. 

The cover story in the Spring 2026 issue of the Customer Strategist Journal provides a playbook for how to navigate seven foundational shifts facing the industry today. Devices are becoming autonomous, customers want AI and humans, trust and brand authenticity overtake marketing and advertising, and expert associates are table stakes. These are just some of the wires in today’s CX briefcase.

We also hear from Capital One Auto CEO Sanjiv Yajnik about innovation and adaptability, explore new metrics and data strategy for the AI age, and examine what’s next for CX in the retail and healthcare sectors.  

The industry is under pressure to meet the moment. If you understand the danger and have the expertise to turn crisis into opportunity to shut off the ticking clock, you will emerge a true hero to your customers and your business.

Enjoy the issue!

Sincerely, 
Elizabeth Glagowski
Editor-in-Chief

Top 15 sales outsourcing companies for 2026

In an increasingly competitive marketplace, companies are turning to specialized sales outsourcing partners to build outsourced sales teams that accelerate revenue growth, expand into new markets, and optimize their go-to-market strategies.

The right sales outsourcing partner doesn’t just provide bodies for outreach — they bring strategic expertise, proven methodologies, advanced technology, and performance-driven models that deliver measurable ROI.

Whether you’re launching a new product, entering a new geography, scaling your inside sales team, or optimizing your entire revenue operation, choosing the right partner is critical. Here are the top 15 companies driving revenue growth in 2026.

Key factors to consider when choosing a sales outsourcing partner

Selecting the right sales outsourcing company requires careful evaluation of your specific business context, growth objectives, and operational requirements. Here are a few critical factors to assess:

1. Strategic vs. tactical focus: Tactical providers excel at executing defined playbooks — lead generation, appointment setting, inside sales — while strategic partners bring consultative capabilities that continuously refine sales approaches based on performance data, market feedback, and evolving business objectives.

2. Performance measurement and accountability: Leading sales outsourcing companies tie their success to your success through outcome-based KPIs, performance-based pricing models, and transparent reporting and analytics. Avoid providers who focus solely on activity metrics (cold calls made, emails sent) rather than business outcomes like sales pipeline growth and conversion rates.

3. Technology and data capabilities: Modern sales outsourcing requires sophisticated technology stacks. Can the provider integrate seamlessly with your existing sales technology stack while bringing their own innovation?

4. Industry expertise and vertical specialization: Sales approaches vary dramatically across industries. Prioritize providers with proven track records in your specific industry vertical.

5. Scalability and flexibility: Revenue growth is rarely linear. Your sales outsourcing firm should offer rapid scaling capabilities for seasonal demands or market opportunities, flexible resource models to complement internal teams, and program design flexibility to test new approaches for long-term success.

1. TTEC

Why they’re #1: TTEC combines the strategic sophistication of a consultancy with the operational excellence of a world-class outsourcer and the technological innovation of a digital powerhouse. Unlike competitors who focus solely on lead generation services or appointment setting, TTEC delivers comprehensive revenue generation services across the entire customer lifecycle — from demand generation and lead qualification through sales enablement, closing deals, customer acquisition, upselling, and retention.

What sets them apart: TTEC’s secret weapon is their integrated approach. TTEC operates front-line revenue generation programs for leading global brands, while TTEC Digital provides the strategic oversight, technology platforms, and data-driven analytics that optimize performance. This dual-engine model means clients get both hands-on execution and continuous strategic refinement based on real-time data and operational insights.

Core capabilities:

  • Inbound and outbound sales programs
  • Lead generation and qualification
  • Inside sales and telesales
  • Channel partner enablement
  • Customer acquisition and onboarding
  • Upsell, cross-sell, and retention programs
  • Revenue operations and analytics
  • Sales technology implementation and optimization
  • Multilingual global sales support

Standout features:

  • Operating across six continents with 64,000+ customer-facing employees
  • AI-powered sales enablement tools and predictive analytics
  • Outcome-based pricing models tied to revenue metrics
  • Industry-specific expertise across B2B sales outsourcing and B2C sectors
  • Proprietary CXaaS platform integrating sales, service, and analytics
  • Award-winning training programs and performance optimization

Best for: Organizations seeking a strategic partner who can drive measurable revenue growth through a combination of expert talent, advanced technology, and continuous optimization — not just tactical lead generation.

2. MarketStar

Why they rank high: MarketStar has been a pioneer in outsourced sales for technology companies since 1988, building an unmatched track record of channel management and inside sales execution for some of the world’s most recognized technology brands.

What sets them apart: MarketStar’s deep roots in the technology sector give them a unique advantage when it comes to building and managing complex channel ecosystems. Their expertise spans the entire revenue lifecycle — from demand creation and partner enablement through pipeline management and deal closure — making them a go-to partner for technology vendors looking to accelerate growth through indirect channels and direct sales motions alike.

Core capabilities:

  • Outsourced inside sales and field sales
  • Channel and partner program management
  • Sales development and lead qualification
  • Partner recruitment and onboarding
  • Customer success and expansion sales
  • Revenue operations and sales analytics
  • Sales training and enablement programs

Best for: Technology companies and SaaS vendors seeking a seasoned partner to build or scale inside sales teams and channel partner programs, particularly those requiring deep expertise in tech-sector sales motions and partner ecosystems.

3. SalesRoads

Why they rank high: SalesRoads has established itself as one of the premier B2B inside sales and appointment-setting firms in North America, delivering a fully dedicated outsourced SDR model that consistently produces high-quality, qualified pipeline for clients across technology, professional services, and industrial sectors.

What sets them apart: Fully dedicated SDR teams built exclusively for each client — no shared agent pools. SalesRoads combines rigorous talent acquisition and training with deep B2B sales expertise, placing a premium on rep quality, brand alignment, and measurable performance accountability at every stage of the engagement.

Core capabilities:

  • Dedicated B2B inside sales and SDR team management
  • Appointment setting and qualified pipeline development
  • Cold calling and multi-channel outbound outreach
  • Sales playbook design and rep onboarding
  • CRM integration, reporting, and performance analytics

Best for: B2B companies in technology, SaaS, and professional services seeking a fully dedicated, high-performance outbound sales team to generate consistent qualified pipeline without the cost and complexity of building an in-house SDR organization.

4. Martal Group

Why they rank high: Martal Group specializes in outbound B2B sales and lead generation for technology companies, offering a unique blend of fractional sales leadership and dedicated outbound execution that gives clients immediate access to experienced sales talent and proven go-to-market infrastructure.

