LICENSED FOR DISTRIBUTION

Critical Capabilities for the CRM Customer

Engagement Center
Published: 19 December 2017 ID:G00325671

Analyst(s):
Brian Manusama, Michael Maoz

Summary
Application leaders supporting customer relationship management and customer experience can use
this research — which defines eight critical capabilities and four use-case scenarios — to select the
right customer engagement center software products and vendors.

Overview
Key Findings
 Based on our market research and client inquiries, we have defined eight critical capabilities
for CRM customer engagement center (CEC) solutions. These range from core case
management, self-service and knowledge management functionalities to innovative features
such as real-time decision support, predictive analytics and adaptive business rule engines.
 We have devised four distinct use cases that appropriately reflect the majority of deployment
styles that organizations will need to consider when looking at CRM CEC vendors and
products:
o Global
o Business to Business
o Complex Processes
o Business to Consumer

Recommendations
Application leaders looking to improve customer relationship management and customer experience
through software and processes:
 Evaluate the capabilities of your current customer engagement system against new and
emerging requirements for engaging the customer across all appropriate channels.
  Identify the specific use case in this Critical Capabilities report that best matches your
business, and then research the vendors that are most appropriate.
 Decide, based on the complexity of your requirements, whether you should be looking at best-
of-breed components from multiple vendors rather than an all-in-one CEC suite.

Strategic Planning Assumptions

By 2019, over 85% of new packaged customer service and support software will be delivered on a
cloud-based model, and SaaS will emerge as an essential selection factor for CRM customer
engagement centers in all geographies, not only U.S. and EMEA and for all but the most-complex
processes.
Through 2019, an ecosystem containing at least four types of products and vendors will be required to
build the ideal customer engagement center, the core of which will be an intelligent system for CRM
case management.

What You Need to Know

For the majority of organizations that support customers, a combination of human-assisted and self-
service interactions will remain the standard, although far more will be automated and augmented by
artificial intelligence (AI). Selecting a vendor for a CRM customer engagement center (CEC) is not
an easy task. The range of capabilities continues to grow. Many CEC vendors offer simple and
limited case management, and have trouble-ticketing offerings with inflexible configuration rules and
procedures. Other CEC vendors have failed to incorporate new ideas and developments (such as real-
time analytics, machine intelligence and social experience design concepts) into customer interaction
applications for customer service.
This Critical Capabilities report is a companion to the "Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer
Engagement Center," which focuses on customer engagement solutions used by customer service
representatives (CSRs).
Gartner's eight critical capabilities for CRM customer engagement solutions provide the guidelines
needed to help application leaders understand and select suitable customer service software.
These eight critical capabilities are:
 Case Management
 Self-Service/Knowledge Management
 Integration
 Digital Engagement Channels
 Mobile Support
 Real-Time Guidance/Decision Support
 Predictive Customer Analytics
 Social Media Engagement Management
Based on our market research and inquiries with clients, Gartner has identified four use cases that we
believe appropriately reflect most of the categories from which organizations can assess products for
a CRM customer engagement solution:
 Global
 Business to Business
 Complex Processes
 Business to Consumer
Although we provide four use cases for consideration, organizations can adjust the critical
capabilities for a custom analysis. We realize that organizations might also share characteristics with
two or more of our use cases (global, complex and business to consumer, for example). In this case,
you should choose to go with the most dominant use-case characteristic of your organization.
These criteria have been applied to the 15 vendors evaluated in this research that are also mentioned
in the companion "Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center." When reviewing
their suitability for your organization, use the vendor scores given for each capability as part of the
selection process. Buyers should assess and adjust the weightings given according to their own
business mandates, performance requirements and future plans.
While the Magic Quadrant provides a graphical competitive positioning of four types of technology
providers in fast-growing markets (Leaders, Visionaries, Niche Players and Challengers) Gartner
Critical Capabilities allow you to relate your requirements and needs against a specified set of use
cases and Gartner-identified critical capabilities for products or services.
This Critical Capabilities report is intended for application leaders supporting customer service to use
in the selection process of core customer engagement center software.

Analysis
Critical Capabilities Use-Case Graphics
Figure 1. Vendor Product Scores for the Global Use Case
Source: Gartner (December 2017)
Figure 2. Vendor Product Scores for the Business to Business Use Case
Source: Gartner (December 2017)
Figure 3. Vendor Product Scores for the Complex Processes Use Case
Source: Gartner (December 2017)
Figure 4. Vendor Product Scores for the Business to Consumer Use Case
Source: Gartner (December 2017)

