Zoom’s multi-billion-dollar acquisition of Five9, the video platform vendor’s first major acquisition, is significant and likely to be one of the biggest examples of telecoms convergence in 2021, says GlobalData. The leading data and analytics company notes that this acquisition underlines the growing importance of customer contact and customer experience services in the post-pandemic world.

Gary Barton, Principal Enterprise Technology and Services Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Zoom is under significant pressure to change the astonishing momentum it achieved during the first 12+ months of the COVID-19 crisis into longer term financial results. It is no surprise that it sees customer contact services as a way of extending its value proposition.”

COVID-19 has forced companies to change the way they do business with their customers. For an extended period, bricks and mortar branches were closed and people have become even more accustomed to dealing with companies remotely.

Barton continues: “GlobalData’s research has revealed that customers were already shifting towards more self-service forms of interaction with businesses such as using apps. While many people still favored an in-person experience, especially when dealing with complex enquiries, this was not possible during lockdown. The pandemic has forced people to change their behavior and old habits have begun to die out.”

Zoom’s video capabilities will be important as it seeks to differentiate its customer contact proposition from major competitors such as Cisco, NICE inContact, and Salesforce.

Barton adds: “COVID-19 has normalized video communications in a way that might otherwise not have been possible. Industries such as medicine, financial services, and education had begun to use video, but it was largely on the fringes. In the future, video will be a primary route to market for a wide range of services as people expect a more on-demand customer experience.”