Concentrix and Teleperformance fall on the stock market. What's going on?

"Video killed the Radio Star" sang The Buggles. AI or a lack of understanding of call centre operations, what will ‘kill’ the major BPO players? Concentrix shares plunged by more than 12% on the market yesterday, following the release of results deemed disappointing for its third quarter. The world No. 2, which we recently covered in a special report, dragged down Teleperformance, the world No. 1, which fell by almost 5%.

The two players, like the BPO sector, are unable to reassure markets and analysts about their future, which conversational AI is said to be clouding and compromising. 

What's going on ?
To try and pinpoint the future of this industry, those who talk about it - since we don't listen much to users and customers - need to understand and observe the tasks that are carried out in the telephone platforms that have become contact centres. In Le Havre, at Ceacom, the thousands of calls received every day concern worries and requests for explanations about energy bills. Reassuring people with AI is something we don't yet know how to do, because it's a human voice that callers expect and hope to hear. Average conversation times have increased, and the outcome of the call is neither a sale nor a genuine problem resolution. One person simply needed to talk to another. See here the report on Ceacom, the 2nd largest private employer in Le Havre. So sometimes more agents are needed, simply to explain.

However, many analysts and journalists have not visited a call-centre for ten years, if ever, and therefore don't really know what really goes on there, leaving room for the hasty conclusions of Klarna et al. and other quick-fix studies. Read more here. One press release follows another, from the ‘coke salesmen’, as the CEO of a fine SME smilingly described them: ‘Those who have been telling people from Siebel and at Salesforce conferences that technology and CRM software are going to change everything. They just want to sell their stuff’.

While the world leaders battle with their quarterly results, in the middle of the market, some players are trying their hand at everything. In the FSM (French Speaking Market), to name but a few:

- Onepilot has taken over Eodom and is trying to establish a model of customer service provided by independent agents.
- Outsourcia has recruited Chloé Beauvallet, a former CEO of a major group. Is that enough?
- In sub-Saharan Africa, the discreet but quick-thinking Charles-Emmanuel Berc has made a 180-degree turn, courageously abandoning more than 30% of his former activities to become a global BPO service provider, with a school for coders and clients including SMEs who entrust him with the digitisation of all their processes.

Having left some of the big names, professionals such as those at Comete.ai believe in a new paradigm: a marketplace where brands and companies can choose and implement the right mix of technologies and people. The results of the 1st year seem to show that this approach is relevant.

Which of these strategies will be best adapted to the new context, to the foreseeable impact of conversational agents, and which major BPO player will be the first to have the courage to adapt its workforce to the certain decline in activity, even if this is not as radical as the studies predict?

A special 134 issue
En-Contact has decided to shake up its editorial calendar and devote its end-of-year issue to an exclusive feature: BPO, call-centres, blue chips and fading stars. What we think AI will and won't do to contact centres and the people who work in them.

In October, the editorial team will be organising a press lunch for this purpose, in order to meet the players in the industry. Issue 134 will be out on 2 December.

Tennis has continued to exist, even after the departure of rivals Borg and McEnroe and the Nadal/Federer pair, and despite the rise of panel tennis. Of course, the blonde Swede's wooden Donnay racket will be the stuff of smiles in 2024, but technology and e-sport have not diminished the joy of seeing combatants on and in a stadium. 

BPO giants Concentrix and Webhelp symbolically complete their merger, announced last year, on 29 March 2023. (April 2024)
Named Concentrix + Webhelp since Concentrix's acquisition of Webhelp last September, the group (which posted sales of $2,402 million in the first quarter of 2024) is now known simply as Concentrix.

This rebranding marks the disappearance of the iconic ‘Webhelp’ name, which has been part of the BPO landscape since 2000. The identity of the French company founded by Frédéric Jousset and Olivier Duha is thus disappearing from the national and international scene in favour of that of the American Concentrix.

The new entity now boasts sales in excess of 10 billion euros and has established itself as the number two BPO company in the world. Like the number one, Teleperformance, Concentrix is concerned by the potential impact of generative AI. Is the sheer volume of its sales an insurance policy against these risks? Does the colossus have feet of clay? Find out in our survey, to be published in the next issue of En-Contact.

The recent history of the BPO giants shows a strong capacity for resilience, bearing in mind that the extension of the field of AI has not yet proved its relevance, and this is illustrated on a daily basis by those who contact or try to contact a customer service department, such as Transavia.

Top photo: Concentrix, formerly Webhelp, in Glasgow. Credit : Edouard Jacquinet. 

Manuel Jacquinet