Vendors
Gartner vendor product evaluations were made on product functionality generally released and
available as of September 2017. Details of the criteria used for evaluation can be found in the Critical
Capabilities Definition section of this document. We have attempted to identify distinct function that
are most likely to differentiate or influence the evaluation efforts based on what clients and customer
references have articulated. We have also taken into consideration any factors that might affect
additional cost and/or implementation efforts. In addition to Gartner's evaluation, customer reference
scores regarding the critical capabilities are noted in this section.
bpm'online
With approximately 65% of bpm'online customers based in Europe, this solution is best suited to
SMB organizations in that part of the world. Those using the vendor's customer service and support
product average approximately 45 users each, though there are several instances of over 500 users.
An advantage of the product is the availability of both marketing and sales functionality, in addition
to customer service. Results from a Gartner survey of close to 200 companies looking for a CEC
solution show that bpm'online's name is recognized primarily in central and Eastern Europe, the U.K.
and, to a lesser extent, Asia and Australia. The customer reference survey indicates that clients
especially rate the vendor's case management and its agent knowledge base very highly. Room for
improvement can be found in its support for real-time and predictive analytics.
Core strengths:
 Modern, attractive and intuitive user interface.
 Relatively attractive price in comparison with the cost of large-enterprise CRM systems.
CRMnext
CRMnext's CEC functionality is suited for complex processes in the financial industry. The solution
is impactful for its strong emphasis on sales force automation and customer service. Based in India,
and with new offices in the U.S., CRMnext is a division of Acidaes Solutions. Most of its presence is
in Asia/Pacific and parts of the Middle East. It has a strong presence in large-scale financial services
institutions, and 80% of its revenue comes from this industry. It services very large customers, with
its average customer support organization having over 10,000 users. These users value the product's
call scripting and industry-specific capabilities according to the customer survey. CRMnext has direct
sales channels in the U.S., India, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Outside of those regions, it
relies on sales partners.
Core strengths:
 Digital scale of deployments supported, either in an on-premises or cloud-based model.
 Strong analytics capabilities.
 Easy-to-design user scenarios.
eGain
After years of investing in technology that supports chatbots, real-time collaboration, virtual customer
assistant and other AI capabilities, eGain now offers a suite of customer engagement solutions. The
eGain customer base is a mix of midsize and large B2C companies. Most of its presence is in the U.S.
and Europe. This is where the eGain solution is also most suited. The client reference survey revealed
that eGain's knowledge management and social media functions are very strong.
Core strengths:
 Pioneering digital engagement channels (support for nine digital channels — more most other
vendors).
 Knowledge management as a core component.
Eptica
Eptica is best suited for deployments in the midmarket. The vendor primarily serves the B2C
midmarket with deployments for approximately 100 agents, mostly in Europe. Its solution is available
both on-premises and in the cloud, and it has a good spread of customers across these deployment
modes. It is geared toward customer self-service, and includes engagement tools that augment, rather
than replace, existing customer service software packages. Eptica's years of investments in natural-
language programming (NLP) are helping it as the use of cognitive tools matures. Clients gave Eptica
a clean score of 5 for its call scripting, mobile chat and video chat capabilities.
Core strengths :
 Many years of expertise in NLP and understanding.
 Actionable insights and improve business operations.
Freshdesk
The core of the Freshdesk market is in the U.S. Next to serving small businesses, it has a fair
customer base of midsize organizations that make departmental use of the Freshdesk product. The
majority of its CEC deployments have fewer than 50 agents. The company continues to make
acquisitions, prominently in AI, bot and integration technology. The company has secured another
round of investment capital to build a broader offering for its core market. References indicate that
the email management response and handling of service requests are strong functions of the product.
Core strengths :
 Dedicated support for the SMB market.
 Fit-for-purpose set of functions.
Lithium
The heart of U.S.-based Lithium's customer service offering is the Lithium Engagement Platform,
which combines the management of online communities and social media engagement. Typical
installations of the customer service agent pool are under 50 users, which reflects its suitability for
most social media engagement needs — although itcan scale to support more. Lithium has work to do
in marketing its capabilities for conversational user interfaces, chatbots and mobile messaging.
Gartner has not seen it appear on shortlists for traditional customer service agent desktops. Instead, it
supports customer engagement on social channels, as well as in its online customer communities.
Core strengths :
 Utilizing formal communities as a way of identifying and solving customer issues.
 Social media management.
 Web community.
Microsoft
Microsoft has repositioned its customer service software as an independent module of Microsoft
Dynamics 365. The cloud model is multitenant and gives businesses the option of a private instance
and database. The on-premises product continues to account for the majority of the references for
customers, as well as for organizations that have larger and more-complex customer service
requirements. New business is directed to the online model, which has cloud-enabled features that are
not available on-premises. In October 2017, Microsoft transitioned the CRM platform to Azure. This
solution is best suited to midsize and large organizations. Microsoft is one of the few vendors that
support on-premises, cloud-based and hybrid implementations.
Core strengths :
 Development possibilities.
 Integration into Microsoft Office 365.
 Pricing.
mplsystems
Now called IFS-mplsystems, this U.K.-based provider of CEC and omnichannel contact centre
systems was acquired in August 2017 by IFS, a global, service-focused enterprise software company.
The company's solution is best suited to midsize organizations and works particularly well in
environments that require a complex, guided contact-handling capability. The company is very good
at helping clients understand the best processes for their business, and at creating solutions for them
without protracted development projects. In comparison with last year, clients have been responding
positively to the changes being made by mplsystems in project management and customer support to
