Nice Systems Ltd. announced the results of its first annual benchmark of contact center business and technology trends.  Key research findings include:

• Customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, and compliance are top operational priorities.
• Forty-four percent expect increases in customer interactions, both in phone interactions and as driven by alternate communication channels.
• Respondents foresee planned speech analytics deployments growing by 182% by 2011 from first half 2009.
• Over 50% of infrastructures will be VoIP-based by 2010.
• Workforce optimization investment growth will be greater than CRM's: Agent workforce optimization and performance management systems ranked high, significantly outpacing expected growth in CRM investments.
• Eighty-one percent expect staffing levels to remain steady or increase slightly
• Thirty-seven percent anticipate an increase in home-based agents

Charles Born, corporate vice president of marketing at Nice Systems stated, "Although businesses are paying attention to costs, they are being careful to ensure that customer satisfaction does not suffer.  Forward thinking companies are positioning themselves for quick performance improvements by planning investments in technologies that help promote customer satisfaction, including speech analytics, better utilization of cross-channel information, and smart-agent desktops."