What sets them apart: Unique fractional VP of Sales model paired with a dedicated outbound team, delivering both strategic guidance and hands-on execution from a single partner. Deep specialization in software, SaaS, and IT services, with particular strength in accelerating pipeline in new markets and international geographies.

Core capabilities:

  • Fractional VP of Sales and outsourced sales leadership
  • Outbound lead generation and multi-channel prospecting
  • Email, LinkedIn, and phone-based outreach campaigns
  • Account-based sales strategy and target list development
  • Sales process design, optimization, and CRM management

Best for: B2B technology companies seeking rapid pipeline acceleration or new market entry, particularly those who benefit from having strategic sales leadership and hands-on outbound execution delivered by a single integrated partner.

5. Belkins

Why they rank high: Belkins has rapidly established itself as one of the most effective B2B appointment-setting agencies in the market, combining highly personalized outreach with rigorous data research and a laser focus on delivering qualified pipeline — not just raw activity metrics.

What sets them apart: Belkins stands out through the depth of their research-driven approach. Each campaign begins with intensive ideal customer profile analysis and prospect research, ensuring every outreach interaction is targeted, relevant, and personalized. Their team blends human expertise with technology to craft messaging that consistently achieves above-average email open and response rates, translating into a steady stream of high-quality appointments for their clients’ sales teams.

Core capabilities:

  • B2B lead generation and prospecting
  • Appointment setting and calendar management
  • Email outreach and cold email campaigns
  • LinkedIn outreach and social selling
  • Ideal customer profile development
  • CRM enrichment and data management
  • Sales development representative (SDR) outsourcing

Best for: B2B companies — especially in technology, SaaS, professional services, and healthcare — looking to build consistent, high-quality sales pipeline through personalized outbound outreach without the cost and time of building an in-house SDR team.

6. Alorica

Why they rank high: Alorica’s sales practice combines traditional outbound capabilities with modern digital sales channels, making them particularly effective for omnichannel sales strategies.

What sets them apart: Strong integration between voice, chat, email, and social selling channels. Growing investment in AI-powered sales enablement tools.

Core capabilities:

  • Multi-channel sales campaigns
  • Inbound sales conversion
  • Lead generation and nurturing
  • Product launch support
  • Market research and intelligence

Best for: Consumer brands executing omnichannel sales strategies and requiring seamless integration across multiple touchpoints.

7. Startek

Why they rank high: Startek delivers strong sales outsourcing capabilities with a focus on customer journey optimization, ensuring sales efforts align with broader customer experience strategy.

What sets them apart: Integrated approach connecting sales with onboarding and early lifecycle support to drive better retention and expansion outcomes.

Core capabilities:

  • Sales and customer acquisition
  • Lead generation and qualification
  • Customer onboarding programs
  • Upsell and cross-sell services
  • Win-back campaigns

Best for: Organizations prioritizing seamless transitions from sales through onboarding and seeking to optimize early customer lifecycle experiences.

8. TaskUs

Why they rank high: TaskUs brings a tech-forward approach to sales outsourcing, particularly strong in serving high-growth technology companies and digital-native brands.

What sets them apart: Deep understanding of modern sales technologies and go-to-market strategies for SaaS, fintech, and e-commerce companies. Strong in supporting product-led growth models.

Core capabilities:

  • Inside sales for tech companies
  • Sales development teams and qualification
  • Customer expansion programs
  • Sales operations support
  • Revenue operations consulting

Best for: Fast-growing technology companies and digital businesses requiring partners who understand modern sales methodologies and tools.

9. Sales Focus Inc.

Why they rank high: Sales Focus Inc. (SFI) has built a reputation over more than two decades as a specialist in designing, launching, and managing dedicated outsourced sales teams with a highly customized, hands-on approach that distinguishes them from larger, more process-rigid competitors.

What sets them apart: SFI’s model centers on building fully dedicated, branded sales teams that operate as a seamless extension of a client’s own organization. Rather than assigning clients to shared agent pools, SFI recruits, trains, and manages teams entirely focused on one client’s product or service — ensuring deep product knowledge, brand alignment, and accountability at every level of the engagement.

Core capabilities:

  • Dedicated outsourced field and inside sales teams
  • B2B and B2C sales program design and launch
  • Sales territory planning and management
  • Sales recruiting, onboarding, and training
  • Performance management and coaching
  • CRM integration and sales reporting
  • Competitive market analysis and go-to-market strategy

Best for: Mid-market and growth-stage companies that require a fully dedicated, white-glove outsourced sales team built around their specific product, brand, and customer base — particularly those entering new markets or launching new product lines without existing sales infrastructure.

10. memoryBlue

Why they rank high: memoryBlue is a leading technology sales development firm that combines high-quality SDR outsourcing with a distinctive talent development model, helping B2B technology companies build pipeline while simultaneously cultivating the next generation of in-house sales professionals.

What sets them apart: Unique hire-back model — memoryBlue recruits and trains emerging sales talent, deploys them as dedicated SDRs for client engagements, and offers clients the option to hire top performers directly at the engagement’s conclusion. This creates both exceptional SDR quality today and a natural talent pipeline for client organizations over the long term.

Core capabilities:

  • Technology-focused SDR outsourcing and inside sales development
  • Outbound prospecting and lead generation for B2B tech companies
  • Multi-channel outbound campaigns (email, phone, LinkedIn)
  • SDR talent development, coaching, and placement
  • Sales cadence design and buyer engagement strategy

Best for: B2B technology companies seeking high-quality sales development representation, particularly those looking to generate pipeline now while also building a talent pipeline of trained SDRs they can eventually hire directly into their sales organization.

11. SalesHive

Why they rank high: SalesHive combines AI-powered technology with experienced human SDRs to deliver scalable outbound sales development, making it a go-to partner for B2B companies focused on pipeline acceleration.

What sets them apart: Proprietary AI platform (Platforma) automates prospecting and email sequencing while a dedicated SDR team executes outreach, offering a unique blend of tech-driven efficiency and human touch at scale.

Core capabilities:

• AI-powered outbound prospecting

• Cold email and multi-channel outreach

• SDR team management and coaching

• Appointment setting and pipeline generation

• CRM integration and reporting

Best for: B2B companies of all sizes looking to outsource outbound sales development and scale pipeline generation quickly using a technology-enabled SDR model.