improve services.
Core strengths :
 Unique combination of workflow and desktop mashup architecture.
 Creation of easy-to-use tools for fit-for-purposes solutions (allowing business users to design
and evolve applications, workflows and business processes).
 Integration with other enterprise applications.
Oracle
Oracle has shown renewed commitment to its CRM application sector, with increased product
development and new releases raising market awareness of its customer service software. Oracle
Service Cloud also demonstrated customer service innovations in 2016, including AI, virtual
assistance, messaging channels and IoT. Combined with the vendor's new marketing initiatives, both
existing and prospective customers are benefiting, with the latter showing greater interest in Oracle's
portfolio. Our survey shows that Oracle is (along with Salesforce, Microsoft and Pegasystems) one of
the top-four vendors mentioned by clients looking for a customer service solution. This was
supported by our client reference survey, which cited Oracle's platform availability, scalability,
reliability and security.
Core strengths :
 Robustness of the solutions.
 Deployment options.
  Strong integration capabilities that allow for complex customer deployments.
Pegasystems
U.S.-based Pegasystems comes to market with an extended set of capabilities that it describes
collectively as its Customer Decision Hub. Its products are used primarily in environments where
there are frequent changes to highly complex customer service processes. Its business is dedicated to
customer engagement and business process optimization. With approximately 4,000 employees
worldwide, Pegasystems is among the top-three thought leaders in the CRM industry (along with
Salesforce and Zendesk). Surveyed customers rate Pegasystems' functionality case management, real-
time and predictive analytics, and business rules workflow as the best in the market.
Core strengths :
 Highly complex customer service processes.
 Support of customer journeys through "next best actions."
 Strong mobile development capabilities.
Salesforce
Salesforce is the market leader as well as one of the thought leaders in the customer engagement
market. Reference customers tell us that selecting Salesforce Service Cloud is part of a broader
initiative and that they will eventually bring it together with other Salesforce business applications
(such as Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud and the App Cloud). Gartner estimates that 20% of
Salesforce's new revenue came from Service Cloud in 2016, making Salesforce the leading CEC
vendor measured by sales volume (it expects to exceed $2 billion in 2017). Salesforce has
traditionally focused on B2B customer service, but has initiated expansion to the B2C service and
contact center space via partnerships with Avaya, Cisco, Genesys and Amazon.
Salesforce's high scores from the client reference survey were for the functionality of case
management, business rules workflows and role- and skills-based case assignment.
Core strengths:
 B2B customer support.
 Growing capability in the consumer-facing industries (via partnerships).
 Cloud-only solution.
SAP
After a year of establishing the SAP Hybris Service Cloud brand, SAP is reporting 500 customers in
2016 for the brand across multiple industries and regions. Although momentum is growing again for
the products, prospective customers have told Gartner that SAP's marketing messaging for the CEC is
still challenging. There are two established products: SAP Hybris Service Cloud (the version for
customer service being the multitenant SAP Hybris Service Cloud) and the older, on-premises SAP
CRM 7.0 system. Both of these products are sold for use in case management. The cloud product
comes in Standard, Professional and Enterprise editions. Reference customers in large and complex
environments did not score the stability and reliability of SAP Hybris Service Cloud highly. SAP
products for contextual, unified communications (such as live chat, video chat, co-browsing, audio
chat and email) are based on the SAP Hybris as a Service microservices platform, and extend the core
customer service applications. SAP solutions are best suited to large-scale, complex deployments.
Core strengths:
 Complete suite (with own as well as third-party vendors).
 Ability to integrate into complex infrastructures.
 Reliability and security.
ServiceNow
Based in the U.S., ServiceNow is a new entrant to this Critical Capabilities (and the companion
Magic Quadrant). It is a rapidly growing provider of cloud/SaaS business applications focused on
workflow improvements and agility for processes such as IT, HR, customer service and security
operations. Gartner believes that the strength of ServiceNow's installed base alone should drive strong
growth in customer service applications. Customers give ServiceNow a very high score for
availability and reliability of the platform as well as its case management functionality. Ratings from
surveyed customers also included high scores for business rules workflow, service requests and
activity management.
Core strengths:
 Unified platform and code base for customer-facing products (including IT service
management, HR service delivery and security operations).
 Clean interface that is easy to configure, and is strongest where support of a physical product
or software service is central.
 Workflow and automation, user interface, and out-of-the-box functionality for technical
support shorten the time to implementation.
SugarCRM
Based in the U.S., SugarCRM is one of the most-asked-about CRM product vendors for customer
service and support in Gartner's customer inquiry data. Most SugarCRM deployments in the CEC
sector are in small and midsize support organizations that are existing SugarCRM clients. The
SugarCRM Enterprise v. 7.7 solution evaluated here is best suited to SMBs.
Core strengths:
 Unified code base for salesforce automation and customer service.
 Good process design tools.
 Choice of on-premises or cloud-based delivery models.
Zendesk
Zendesk has one of the largest customer bases for its customer support product (approximately
114,000 subscription customers). Though most of these are small implementations, Gartner has also
observed implementations for 100 users or more. The vendor currently has over 2,000 employees
across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, among other locations. Its customer service
product has a cloud-based SaaS subscription model and appeals primarily to entities with midsize
support organizations. Zendesk has several product packages, but we evaluated only the Enterprise
plan for this Critical Capabilities. Case management and the engagement channels (video) chat and
email response management get the highest score from customer references. Although Zendesk is
currently still best suited to SMBs, the solution also gets a lot of attention from larger enterprises.
Core strengths:
 Clean, intuitive and easy-to-use interface.
 Attractive to innovative, "new economy" businesses that are "internet first" or "mobile first."
 The product is expanding to embrace deeper business intelligence.

