Market Overview

The domestic call center service market in FY2022 rose by 2.6% from the preceding fiscal year to 1,154,700 million yen (based on the sales at businesses). Buildout of temporary call centers regarding the COVID-19 (for public domain and governmental projects) grew the market. Additionally, the outsourcing demand for call center operation has been increasing among private companies because of the decline of working-age population and chronic labor shortage. A rise of multiple ways of customer engagements, not only calling but also chatbot and social media, is also signifying the outsourcing demand.

The domestic contact center solution market in FY2022 yielded 485,900 million yen, up 3.5% from the previous fiscal year (based on the sales at the businesses). While the COVID-19 outbreak is contained, the market as a whole showed a consistent growth. One of the factors that contributed to the market growth was the increased flexibility of call center agent’s workstyle, as seen in the penetration of remote call center jobs stemming from the labor shortage and the national workstyle reform. The contact center solutions market grew by providing network and security setup needed to adapt to the trend of switching to work-from-home call center operation.

Noteworthy Topics

Call Center/Contact Center for Managing Customer Experience

Coupled with the increase of digital transformation (DX)-oriented and customer experience (CX)-oriented enterprises, the significance of call center/contact center is rising as a point of contact to capture the “raw” customer feedback. Call center/contact center has become a key interface to gather data for analyzing customer behavior and experience prior to and after the purchase of products or services.

Meanwhile, technologies using generative AI is advancing. For instance, there is a trend of developing a system that streamlines call center operation by automatically summarizing customer interactions. As the technology progresses, enterprises may not only optimize operation, but also improve the collection of customer feedback, both quantity-wise and quality-wise.

Future Outlook

Associated with the decrease of large-scale call centers (built temporarily for public domain and government projects), the domestic call center market for FY2023 is forecasted to fall short of the size of the prior fiscal year.  

On the other hand, the domestic market of contact center solutions is projected to stay strong for FY2023 and beyond. Although the rise of cloud-based contact center diminishes the unit price of deals, it may increase clients among SMEs, who have not used it much so far. It is also assumed that the development of new system aimed at enhancing customer engagement by combining web channels to traditional call center channels.

The market is expected to grow further as more enterprises place importance on building and strengthening customer relationships, and as the recognition of call center/contact center as a major channel for gathering customer feedback widens. 

Research Outline