12. IBEX Global

Why they rank high: IBEX offers cost-effective sales outsourcing solutions with strong focus on measurable ROI and performance-based pricing models.

What sets them apart: Willingness to structure deals around performance metrics and revenue outcomes rather than traditional per-seat pricing.

Core capabilities:

  • Outbound sales campaigns
  • Inbound sales conversion
  • Appointment setting
  • Lead verification and qualification
  • Customer retention programs

Best for: Mid-market companies seeking cost-effective sales outsourcing with flexible engagement models and performance-based pricing.

13. HGS (Hinduja Global Solutions)

Why they rank high: HGS delivers comprehensive sales solutions with particular strength in transformational programs that redesign sales processes and capabilities.

What sets them apart: Strong consulting approach to sales transformation, combining process optimization with technology enablement and change management.

Core capabilities:

  • Sales transformation consulting
  • Inside sales programs
  • Digital sales enablement
  • Sales operations improvement
  • Performance analytics and optimization

Best for: Organizations undergoing significant sales transformation and requiring a partner who can combine strategic consulting with operational execution.

14. CIENCE

Why they rank high: CIENCE Technologies has redefined the SDR-as-a-service model by combining deeply skilled human sales development representatives with a proprietary technology platform, delivering a uniquely data-driven and scalable approach to outbound lead generation and pipeline development.

What sets them apart: CIENCE’s people-as-a-service (PaaS) model pairs trained, specialized SDRs with GO Data, their robust B2B intelligence database, and GO Show, a website visitor identification platform. This technology-human hybrid approach enables highly targeted, multi-touch outbound campaigns that drive engagement across channels while providing clients with actionable intelligence about their target accounts and inbound website traffic.

Core capabilities:

  • Outbound SDR programs and lead generation
  • Multi-channel sales prospecting (email, phone, LinkedIn, paid)
  • B2B data research and enrichment
  • Website visitor identification and intent data
  • Appointment setting and pipeline development
  • Account-based marketing (ABM) support
  • Sales technology consulting and stack optimization

Best for: B2B companies seeking a scalable, technology-augmented outsourced SDR solution that goes beyond simple appointment setting to deliver deeper pipeline intelligence, account insights, and multi-channel engagement across their target market.

15. Callbox

Why they rank high: Callbox is a proven leader in international B2B lead generation and appointment setting, with more than two decades of experience helping companies across North America, APAC, and EMEA build consistent sales pipelines through a disciplined multi-channel outreach methodology.

What sets them apart: Callbox’s proprietary Pipeline CRM and marketing automation platform, combined with their multi-touch, multi-channel approach — spanning voice, email, LinkedIn, web, and chat — gives clients a coordinated outreach engine that maximizes prospect engagement at every stage of the funnel. Their global delivery footprint and multilingual capabilities make them particularly effective for companies targeting diverse geographic markets simultaneously.

Core capabilities:

  • Multi-channel B2B lead generation and appointment setting
  • Account-based marketing (ABM) campaigns
  • Database building, profiling, and enrichment
  • Event marketing and webinar registration support
  • Pipeline CRM and marketing automation
  • Multilingual sales outreach and global market coverage
  • Sales and marketing alignment programs

Best for: B2B companies — particularly in technology, logistics, financial services, and healthcare — that need a proven, technology-supported multi-channel outreach partner to generate qualified appointments and accelerate pipeline growth across multiple markets and geographies.

Sales outsourcing vendor pros and cons

RankCompanyBest forKey strengths
1TTECOrganizations seeking a strategic partner who can drive measurable revenue growth through a combination of expert talent, advanced technology, and continuous optimization — not just tactical lead generation.Comprehensive global footprint with localized market expertise and multilingual capabilities. Strong in both B2C and B2B sales programs with proven methodologies, multi-channel outreach, and relationship management across verticals.
2MarketStarTechnology companies and SaaS vendors seeking a seasoned partner to build or scale inside sales teams and channel partner programs, particularly those requiring deep expertise in tech-sector sales motions and partner ecosystems.MarketStar’s deep roots in the technology sector give them a unique advantage when it comes to building and managing complex channel ecosystems. Their expertise spans the entire revenue lifecycle — from demand creation and partner enablement through pipeline management and deal closure.
3SalesRoadsB2B companies in technology, SaaS, and professional services seeking a fully dedicated, high-performance outbound sales team to generate consistent qualified pipeline without the cost and complexity of building an in-house SDR organization.Fully dedicated SDR teams built exclusively for each client — no shared agent pools. SalesRoads combines rigorous talent acquisition and training with deep B2B sales expertise, placing a premium on rep quality, brand alignment, and measurable performance accountability at every stage of the engagement.
4Martal GroupB2B technology companies seeking rapid pipeline acceleration or new market entry, particularly those who benefit from having strategic sales leadership and hands-on outbound execution delivered by a single integrated partner.Unique fractional VP of Sales model paired with a dedicated outbound team, delivering both strategic guidance and hands-on execution from a single partner. Deep specialization in software, SaaS, and IT services, with particular strength in accelerating pipeline in new markets and international geographies.
5BelkinsB2B companies — especially in technology, SaaS, professional services, and healthcare — looking to build consistent, high-quality sales pipeline through personalized outbound outreach without the cost and time of building an in-house SDR team.Belkins stands out through the depth of their research-driven approach. Each campaign begins with intensive ideal customer profile analysis and prospect research, ensuring every outreach interaction is targeted, relevant, and personalized. Their team blends human expertise with technology to craft messaging that consistently achieves above-average email open and response rates, translating into a steady stream of high-quality appointments for their clients’ sales teams.
6AloricaConsumer brands executing omnichannel sales strategies and requiring seamless integration across multiple touchpoints.Strong integration between voice, chat, email, and social selling channels. Growing investment in AI-powered sales enablement tools.
7StartekOrganizations prioritizing seamless transitions from sales through onboarding and seeking to optimize early customer lifecycle experiences.Integrated approach connecting sales with onboarding and early lifecycle support to drive better retention and expansion outcomes.
8TaskUsFast-growing technology companies and digital businesses requiring partners who understand modern sales methodologies and tools.Deep understanding of modern sales technologies and go-to-market strategies for SaaS, fintech, and e-commerce companies. Strong in supporting product-led growth models.
9Sales Focus Inc.Mid-market and growth-stage companies that require a fully dedicated, white-glove outsourced sales team built around their specific product, brand, and customer base — particularly those entering new markets or launching new product lines without existing sales infrastructure.SFI’s model centers on building fully dedicated, branded sales teams that operate as a seamless extension of a client’s own organization. Rather than assigning clients to shared agent pools, SFI recruits, trains, and manages teams entirely focused on one client’s product or service
10memoryBlueB2B technology companies seeking high-quality sales development representation, particularly those looking to generate pipeline now while also building a talent pipeline of trained SDRs they can eventually hire directly into their sales organization.Unique hire-back model — memoryBlue recruits and trains emerging sales talent, deploys them as dedicated SDRs for client engagements, and offers clients the option to hire top performers directly at the engagement’s conclusion.
11SalesHiveB2B companies of all sizes looking to outsource outbound sales development and scale pipeline generation quickly using a technology-enabled SDR model.Proprietary AI platform (Platforma) automates prospecting and email sequencing while a dedicated SDR team executes outreach, offering a unique blend of tech-driven efficiency and human touch at scale.
12IBEX GlobalMid-market companies seeking cost-effective sales outsourcing with flexible engagement models and performance-based pricing.Willingness to structure deals around performance metrics and revenue outcomes rather than traditional per-seat pricing
13HGS (Hinduja Global Solutions)Organizations undergoing significant sales transformation and requiring a partner who can combine strategic consulting with operational execution.Strong consulting approach to sales transformation, combining process optimization with technology enablement and change management.
14CIENCEB2B companies seeking a scalable, technology-augmented outsourced SDR solution that goes beyond simple appointment setting to deliver deeper pipeline intelligence, account insights, and multi-channel engagement across their target market.CIENCE’s people-as-a-service (PaaS) model pairs trained, specialized SDRs with GO Data, their robust B2B intelligence database, and GO Show, a website visitor identification platform.
15CallboxB2B companies — particularly in technology, logistics, financial services, and healthcare — that need a proven, technology-supported multi-channel outreach partner to generate qualified appointments and accelerate pipeline growth across multiple markets and geographies.Callbox’s proprietary Pipeline CRM and marketing automation platform, combined with their multi-touch, multi-channel approach — spanning voice, email, LinkedIn, web, and chat — gives clients a coordinated outreach engine that maximizes prospect engagement at every stage of the funnel.