Context
This report examines four use cases and the ability of vendor solutions to address these use-case
needs against eight critical capabilities.

Product/Service Class Definition

The customer service business application space is rapidly evolving away from software-based
contact centers that manages customer service cases, and toward multichannel customer engagement
centers that deal with all incoming and outgoing media channels and devices, as well as handling
customer engagement rules, content and workflows.

Critical Capabilities Definition

Case Management
Includes trouble ticketing, problem resolution, client advice and dispute management. Usually a
software interface in the shape of a dynamic form, with varying degrees of functionality, workflow,
business process management, and types of data integration.
Assigning the case, routing the case, and escalating the case can have any number of levels of
complexity based on requirements. The simplicity or complexity of the form used reflects the purpose
of the case. Regardless of assignment rules, the case must be able to connect to all relevant
communication channels (which may include sensors, monitors, email, web forms, mobile apps,
social media, chatbots, virtual assistants, messaging, kiosks and telephony).
There will be permissions built in to allow the case to be securely distributed across networks to users
of various types (such as home workers, third-party outsourcers, formal support agents and advisor-
experts assisting the agent). At times, the system may need to be shared with others, requiring
simultaneous viewing by other parties (some of whom may not be employees). This requires security
features such as data masking and locking (where participants can only see specific parts of the screen
or form) to be built in for the co-browsing and collaboration to happen.
Underlying the system will be a client information database. This might be physical, logical, virtual,
distributed, or whatever other methods may evolve. The information must be stored and available to
the agents. It might include contact information, contact hierarchies, affiliations, and legally obtained
personal information (such as addresses, phone numbers, names, contacts, engagement history, and
documents/information previously shared with the customer/account/entity).
Self-Service/Knowledge Management
Self-service functionality enables customers to conduct and fulfill transactions on their own. In the
increasingly digital world, self-service options are becoming more prevalent and are providing unique
opportunities for organizations.
Both organizations and customers benefit from customer self-service. Organizations can provide a
less-costly alternative to assisted customer support, while self-sufficient customers can enjoy the
empowerment of using a convenient service that is available in different channels.
Knowledge management (KM) is an integrated approach to managing an enterprise's knowledge
assets. These are made up of the information available to an enterprise about its best practices, critical
business processes and operating environments.
Knowledge management is the centerpiece of every customer-centric organization. It fuels all
engagement channels so that they stay accurate, maintain consistency across all channels, and bring
together all knowledge artifacts in order to answer the needs of the customer.
A successful KM strategy is composed of:
 People: Those who inform our need for information can come from within an enterprise, or
from outside the enterprise. The goal of a KM strategy is to empower as many people as
possible to participate in creating and consuming relevant knowledge.
 Processes: KM processes include the methods utilized to develop, maintain, deliver and
measure knowledge, and to encourage participation. This can be highly complex, as there is a
potentially wide range of KM processes.
Knowledge management is composed of a back-end knowledge base, search technology and a UI.
KM is used widely for:
 Internal employees.
 Customer self-service (on mobile devices, the web, kiosks, high-tech equipment/appliances
and wearables).
 Social media efforts (communities).
 Partners.
 Point of sale (POS), automated teller machines (ATMs) and ticket machines.
Customer service and support processes are required for all channels of engagement and on all types
of devices (including home appliances and wearables) and to perform a wide variety of tasks. Every
enterprise faces the complex KM challenge of accessing the exact piece of information to solve a
problem or to answer a question. It is not possible for any one software supplier to address all
combinations of KM requirements for CRM customer service. KM happens through customer self-
service tools like virtual customer assistants, in chat sessions, on the telephone, in community forums
and in many other areas. Knowledge artifacts can be found through search tools via enterprise portals
or through content management tools.
Business cases must focus on integrating the knowledge base into multiple channels. These might
include a web chat to reduce chat duration, an email response management system to return emails
with accurate answers, a virtual assistant to enhance information delivery, or a self-service search on
the website. Knowledge management will only reach its potential value if it is part of a long-term
commitment to fine-tuning and enhancing the knowledge base. By focusing on knowledge
management, the aim is to achieve at least an 85% relevance of responses, guarantee constant use,
and avoid users abandoning the search. The knowledge should be contextual, and available on all
communication channels.
Integration
The rapidly expanding combination of integration scenarios needed to support a customer
engagement center model.
Gartner has defined "pervasive integration" as the act of integrating on-premises and in-the-cloud
applications and data sources, business partners, clients, mobile apps, social networks and "things" as
needed to enable organizations to pursue digital business, bimodal IT and other modern business and
technology strategies.
Integration refers to the ability to handle a growing number of:
