Five9 Study Finds Only 15% of Contact Centers Track Customer Effort Score
Five9 and ICMI released research showing that fewer than one‑third of contact‑center operators measure three increasingly important CX metrics—Customer Effort Score, self‑service containment, and agent engagement. The study highlights a stark gap between the metrics operators deem important and the ones they actually track.
Why It Matters
For SaaS contact‑center operators, the study highlights a missed opportunity to leverage data‑driven insights that directly affect Net Promoter Score, cost per contact, and agent productivity. By adopting CES, self‑service containment, and agent‑engagement metrics, operators can create a virtuous cycle—improving CX while justifying automation spend. For investors, the gap signals a market for next‑generation platforms that embed these analytics out‑of‑the‑box, potentially unlocking new revenue streams through premium modules or usage‑based pricing.
Furthermore, the findings reinforce the shift toward AI‑native contact‑center solutions. Vendors that can surface actionable intelligence from IVAs, chatbots, and omnichannel interactions will be better equipped to meet the growing demand for measurable, outcome‑focused CX. The study therefore serves as a roadmap for product teams to prioritize metric‑capture capabilities that align with operator priorities.
Key Points
- Only 15% of contact centers track Customer Effort Score (CES).
- Self‑service containment is measured by just 17% of respondents.
- Agent engagement metrics are captured by 32% of operators.
- 73% say CES is important to customers, but only 48% view it as important to agents.
- 56% of interactions are projected to start with self‑service by 2025.
Analysis
The Five9‑ICMI study surfaces a classic SaaS paradox: operators recognize the strategic value of certain metrics but lack the tooling to capture them. Historically, contact‑center software has focused on traditional KPIs—average handle time, first‑call resolution, and NPS—while newer, experience‑centric measures have lagged. This lag creates a fertile ground for differentiated SaaS offerings that bake advanced analytics into the core platform rather than as bolt‑on modules.
From a competitive standpoint, incumbents that rely on legacy on‑premise stacks risk erosion as cloud‑native rivals roll out turnkey CES dashboards, AI‑driven containment reporting, and real‑time agent‑engagement scores. The low adoption rates also suggest a data‑collection bottleneck; many operators likely lack unified data lakes or event‑streaming architectures needed to aggregate interaction data across voice, chat, and video channels. Vendors that can simplify this integration—perhaps via pre‑built connectors to popular CRMs and workforce‑optimization tools—will lower the barrier to measurement and accelerate adoption.
Looking forward, the projected 56% self‑service initiation rate by 2025 will amplify the importance of containment metrics. Operators that can prove high containment rates will not only reduce labor costs but also demonstrate superior CX, feeding into higher NPS and revenue expansion opportunities. In essence, the study is a call to action for SaaS providers to shift from a feature‑first mindset to a metric‑first architecture, positioning themselves as the analytics engine behind modern contact‑center transformation.