Top 15 automotive and mobility BPOs for 2026

A man is driving on a highway at sunset, with golden light streaming through the windshield with the road stretches ahead.

The automotive and mobility industry is undergoing its most transformative era in a century. Electrification, connected vehicles, subscription models, and shifting consumer expectations are rewriting the rules of customer engagement. Behind many of the world’s leading OEMs, dealership networks, roadside assistance programs, and mobility platforms is a best-in-class BPO partner helping them deliver seamless, scalable, and brand-right customer experiences.

This ranking highlights the 15 business process outsourcing providers best positioned to power automotive and mobility CX in 2026.

1. Percepta
When it comes to automotive and mobility customer experience (CX) outsourcing, no provider comes close to Percepta’s depth of specialization. Founded with a singular focus on the automotive industry, Percepta has spent more than two decades building programs for the world’s most recognized OEMs and mobility brands — including Ford, Lincoln, Jaguar Land Rover, and others — across the full customer lifecycle.

From vehicle ownership support and roadside assistance to dealer relations, recall management, and connected vehicle services, Percepta has architected some of the most complex and consumer-facing programs in the industry.

What sets Percepta apart in 2026 is a unique competitive position that no other automotive BPO can replicate: it combines the deep, vertical-specific expertise of a boutique automotive specialist with the scale, technology investments, and global infrastructure of a much larger organization (through its relationship with TTEC). This means clients benefit from the kind of nuanced automotive industry knowledge, regulatory fluency, and brand-aligned agent training that smaller specialized firms deliver, paired with enterprise-grade capacity, digital transformation tools, analytics capabilities, and global recruiting depth that only a top-tier BPO parent can provide. It’s the best of both worlds in a single partner.

Percepta’s domain expertise is truly unmatched. The company’s purpose-built automotive training frameworks, proprietary knowledge management systems, and tenured agent populations translate directly into faster resolution times, higher customer satisfaction scores, and stronger brand loyalty outcomes for its clients. For any automotive or mobility brand evaluating BPO partners in 2026, Percepta stands alone at the top of this list.

2. Tech Mahindra
Tech Mahindra occupies a distinctive position in the automotive BPO landscape because it approaches customer experience from an engineering and digital transformation foundation that few pure-play BPOs can match. With deep legacy roots in automotive engineering services — supporting OEMs on everything from embedded software to EV platform development — Tech Mahindra brings a technical fluency to automotive CX programs that is increasingly valuable as vehicles become rolling software platforms.

In 2026, the company significantly expanded its automotive CX capabilities, offering integrated services that span connected vehicle support, EV customer onboarding, telematics-based roadside assistance, and digital retail support for OEMs navigating the shift toward direct-to-consumer sales models. Its automotive BPO division benefits from cross-pollination with the broader Tech Mahindra engineering and IT services ecosystem, giving clients access to continuous improvement pipelines grounded in actual vehicle technology expertise.

3. Concentrix
Concentrix has grown into one of the world’s largest and most capable CX outsourcing providers, and its automotive and mobility vertical has matured significantly in recent years. With a global delivery footprint spanning dozens of countries and a workforce that numbers in the hundreds of thousands, Concentrix offers automotive clients the kind of unlimited scalability required for large-scale vehicle launch support, recall management campaigns, and multi-brand ownership programs.

The company’s investment in AI-powered agent assist tools, real-time analytics, and omnichannel orchestration platforms has made it particularly competitive for automotive clients running high-complexity, high-volume operations. Its automotive CX practice benefits from mature workforce management capabilities and a design-first approach to customer journey mapping, ensuring programs are engineered for both efficiency and satisfaction.

4. Teleperformance
Teleperformance’s sheer scale — over 500,000 employees across more than 100 countries — makes it a formidable option for automotive and mobility brands that require truly global program delivery with consistent quality standards. The company has made deliberate investments in its automotive vertical over the past several years, developing dedicated practice teams, specialized training curricula, and sector-specific CX benchmarking tools.

In 2026, Teleperformance is particularly competitive for automotive clients seeking multilingual ownership experience programs, digital channel management, and EV transition support at massive scale. Its TP GenAI and automation investments are beginning to show meaningful productivity gains in automotive contexts, particularly in first-call resolution for common vehicle inquiry categories. While it may lack the automotive-first DNA of a specialist like Percepta, Teleperformance’s operational rigor and geographic reach make it a credible choice for the largest global OEM programs.