1. Endpoints (including on-premises, cloud, mobile and connected "things").
2. Patterns (such as data, processes, applications and B2B integration).
3. Deployment models (including on-premises, cloud-based or a hybrid of both).
4. Users (including specialists, incidental/temporary users and citizen integrators).
This enables organizations to support bimodal IT, modernize their technology strategies, and
capitalize on digital business opportunities.
Integration is rarely a solution by itself. Typically, integration is part of a larger project that will use
multiple teams to deliver the solution. Choosing which integration approach to adopt, and when, can
be a tricky process. The project delivery cadence, developer skill set, project budget and existing
integration capabilities all play a part in deciding what approach to use and when. Often, multiple
integration approaches will be required to achieve successful end-to-end integration.
Traditional systematic approaches to integration involve advanced, feature-rich products that are
excellent at delivering complex integration solutions at scale. Many of these products have been
around for well over a decade, and are well-established with what they do. However, speed of
delivery, cost of platform and complexity of tooling are often at odds with more-modern, lightweight
approaches to IT project delivery, which (by association) demand a similar approach for integration
delivery. Conversely, the open-source frameworks and platforms that have matured over the last
several years are a much better fit for the new modes of delivery, although they have yet to reach the
functional richness required for the more-complex integration scenarios. Add to that the emergence of
the line of business (LOB) integrator and citizen integrator, and the integration platform as a service
(iPaaS) and integration software as a service (iSaaS) technology that support them, and we soon have
a complex web of platforms, skills and methodologies that can rapidly become difficult to manage
and control. These lighter-weight, more responsive approaches are becoming ever more important as
organizations start to move toward becoming digital businesses.
Digital Engagement Channels
Email management, live chat, virtual customer assistants, conversational interfaces and co-browsing
are the digital engagement channels most often deployed. Consistency and seamless integration
between these channels is crucial in order not to break the customer experience.
These channels can be described as followed:
 Email management: Customer service email handling is still one of the biggest pain points in
customer service contact centers today. Tomorrow's higher-level issues — and one possible
sources of competitive differentiation — are the need to deliver on the promise of customer
democracy, and to address customer inquiries in the customer's channel of choice at a time
selected by the customer.
The fastest method is to automate the answers. Customers have become used to finding the
information they need quickly by using self-service, web-based searches, and now expect the
same speed and breadth of information to be available through other channels. By using an
email management system, organizations can provide almost instantaneous responses to
customer inquiries. As organizations expand into other communication channels, it is
imperative to have automated responses to email. This will allow enterprises to maintain a
certain competitive advantage by providing fast and efficient customer service.
 Live chat: An agent-operated interaction or discussion using a browser-based interface. Each
chat session involves interactive live-text or video interactions between customer service
representatives and external customers. During a chat session, complementary internet-based
interactions (such as collaborative browsing, screen sharing, or help completing forms) may
take place. A chat session could also be initiated through other self-service applications, such
as a virtual customer assistant, then passed on to a live agent. Live chat is primarily an
externally focused collaboration tool, as opposed to instant messaging, which is an internally
focused collaboration tool.
 Virtual customer assistant: A VCA simulates a human conversation to deliver information
or perform transactions on behalf of the customer through a web browser or mobile app.
 The technology usually consists of four components:
1. Natural-language processing
2. Speech recognition
3. A search engine
4. A context engine
 Collaborative browsing (or co-browsing):Lets an agent interact with a customer by using
the customer's web browser to share the same screen space. Regardless of their physical
locations, customers and agents can share a browser view and simultaneously browse a site to
assist with form completion or to guide the customer through a series of customer self-service
interactions.
 Co-browsing differentiates itself from screen or application sharing because it is not achieved
by sending numerous screen shots of the presenter's screen to one or more participants.
Instead, in a synchronous fashion, it distributes the web pages visited by the presenter to the
participant's browser.
Working with the customer on the customer self-service screen while in contact on the phone
or via web chat provides a great opportunity to resolve any questions, demonstrate best
practices and resolve self-service issues. The technology for collaborative browsing is fairly
mature and the business process and benefits for in-channel support are well-proven.
Mobile Support
Customer support apps that are accessible from, smartphones or tablets, and are completely supported
by the enterprise. They can perform contextual searches, contextual delivery of knowledge, location-
based services, or multimodal customer support.
Mobile devices now outsell desktop and laptop devices. Combined with the ever-increasing
processing power of the smartphone, this has resulted in many organizations investing in a mobile
strategy to expand their customer interactions. Mobile apps mean that customers can be engaged in a
self-service process, but can also request or be given live-agent support via chat, voice or co-
