Enterprise Satisfaction With AI, Automation Services Lags Despite Growing Number of Deals, ISG Study Shows

Outsourcing deals involving AI and automation are on the rise, even as enterprises rate their customer experience (CX) in those technology domains lower than in others, according to a new report from Information Services Group (ISG) (Nasdaq: III), a leading global technology research and advisory firm.

The latest ISG Star of Excellence CX Insights Report, a quarterly review that sheds light on what enterprise buyers think about their service and solution providers, shows AI and automation are leading the charge for providers in winning new outsourcing deals in 2024. Many companies consider AI and automation important tools for improved efficiency and cost savings. However, based on average CX scores in the second quarter, clients were less satisfied with engagements that involved those technologies. Generative AI (GenAI), which has generated exceptionally high interest and expectations this year, received the lowest average CX score of any emerging technology.

Overall satisfaction with providers in the second quarter, as measured by the average enterprise CX score across all technologies, industries, and regions, declined by more than 3 percent from a year earlier, to an average score of 71.5 on a scale of 1-100.

“In the wake of global technology outages this year, customer experience is more important than ever to enterprises when choosing outsourcing partners,” said Heiko Henkes, ISG director and principal analyst in charge of the study. “To succeed under these conditions, providers need to understand the wide range of factors that can influence a client’s satisfaction at each stage of an engagement.”

In addition to overall CX scores, the second-quarter report focuses on CX scores by technology domain, following on from the first-quarter report, which examined CX scores by industry. Future reports will spotlight CX scores by geographic region (third quarter) and wrap up the year with an annual analysis (fourth quarter).

CX Scores by Technology Domain

The report examines CX scores across four broad categories of technology-based provider services: Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), IT Outsourcing (ITO), Ecosystem (covering specific vendors) and Emerging Technology. Customer satisfaction, the report notes, may be influenced by how common a technology is, the complexity of implementing it, the benefits it delivers, the availability of talent to support it, and how proactive vendors are about introducing it.