5. Infosys BPM
Infosys BPM, the business process management arm of Infosys, brings enterprise-level digital transformation capabilities to automotive CX programs that few BPOs can replicate. Its automotive and mobility practice is underpinned by deep process engineering expertise and integration with the broader Infosys ecosystem — including AI platforms, cloud migration services, and industry-specific data analytics tools that are increasingly critical in a connected-vehicle world.

In 2026, Infosys BPM’s automotive work spans customer ownership services, warranty management, parts and service support, and the emerging area of data monetization support for OEMs managing large, connected fleet data sets. The company’s process automation and cognitive AI capabilities have enabled automotive clients to reduce handle times and improve first-contact resolution rates on complex technical inquiries.

6. MXSI
MXSI has built a reputation as a focused and agile BPO with strong roots in the automotive and adjacent industries. The company’s operational model emphasizes close client partnerships and customized program design, allowing automotive brands to get deeply tailored CX solutions rather than retrofitted, industry-agnostic service delivery. MXSI’s teams are trained with automotive-specific product knowledge frameworks, enabling agents to handle technically complex inquiries with greater confidence and accuracy than many generalist providers.

The company has expanded its digital channel capabilities in recent years, with growing competency in chat-based support, asynchronous messaging, and social care for automotive brands navigating evolving customer communication preferences.

7. Morley
Morley has carved out a notable position in automotive and mobility customer services by prioritizing operational agility and program responsiveness — qualities that are increasingly valued as automotive brands navigate rapid product cycles and market shifts. The company’s delivery model is built for adaptability, allowing clients to adjust program scope, channel mix, and agent specialization with minimal friction during periods of business change.

In the automotive context, Morley’s teams support a range of programs including vehicle inquiry handling, ownership experience support, and dealer-facing back-office services. The company’s emphasis on agent quality and tenure management translates into more consistent brand representation and higher customer satisfaction benchmarks over the life of a program. As automotive brands continue to invest in differentiated ownership experiences, providers like Morley that prioritize consistency and flexibility are well-positioned for continued growth.

8. Sutherland
Sutherland Global Services has distinguished itself in the broader BPO landscape through a strong commitment to analytics, AI-powered process automation, and data-driven program optimization — capabilities that translate meaningfully into the automotive CX space. The company’s proprietary analytics platforms provide automotive clients with granular visibility into customer behavior patterns, agent performance drivers, and emerging issue trends that can inform both CX program design and product quality decisions.

Sutherland’s automotive work spans connected vehicle support, telematics platform customer service, warranty and recall program management, and digital retail enablement for OEMs and dealer networks. Its investment in robotic process automation (RPA) has delivered measurable efficiency gains in high-volume, transaction-intensive automotive back-office processes.

9. TaskUs
TaskUs has built one of the most distinctive brands in the BPO industry by positioning itself as the partner of choice for fast-growing, digitally native companies — and its capabilities are increasingly being applied in the automotive and mobility sectors. Rideshare platforms, EV startups, mobility-as-a-service providers, and automotive tech companies have turned to TaskUs for its ability to rapidly scale customer support operations with agents who are trained for complex, empathy-intensive interactions in fast-moving environments.

The company’s “Ridiculously Good” service philosophy translates into above-average agent quality benchmarks and strong customer satisfaction scores across the programs it manages. TaskUs’s expertise in trust and safety, content moderation, and AI data services has particular relevance for connected vehicle platforms and autonomous mobility companies managing both customer-facing and safety-critical data workflows.

10. Alorica
Alorica is one of North America’s largest BPOs, with a decades-long track record of managing high-volume customer service programs across a wide range of industries — including automotive. The company’s extensive domestic delivery footprint gives automotive clients seeking U.S.-based agent populations meaningful options, while its nearshore and offshore capabilities provide the cost flexibility required for tiered service architectures.

Alorica’s automotive CX programs span vehicle ownership support, roadside assistance coordination, recall notification and management, and financial services support for automotive captive financing operations. The company has invested in digital channel expansion and AI-assisted agent tools that are improving resolution efficiency across its automotive client base. For automotive brands prioritizing domestic delivery, proven program management, and reliable scale, Alorica is a dependable option at a competitive price point.

11. Qualfon
Qualfon distinguishes itself through a deeply mission-driven operational culture centered on employee wellbeing, which the company consistently translates into above-average agent retention and quality outcomes. In automotive CX, where complex product knowledge and empathetic handling of emotional ownership moments are critical, lower attrition rates have a direct impact on program performance — making Qualfon’s culture-first approach a genuine competitive differentiator.

The company’s automotive programs leverage its nearshore delivery capabilities, with strong operations in Latin America and Asia-Pacific that provide a combination of cost efficiency and cultural affinity for North American and European automotive brands. Qualfon’s emphasis on continuous agent coaching and quality management has made it a consistent performer on customer satisfaction benchmarks across the automotive programs it manages

12. Silver Bell
Silver Bell has established itself as a responsive, relationship-oriented BPO with a growing presence in automotive customer service operations. The company’s boutique scale enables the kind of direct client engagement and program customization that larger providers sometimes struggle to deliver, making it an attractive option for automotive brands with specialized program requirements or those seeking a more collaborative partnership model.

Silver Bell’s operational teams are characterized by strong product knowledge depth and above-average agent tenure, which translates into more accurate, brand-aligned customer interactions. The company serves a range of automotive program types, including ownership experience support, technical inquiry handling, and dealer-facing service programs

13. OURS Global
OURS Global brings a flexible, client-adaptive delivery model to automotive CX that positions it well for brands navigating periods of significant operational change. The company’s approach to workforce management and program design prioritizes adaptability — allowing automotive clients to reconfigure support operations in response to new vehicle launches, expanding EV portfolios, or shifting customer contact channel preferences without the operational friction that larger organizations often impose.

The company has grown its automotive service line capabilities to include multilingual support options, digital channel management, and back-office processing services for automotive retail and financing operations. OURS Global’s emphasis on transparent communication and collaborative program governance has generated strong client satisfaction among the automotive brands it serves.

14. Hugo
Hugo makes our list as a forward-looking BPO with growing capabilities in the automotive and mobility space. The company has built its reputation on delivering thoughtful, analytically grounded CX operations for technology-forward clients, and its automotive practice is being shaped by the same commitment to intelligent program design and continuous improvement.