browsing. During 2017, we observed the rising popularity of mobile customer service apps in
multiple industries and geographies. The development, however, was not as fast as we thought, as
many consumer-facing apps that people use daily are free of charge and provide little or no support.
Mobile app and web-based support has only started to emerge in some industries (mainly hospitality,
air travel, banking and telecommunications) because customer expectations are higher in these
industries.
The mobile customer interaction could be presented in one of three ways:
 Mobile browser: Making web-based content accessible through a mobile device's built-in
web browser is the least-expensive investment an organization can make when starting to
deploy customer interactions. Any web-based functionality and content that is available on a
laptop or via a desktop browser can be accessed by a mobile device. The customer experience,
however, can be frustrating. Content that was designed to be viewed on a larger screen can
force users to continuously swipe and scroll to access the information they need.
 Mobile web: Many organizations deploy mobile web technologies on a back-end server. The
mobile server recognizes the device making the request, and formats the screen content
accordingly, so an iPad is distinguished from an iPhone. The content is formatted on the
server and delivered to the device, with the correct interfaces and formatting enabled for that
particular device. This method caters to a vast array of mobile devices and places much of the
processing overhead on the server, delivering a faster and richer customer interaction.
 Mobile app: A mobile app is downloaded from the web and installed on the device. Because
mobile apps are unique to each mobile platform, multiple versions are needed. The mobile
app moves some of the processing work — and all of the display and formatting — to the
mobile device, and focuses mostly on the transfer of information. Mobile apps have the
potential to deliver rich customer interactions, but are the most-expensive way to offer mobile
device interactions.
Real-Time Guidance/Decision Support
The ability to analyze the root cause of a problem posed by a customer in real time through solution
analysis and the use of a decision support engine. Software that allows rapid problem classification
and association with similar open or closed cases.
This capability uses real-time analysis of current and historical data in order to find the correct
partner, colleague or department to help with the resolution of a customer service case. It might also
decide under which business process rule to proceed, under which conditions a case should be
rerouted, and to which department or individual.
Cases can be resolved using one, or a combination of several, criteria, such as the customer's previous
case history, existing information about the product, or community cases posted about the
product/service.
Predictive Customer Analytics
Estimating or modeling the potential aspects of a relationship. Predictive analysis solutions come in
the widest variety of any CRM category. User organizations need to consider the level of expertise
each user will have, from data mining workbenches to industry-vertical applications.
"Predictive analytics" is used to describe a data mining approach with four attributes:
1. Emphasis on prediction (rather than description, classification or clustering).
2. Rapid time to insight (measured in hours or days).
3. Emphasis on the business relevance of the resulting insights.
4. Increasing emphasis on ease of use (making the tools accessible to nontechnical users).
Social Media Engagement Management
Functions that allow organizations to go beyond monitoring social media for brand mentions to the
operationalization of social customer service. They do so by enabling organizations to respond to all
social media posts through a central dashboard.
Social media for customer engagement consists of four functions:
1. External community software: Enables customers and partners to share information about
the company, rate its products and services and construct customer support cases. It also
enables peer interaction and knowledge management.
2. Social analytics for customer service:Enable organizations to pinpoint the areas in which a
customer service process falls short, and identify the factors that caused inadequate support to
be offered. These applications are often packaged with social media engagement applications.
3. Social media engagement: Enable organizations to monitor social media monitoring and
respond to customers. These applications handle inquiries and complaints raised on popular
social networks, forums and blogs in a linear, case-by-case manner.
4. Internal community software: Enables internal collaboration among customer service agents
for a case, a set of cases or a customer record.
Use Cases
Based on our market research and inquiries with clients, we have devised four use cases that we
believe appropriately reflect most of the decisions organizations need to make when looking at CRM
CEC.
Global
The majority of support centers are local or regional, but the largest companies may have up to three
instances of a global system.
Here we focus on global-scale infrastructure, cloud elasticity, latency, multicountry security and
support for local business rules.
Business to Business
B2B companies have fewer customers, fewer contacts and deeper insight into each of their customers.
There is an enhanced need for personalized care, longer talk times, persistence of story line, and
highly customized advice.
Complex Processes
Whenever a process has multiple conditions, then complex business rule engines, business process
automation and workflows are necessary.
This could include mortgage applications, health insurance claims and other complex technical
support cases.
Business to Consumer
Organizations that typically have large customer bases with heavy reliance on the direct customer
engagement in the engagement channels that they provide.
Based on understanding customer journeys and the way they provide that customer with value.