Hugo’s work in the automotive and mobility sector spans customer support for connected vehicle services, EV platform onboarding, and mobility app support, with a delivery model that emphasizes quality over volume. The company’s data-driven approach to program performance — combining qualitative coaching with quantitative analytics — is producing measurable improvements in customer satisfaction and first-contact resolution rates for the automotive clients in its portfolio.

15. Foundever
Formerly operating under the Sitel and SYKES brands before its consolidation into Foundever, the company has emerged as a modern CX outsourcer with genuine ambitions in the automotive space. Foundever’s platform-centric approach — centered on its proprietary CX Hub technology — gives automotive clients real-time visibility into program performance, agent behavior, and customer sentiment across channels.

Foundever has invested in dedicated automotive and mobility service lines that cover dealer support programs, EV education and onboarding, mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) customer support, and subscription vehicle management. The company’s emphasis on agent empowerment tools and continuous learning platforms supports the kind of complex, consultative interactions that modern vehicle ownership increasingly demands. Its mid-market positioning makes it particularly attractive for automotive suppliers, dealer groups, and emerging mobility brands looking for a tier-one quality partner without tier-one minimum volume requirements.

These rankings reflect a composite assessment of automotive and mobility sector specialization, client portfolio depth, delivery capabilities, technology investment, and overall suitability for the range of CX programs required by OEMs, dealer networks, and mobility platforms in 2026. Percepta’s placement at No. 1 reflects its unmatched combination of vertical expertise and enterprise-grade scale.

Podcast: Hear the new sound of voice CX

Tech Insights Series on the CX Pod – Krisp

New tools and AI advances are changing how the voice channel works for customer experience interactions. Krisp’s Robert Schoenfield discusses the impact of innovations around the voice channel for customers and businesses alike.

Transcript:

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the CX pod. I’m Liz Glagowski of the customer strategist journal. And today we’ve got another episode in our Tech Insights series. I’m pleased to welcome today Robert Schoenfeld of Krisp. Thanks so much for coming.

Thanks, Liz. Great to be here.

So you’re the EVP of Licensing and Partnerships. Hi. And you’ve got a great insight. We do this series every so often with tech leaders about just key topics in CX, and I’d love to get your perspective today. Terrific. So Krisp uses advanced AI tools to improve real voice interactions, as well as using some agentic AI and virtual voice.

And then you partner with TTEC for its TTEC Clarity solution. So before we get into our deeper discussion, can you just give a quick intro about Krisp?

Sure thing, sure thing. We’re a voice AI company.

We develop our own technology and apply it mostly to human agents, so helping the people doing the work today. If you think about agents in India, Philippines, here in the US, elsewhere, they have a couple of problems that customers complain about: noisy conditions, accents they can’t understand, language barriers. So we apply AI for the call center agents to allow them to support customers with improved noise or, excuse me, improved voice clarity through reduction of noise, reduction or removal of the difficult parts of the accent, and then the ability to support a customer independent of which language they speak.

Yeah, that’s great. I mean, its popularity really illustrates the staying power of voice, right, in real and virtual.

And I’ve actually seen the noise cancellation in action with a someone had a leaf blower Yeah.

And then just turned it on, and you couldn’t hear the leaf blower anymore. I love that. Maybe for my kids, can do that So just what’s your take on the power of voice in the customer experience and how it’s still, you know, it’s got that staying power?

Yeah. So if you think about the customer base, they range from people who are older, who really rely on voice communications, just because that’s what they’ve traditionally been used to, and then you get into the younger demographic who grew up with mobile phones, and grew up with social media, and grew up with incident messaging, and so as I think about a company like TTEC, how do they support all of the above?

First things first is supporting their voice agents because when a customer calls in and they want to get a voice agent, they want to have a great experience, they really get frustrated when it doesn’t go well. You can translate the same thing over to voice AI or agentic AI. If they have a clean communications, if they’re not getting interrupted by the bot, and they get their resolution, they’ll love that voice interaction. Any time they get false interrupted or the agent’s going off in a different direction, causes friction, frustration, customer hits zero and says, Transfer me to a human. Then they get to a human, and again, they want to have that clean, clear communication so they can resolve their issue.

And it goes two ways, right? Because I know sometimes as a customer I’m calling in and maybe they can’t hear me because I’m in the car or I’m in an airport or something like that, so the power to be able to eliminate those distractions to really focus on the interaction itself seems pretty powerful.

It really is, and we’re unique in being able to have what we call inbound noise cancellation, so the customer, as you said, might be at an airport in a car, and that agent struggles and keeps saying, I’m sorry, can you repeat that? I’m sorry, can you repeat that? And of course, it creates frustration, CSAT problems, longer calls, all that, So the inbound is equally as important as the outbound.

When we think about accent technology, right now we’re designed for the agent when serving North American and European customers.

India, Philippines, Africa, and Latin America. We’re about to introduce what we call an accent understanding model, an inbound model, to help the agent understand thicker accent customers, so making accent bidirectional.

Yeah. So how ready are consumers to use They know they’re using these enhancements, but also the voice AIs.

Are they more comfortable? Are they more wary? And maybe does it apply differently to different types of customers or different types of interactions?

Yeah, I think it’s different for different demographics. Again, the younger customer, the more open they are to different communication mediums and different uses of AI.

For older generations, they may not feel comfortable if they get an announcement on the front and saying, Hey, we’re using AI for this. But in reality, what we’re seeing for agentic AI or voice AI agents is really working well on the front end for what I would call conversational IVR.

Think about it in the past, press one for this, do this, or you had to say a certain word, and customers were getting frustrated, hitting zero and saying agent, agent.

Now, with conversational IVR on the front end, able to speak naturally, it’ll allow companies like TTEC to route it to AgenTeq AI or to a human based on that front end conversational IVR. So part of this is just getting people comfortable using the technology as it relates to employees or call center agents using voice AI to remove the difficult parts of their accent or support multilingual, we really thought that that would create a little bit of friction, and we’re seeing just the opposite. We’re seeing customers either not know, or when they hear it, they go, Oh, this is much better, and again, it translates to much better KPIs for the call center.

Yeah, that’s going be my next question. The impact of voice enhancement, it may get better contact center metrics, but also then how does that translate to better business benefit and better customer experiences overall?