Inclusion Criteria
This Critical Capabilities uses the same inclusion criteria as the "Magic Quadrant for the CRM
Customer Engagement Center."
Gartner's inclusion criteria specified that vendors must:
 Have a minimum of 15 customers using the latest version of the software for customer service
and support functionality in a CEC, including examples of social media integration.
 Have secured at least five new customers for customer service and support between February
2016 and February 2017 in at least two regions (for example, Asia/Pacific, Latin America,
South America, North America or Europe).
 Be able to demonstrate at least $7 million in software revenue from core customer service and
support in the contact center/CEC sector — that is, as the desktop of record — from new
clients between February 2016 and February 2017.
  Demonstrate that they will equal or exceed the previous four quarters' business results in the
period 2Q17 to 2Q18.
 Appear regularly on client shortlists.
 Have a practice with sufficient third-party consulting and integration firms to grow at a
double-digit pace for five years.
 Have sufficient professional services to fulfill current customer demands and those arising
between 2Q17 and 2Q18
 Have at least enough cash to fund a year of operations at the current "burn rate."
 Have the technology to support an extension to cross-channel customer service, including AI,
mobile and social media, with a strong development environment and integration framework.
 Be trendsetters or "market movers," based on their software and strategies.

Table 1. Weighting for Critical Capabilities in Use

Cases

Critical Capabilities

Case Management

Global 25%

Business to Business 25%

Complex Processes 30%

Business to Consumer 15%

Integration

Global 10%

Business to Business 20%

Complex Processes 30%

Business to Consumer 10%

Self-Service/Knowledge Management

Global 20%

Business to Business 10%

Complex Processes 10%

Business to Consumer 35%

Digital Engagement Channels

Global 15%

Business to Business 15%

Complex Processes 5%

Business to Consumer 15%

Real-Time Guidance/Decision Support

Global 10%

Business to Business 15%

Complex Processes 10%

Business to Consumer 5%

Mobile Support

Global 10%

Business to Business 5%

Complex Processes 5%
 Business to Consumer 10%

Predictive Customer Analytics

Global 5%

Business to Business 10%

Complex Processes 5%

Business to Consumer 5%

Social Media Engagement Management

Global 5%

Business to Business 0%

Complex Processes 5%

Business to Consumer 5%

Total

Global 100%

Business to Business 100%

Complex Processes 100%

Business to Consumer 100%

As of September 2017

Source: Gartner (December 2017)

This methodology requires analysts to identify the critical capabilities for a class of products/services.
Each capability is then weighed in terms of its relative importance for specific product/service use
cases.
Critical Capabilities Rating
Each of the products/services has been evaluated on the critical capabilities on a scale of 1 to 5; a
score of 1 = Poor (most or all defined requirements are not achieved), while 5 = Outstanding
(significantly exceeds requirements).

Table 2. Product/Service Rating on Critical

Capabilities

Critical Capabilities

Case Management

bpm'online 4.1

CRMnext 4.3

eGain 3.3

Eptica 3.0

Freshdesk 3.6

Lithium 3.5

Microsoft 4.2

mplsystems 4.2

Oracle 4.0

Pegasystems 4.4

Salesforce 4.4

SAP 4.1

ServiceNow 4.2
SugarCRM 4.0

Zendesk 4.2

Integration

bpm'online 3.9

CRMnext 4.3

eGain 3.9

Eptica 3.7

Freshdesk 2.9

Lithium 3.2

Microsoft 3.7

mplsystems 3.5

Oracle 4.4

Pegasystems 4.3

Salesforce 4.0

SAP 4.3

ServiceNow 4.0

SugarCRM 3.6

Zendesk 3.5

Self-Service/Knowledge Management
bpm'online 3.5

CRMnext 3.5

eGain 4.1

Eptica 3.8

Freshdesk 3.5

Lithium 3.0

Microsoft 3.9

mplsystems 3.5

Oracle 4.0

Pegasystems 3.8

Salesforce 3.8

SAP 3.8

ServiceNow 3.5

SugarCRM 3.5

Zendesk 4.4

Digital Engagement Channels

bpm'online 3.5

CRMnext 3.7

eGain 4.7
Eptica 4.5

Freshdesk 3.9

Lithium 3.2

Microsoft 4.2

mplsystems 4.1

Oracle 4.3

Pegasystems 4.0

Salesforce 4.2

SAP 3.2

ServiceNow 3.9

SugarCRM 3.9

Zendesk 4.1

Real-Time Guidance/Decision Support

bpm'online 4.0

CRMnext 4.2

eGain 3.7

Eptica 3.8

Freshdesk 3.5

Lithium 3.4
Microsoft 3.5

mplsystems 4.2

Oracle 4.0

Pegasystems 4.5

Salesforce 4.2

SAP 3.8

ServiceNow 4.0

SugarCRM 3.3

Zendesk 4.1

Mobile Support

bpm'online 3.5

CRMnext 3.5

eGain 3.6

Eptica 4.0

Freshdesk 4.1

Lithium 3.0

Microsoft 4.3

mplsystems 3.3

Oracle 3.9
Pegasystems 4.0

Salesforce 4.1

SAP 3.5

ServiceNow 4.0

SugarCRM 4.1

Zendesk 4.0

Predictive Customer Analytics

bpm'online 4.3

CRMnext 4.3

eGain 3.3

Eptica 4.6

Freshdesk 3.8

Lithium 3.8

Microsoft 3.8

mplsystems 3.0

Oracle 3.3

Pegasystems 4.6

Salesforce 3.9

SAP 3.8
ServiceNow 3.7

SugarCRM 3.0

Zendesk 4.4

Social Media Engagement Management

bpm'online 1.5

CRMnext 1.8

eGain 2.8

Eptica 2.1

Freshdesk 1.5

Lithium 5.0

Microsoft 3.5

mplsystems 1.5

Oracle 3.8

Pegasystems 3.0

Salesforce 4.3

SAP 1.5

ServiceNow 1.5

SugarCRM 1.5

Zendesk 2.6
 As of September 2017

Source: Gartner (December 2017)

Table 3 shows the product/service scores for each use case. The scores, which are generated by
multiplying the use case weightings by the product/service ratings, summarize how well the critical
capabilities are met for each use case.