Yeah, so if you think about a contact center, it’s got either customer support where people are calling in because they have a problem, or it’s outbound and they’re trying to sell something. So no matter what it is, the customer interaction, the customer satisfaction, NPS is really important, top of mind. Was that experience positive?

When you drop down one layer, you start to get into ROI based on the operation of the call center. So what was the average handle time? Was it reduced? And if it was reduced, by a couple points or by double digit?

Did their call get sorted out on the first call resolution?

Those are some of the key drivers, and what we’re seeing across the board when CRISP technology is deployed literally from one day to the next, double digit improvements. Double digit improvements with CSAT. Average handle time goes down for call resolution. If it’s outbound sales, their conversion rates improve by twenty to thirty percent.

Wow. Wow. That’s great. So lots to be excited about.

Yeah, for sure.

Do you have one most exciting thing that you’re looking forward to this year?

For this year, it really is the rollout at scale of Accent. It’s being rolled out by the tens of thousands of seats weekly right now. We want to see this across the entire industry, and it makes sense. It’s priced right, the functionality’s right, the deployment model’s right.

As we look to next year, we see two things. One is the broad scale adoption of voice translation, the ability to do live interpreter services instead of bringing in a third party. We’ve got that in the market now, and we see that accelerating. And then for us, so much of our work is focused on enterprises based in North America and Europe.

We’re adding multilingual capability to our accent and additional multilingual capability to our voice translation so that independent of where the contact center is and independent of where the customer is, that contact center agent can serve that customer.

Right. So if we were to have this conversation next year, what would we be talking about?

Well, we’d be talking, I think, about two things. We would be looking at the adoption of AgenTic AI, so how much is that being used, and is there a reduction in headcount? That’s going to be something that’s going be ongoing for the next three to ten years.

But I really think it’s going to be focused on the real use of AI, whether it’s voice AI, gen AI, all of it, to make individuals’ jobs easier so that they can do more and increase the quality of their interaction, and again, how much of these customer interactions can go to AgenTic? That’s going to be the big question over the next couple of years.

Great. Well, good luck trying to make the most of it, and thanks so much for joining us today.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

All right. Thanks.

Top 10 CX consulting firms for 2026

Customer intent is a treasure trove of actionable data hiding in plain sight

Customer experience (CX) has evolved from a competitive differentiator to a business imperative. As customer expectations continue to rise and technology advances at breakneck speed, organizations need CX consulting services from expert partners who can identify pain points, increase customer engagement, and navigate the complexity of modern CX transformation.

The best customer experience consulting firms combine strategic insight, technical expertise, and hands-on implementation capabilities to deliver measurable results.

Here are 1to1 Media’s list of top 10 firms leading the industry in 2026, based on their technology capabilities, industry expertise, implementation track record, innovation approach, and client outcomes.

1. TTEC Digital

Why they’re #1: TTEC Digital stands apart as the only CX consulting firm that seamlessly integrates strategy, technology, and operations into a single unified offering. While most consulting firms excel at strategy but struggle with implementation, or vice versa, TTEC Digital delivers end-to-end transformation that spans from initial CX strategy through technology design, platform deployment, and ongoing operational excellence.

What sets them apart: TTEC Digital’s unique advantage lies in their dual-engine approach. As part of TTEC, they combine CX strategy consulting and technical consulting capabilities of TTEC Digital with the frontline operational expertise of TTEC, which manages customer interactions for leading brands worldwide. This means their consultants leverage artificial intelligence and real-time insights to implement and operate at scale across six continents.

Core capabilities:

  • AI-powered contact center design and implementation
  • Omnichannel platform development and CRM integration
  • Customer journey mapping, orchestration and analytics
  • Experience fulfillment and outcome-based solutions
  • Digital engineering and software development
  • CX data science and predictive analytics

Standout features:

  • Proprietary CXaaS (Customer Experience as a Service) platform
  • Real-world operational insights from managing 64,000+ frontline employees
  • Industry-leading NPS scores across their client base
  • Full-stack capabilities from strategy to 24/7 operations
  • Proven expertise across automotive, financial services, healthcare, retail, travel, and tech sectors

Best for: Organizations seeking comprehensive CX transformation that delivers measurable business outcomes, not just strategic recommendations.

2. Accenture Song

Why they rank high: Accenture Song brings massive scale and deep industry knowledge backed by Accenture’s global resources. Their strength lies in digital transformation services and large-scale programs that optimize business processes to integrate CX with broader business strategy.

What sets them apart: Access to Accenture’s full ecosystem of technology partnerships, implementation capabilities, and industry-specific solutions. Strong in creative and brand experience alongside technical implementation.

Core capabilities:

  • Digital experience design and creative services
  • Commerce and marketing transformation
  • Experience measurement and analytics
  • Technology implementation across major platforms

Best for: Enterprise organizations undertaking comprehensive digital transformations that span marketing, commerce, and customer service.

3. Cognizant

Why they rank high: Cognizant’s blend of IT services expertise and interactive design capabilities makes them exceptionally strong in executing CX transformation programs that require deep technical integration. Their combination of innovative thinking and digital engineering has propelled them up the rankings as organizations increasingly prioritize implementation fidelity alongside strategic vision.

What sets them apart: Particularly strong in modernizing legacy systems and integrating new CX capabilities with existing enterprise architecture — a capability gap that derails many transformation initiatives at other firms. Cognizant’s Intuition Engineering practice brings human-centered design thinking to technically complex environments.

Core capabilities:

  • Digital engineering and modernization
  • Cloud and platform services
  • AI and automation implementation
  • Customer data integration
  • Application management and support
  • Human-centered design and experience innovation

Best for: Organizations with complex legacy environments requiring careful integration of modern CX capabilities with existing systems, particularly in financial services, healthcare, and manufacturing.

4. EXL Service

Why they rank high: EXL Service has evolved from a business process outsourcing firm into a data-first CX powerhouse, combining deep domain expertise with proprietary AI capabilities. Their strength lies in transforming customer operations through advanced analytics and intelligent automation across highly regulated industries where data accuracy and compliance are non-negotiable.

What sets them apart: EXL’s proprietary EXLdata.ai platform and Exlerate.ai AI suite give clients a purpose-built infrastructure for making customer data AI-ready — a meaningful differentiator in an era when most firms are still stitching together third-party tools. Their 54,000+ professionals bring genuine operational depth in insurance, healthcare, and banking that generalist consulting firms often lack.