Table 3. Product Score in Use Cases

Use Cases

Global

bpm'online 3.68

CRMnext 3.84

eGain 3.78

Eptica 3.67

Freshdesk N/A

Lithium N/A

Microsoft 3.98

mplsystems N/A

Oracle 4.03

Pegasystems 4.12

Salesforce 4.13

SAP 3.69
ServiceNow 3.80

SugarCRM 3.61

Zendesk 4.06

Business to Business

bpm'online 3.89

CRMnext 4.08

eGain 3.79

Eptica 3.78

Freshdesk 3.53

Lithium 3.34

Microsoft 3.93

mplsystems 3.81

Oracle 4.05

Pegasystems 4.28

Salesforce 4.14

SAP 3.87

ServiceNow 3.96

SugarCRM 3.66

Zendesk 4.06
Complex Processes

bpm'online 3.79

CRMnext 4.02

eGain 3.66

Eptica 3.53

Freshdesk 3.32

Lithium 3.40

Microsoft 3.90

mplsystems 3.68

Oracle 4.09

Pegasystems 4.22

Salesforce 4.15

SAP 3.88

ServiceNow 3.87

SugarCRM 3.59

Zendesk 3.92

Business to Consumer

bpm'online 3.60

CRMnext 3.72
 eGain 3.88

Eptica 3.75

Freshdesk 3.49

Lithium 3.29

Microsoft 3.97

mplsystems 3.59

Oracle 4.03

Pegasystems 4.03

Salesforce 4.05

SAP 3.66

ServiceNow 3.70

SugarCRM 3.57

Zendesk 4.09

As of September 2017

Source: Gartner (December 2017)

To determine an overall score for each product/service in the use cases, multiply the ratings in Table
2 by the weightings shown in Table 1.

Evidence
Scoring for the eight critical capabilities given here for the evaluation and selection of CECs was
derived from Gartner's independent research on CECs in recent years. The quantification for the
scoring is supported by research in adjacent markets (including contact center infrastructure, artificial
intelligence and analytics) as well as face-to-face meetings with customer service clients, and
feedback from Gartner clients and competitive vendors during inquiries.
Each vendor in this research provided us with a vendor briefing and responded in detail to questions
administered by experienced analysts. This provided an objective process for considering the vendors'
suitability for the customer service activities of your business.
An important source of evidence came from over 700 inquiries we conducted in 2016.
The process used to create the companion Magic Quadrant produced customer reference survey
results, and these are included in this report.

Critical Capabilities Methodology

This methodology requires analysts to identify the critical capabilities for a class of products or
services. Each capability is then weighted in terms of its relative importance for specific product or
service use cases. Next, products/services are rated in terms of how well they achieve each of the
critical capabilities. A score that summarizes how well they meet the critical capabilities for each use
case is then calculated for each product/service.
"Critical capabilities" are attributes that differentiate products/services in a class in terms of their
quality and performance. Gartner recommends that users consider the set of critical capabilities as
some of the most important criteria for acquisition decisions.
In defining the product/service category for evaluation, the analyst first identifies the leading uses for
the products/services in this market. What needs are end-users looking to fulfill, when considering
products/services in this market? Use cases should match common client deployment scenarios.
These distinct client scenarios define the Use Cases.
The analyst then identifies the critical capabilities. These capabilities are generalized groups of
features commonly required by this class of products/services. Each capability is assigned a level of
importance in fulfilling that particular need; some sets of features are more important than others,
depending on the use case being evaluated.
Each vendor’s product or service is evaluated in terms of how well it delivers each capability, on a
five-point scale. These ratings are displayed side-by-side for all vendors, allowing easy comparisons
between the different sets of features.
Ratings and summary scores range from 1.0 to 5.0:
1 = Poor or Absent: most or all defined requirements for a capability are not achieved
2 = Fair: some requirements are not achieved
3 = Good: meets requirements
4 = Excellent: meets or exceeds some requirements
5 = Outstanding: significantly exceeds requirements
To determine an overall score for each product in the use cases, the product ratings are multiplied by
the weightings to come up with the product score in use cases.
The critical capabilities Gartner has selected do not represent all capabilities for any product;
therefore, may not represent those most important for a specific use situation or business objective.
Clients should use a critical capabilities analysis as one of several sources of input about a product
before making a product/service decision.

© 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner,
Inc. or its affiliates. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without Gartner's
prior written permission. If you are authorized to access this publication, your use of it is subject to
the Usage Guidelines for Gartner Services posted on gartner.com. The information contained in this
publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to
the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information and shall have no liability for errors,
omissions or inadequacies in such information. This publication consists of the opinions of Gartner's
research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. The opinions expressed herein
are subject to change without notice. Gartner provides information technology research and advisory
services to a wide range of technology consumers, manufacturers and sellers, and may have client
relationships with, and derive revenues from, companies discussed herein. Although Gartner research
may include a discussion of related legal issues, Gartner does not provide legal advice or services and its
research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner is a public company, and its shareholders
may include firms and funds that have financial interests in entities covered in Gartner research. Gartner's
Board of Directors may include senior managers of these firms or funds. Gartner research is produced
independently by its research organization without input or influence from these firms, funds or their
managers. For further information on the independence and integrity of Gartner research, see "Guiding
Principles on Independence and Objectivity."

 About
 Careers
 Newsroom
 Policies
 Privacy
 Site Index
 IT Glossary
 Contact Gartner