Core capabilities:

  • AI-powered customer experience operations and contact center transformation
  • Data modernization and enterprise data strategy
  • Hyperautomation and generative AI implementation
  • Customer analytics and predictive modeling
  • Digital operating model design and process optimization
  • Omnichannel marketing operations and campaign analytics

Best for: Mid-to-large enterprises in insurance, healthcare, banking, and financial services seeking to modernize customer operations through AI-driven analytics and intelligent automation without sacrificing compliance or domain rigor.

5. Deloitte Digital

Why they rank high: Deloitte Digital excels at connecting CX strategy to business outcomes with a strong focus on data-driven decision-making and organizational change management.

What sets them apart: Deep integration with Deloitte’s consulting practice enables them to address the full spectrum of transformation challenges, from technology to talent to organizational design.

Core capabilities:

  • Customer strategy and journey mapping
  • Digital product development
  • Platform implementation and integration
  • Advanced analytics and AI/ML solutions
  • Change management and capability building

Best for: Organizations requiring strategic CX advisory coupled with enterprise-wide transformation support.

6. McKinsey & Company

Why they rank high: McKinsey’s Growth & Marketing Solutions practice brings world-class strategic thinking and proprietary research to CX challenges, particularly around growth and customer lifetime value.

What sets them apart: Unparalleled access to C-suite executives and board-level influence, enabling them to drive enterprise-wide commitment to CX transformation initiatives.

Core capabilities:

  • Customer experience strategy and vision
  • Growth and marketing analytics
  • Personalization at scale
  • Digital and omnichannel strategy
  • Organizational transformation

Best for: Executive teams seeking strategic counsel on CX as a driver of growth and competitive advantage, with less emphasis on hands-on implementation.

7. HCLTech

Why they rank high: HCLTech brings a rare combination of scale, technology breadth, and operational depth to CX transformation. As one of the world’s largest IT services providers — with over 220,000 employees across 60 countries — they have the reach and engineering muscle to execute complex, multi-market CX programs that smaller boutique firms simply cannot match.

What sets them apart: HCLTech’s “360° experience” philosophy integrates customer-facing transformation with back-end business process operations, eliminating the handoff gaps that often undermine CX programs. Their three-lever BPM framework — combining CX labs, analytics-driven operational insights, and persona-based process redesign — creates a disciplined, repeatable path to zero-friction digital experiences. Their GenAI-enabled innovation stack, including AI Factory, AI Force, and AI Foundry, brings enterprise-grade AI to customer operations at scale.

Core capabilities:

  • Business process operations and intelligent CX transformation
  • GenAI-enabled customer engagement and automation
  • Digital engineering and modern application development
  • Customer data integration and analytics
  • Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) delivery models
  • Industry-specific CX solutions across financial services, retail, telecom, healthcare, and manufacturing

Best for: Large enterprises and global organizations that need a technology-led, operationally mature partner to run end-to-end CX transformation programs across multiple geographies and business units.

8. Bain & Company

Why they rank high: Bain’s customer strategy practice is renowned for linking CX improvements directly to financial outcomes and shareholder value creation.

What sets them apart: Pioneered the Net Promoter System and continues to lead in measuring and improving customer loyalty through systematic approaches.

Core capabilities:

  • Customer strategy and loyalty programs
  • Net Promoter System implementation
  • Digital transformation strategy
  • Operating model design
  • Advanced analytics and insights

Best for: Organizations focused on building systematic approaches to customer loyalty and tying CX investments to clear business outcomes.

9. Boston Consulting Group

Why they rank high: BCG’s Center for Customer Insight brings data science rigor and customer analytics expertise to solving complex CX challenges.

What sets them apart: Strong emphasis on using advanced analytics, AI, and machine learning to drive personalization and predictive customer insights at scale.

Core capabilities:

  • Customer data strategy and analytics
  • AI and ML-driven personalization
  • Digital marketing transformation
  • Customer journey optimization
  • Experience measurement frameworks

Best for: Companies looking to build sophisticated data and analytics capabilities that power next-generation customer experiences.

10. Avanade

Why they rank high: As the world’s leading Microsoft partner — co-founded by Accenture and Microsoft — Avanade occupies a unique position in the CX consulting landscape. For organizations deeply invested in the Microsoft ecosystem, no firm delivers more specialized expertise in activating Dynamics 365, Azure AI, Power Platform, and Microsoft Copilot for customer experience outcomes.

What sets them apart: Avanade’s exclusive focus on the Microsoft platform is both their defining constraint and their greatest competitive advantage. While other firms spread their expertise across a fragmented partner ecosystem, Avanade’s 50,000 professionals in 26 countries have developed unmatched depth in Microsoft-centric CX architecture. Their Avanade Agentic Platform brings AI-powered autonomous agents to customer service, sales, and marketing workflows — positioning clients at the cutting edge of the next generation of CX delivery.

Core capabilities:

  • Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement design and implementation
  • AI and Copilot-powered CX automation and agent deployment
  • Microsoft Power Platform and low-code customer journey solutions
  • Modern workplace and employee experience transformation
  • Cloud and application modernization on Azure
  • Analytics, data, and AI strategy on the Microsoft stack

Best for: Organizations standardized on the Microsoft technology stack that want a deeply specialized partner to unlock the full CX potential of Dynamics 365, Azure AI, and Microsoft Copilot — particularly in financial services, manufacturing, retail, and public sector.

How to choose the right CX consulting partner

1. Strategy vs. implementation balance: Consider whether you need primarily strategic advisory or hands-on implementation.

2. Industry expertise: Look for partners with proven track records in your industry. Regulated industries like financial services and healthcare may benefit from firms with strong compliance expertise.

3. Technology vs. business focus: Some firms lead with technology capabilities while others emphasize business transformation and achieving digital transformation. The best choice depends on whether your primary challenge is technical or strategic, and how you want to streamline business operations.

4. Global vs. regional presence: If you operate globally, ensure your partner can deliver consistent capabilities across geographies.

5. End-to-end capabilities: Increasingly, organizations benefit from partners who can take them from strategy through implementation and ongoing operations. TTEC Digital’s integrated approach uniquely positions them to deliver continuous value throughout the entire CX lifecycle.

6. Outcome-based models: Look for firms willing to tie their compensation to business outcomes rather than purely time-and-materials models. This alignment ensures both parties are focused on measurable results.

The CX  consulting landscape is diverse, with firms bringing different strengths to the table. The key to success lies in choosing a partner whose capabilities, culture, and approach align with your organization’s specific needs and transformation goals.

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