TELUS Digital, the global technology division of TELUS Corporation specializing in digital customer experiences (CX) and future-focused digital transformations, today released a new sponsored IDC InfoBrief titled "From Efficiency to Excellence: Driving Enterprise Value through CX Partnerships." The findings indicate a missed opportunity: enterprises are using CX partners primarily for support and cost optimization, but rarely expanding partnerships to include revenue growth and customer acquisition strategies.
Quick Intel
IDC surveyed enterprise buyers and decision-makers on the main customer care and contact center functions they currently outsource or would most likely outsource. The results show a clear preference for reactive and support-oriented functions over proactive revenue-driving activities.
Outbound B2B and B2C sales rank among the least outsourced functions, underscoring a significant opportunity gap. While enterprises confidently outsource analytics and support, they hesitate to leverage partners for proactive revenue-driving functions like sales and customer acquisition.
When selecting a third-party provider for business process outsourcing services, the top five criteria to shortlist vendors are contract pricing options and flexibility (28%), use of intellectual property and critical technologies such as AI, machine learning, and data analytics (24%), talent skills at the vendor (24%), provision of a dedicated team with access to vendor executives (21%), and credible examples or use cases of ROI (20%).
Although pricing remains the primary criterion, enterprises also value practical strengths such as top talent and the use of AI and analytics. These same capabilities that currently support customer service can be extended to customer acquisition and revenue growth. For example, a CX partner equipped with AI-enabled account intelligence can identify high-potential prospects or expansion signals, enabling tailored outreach that turns insights into pipeline growth.
The research shows that revenue growth ranks second among the results enterprises report from CX partnerships, behind only cost savings. However, this growth is largely generated through service-oriented functions such as analytics, retention, and support, rather than through proactive B2B sales and customer acquisition programs.
IDC's survey shows that CX partnerships are delivering quantifiable business results, including cost savings (25%), revenue growth (23%), productivity gains (22%), return on investment (21%), and profitability (20%).
"Our research shows revenue growth ranks among the top business results organizations report achieving through CX partnerships, yet outsourcing remains concentrated in reactive support functions," said Raymond Pucci, Research Director at IDC. "The findings point to a gap between what enterprises want from a CX partner and what they actually delegate, highlighting a clear opportunity to rethink CX outsourcing strategies and expand them into revenue-driving programs."
Factors driving the highest level of satisfaction with CX partners — such as alignment with business objectives (25%), meeting SLAs and KPIs (24%), and improving financial management (24%) — suggest that current evaluation metrics may be limiting partnerships to day-to-day execution rather than broader value creation.
"The same talent skills, data analytics capabilities and AI technologies that enterprise buyers look for in a CX partner to deliver support and cost optimization can also power revenue-driving programs," said Robin Jakobsen, Director, Product Strategy, CXM, TELUS Digital. "This includes outbound B2B and B2C sales, demand generation, customer retention, sales support and sales pipeline acceleration."
TELUS Digital is purpose-built to help enterprises move beyond support and into customer acquisition and expansion. With leading B2B sales outsourcing capabilities, the company combines human expertise with AI-powered technology and data to unlock new growth opportunities, enhance conversion rates, and improve customer lifetime value.
TELUS Digital was recently awarded Gold at the 2026 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service in the Demand Generation Program of the Year category for its work supporting a leading global fintech, delivering 47.6% conversion rate growth and $121 million in operating net revenue.
With more than 80,000 specialists across 35+ countries and a client base of over 600 global brands, TELUS Digital brings the scale, expertise, and specialized sales capabilities to help move CX partnerships from service delivery to revenue growth.
About TELUS Digital
TELUS Digital, a wholly-owned subsidiary of TELUS Corporation (TSX: T, NYSE: TU), crafts unique and enduring experiences for customers and employees, and creates future-focused digital transformations that deliver value for our clients. We are the brand behind the brands. Our global team members are both passionate ambassadors of our clients' products and services, and technology experts resolute in our pursuit to elevate their end customer journeys, solve business challenges, mitigate risks, and drive continuous innovation. Our portfolio of end-to-end, integrated capabilities include customer experience management, digital solutions, such as cloud solutions, AI-fueled automation, front-end digital design and consulting services, AI & data solutions, including computer vision, and trust, safety and security services. Fuel iXTM is TELUS Digital's proprietary platform and suite of products for clients to manage, monitor, and maintain generative AI across the enterprise, offering both standardized AI capabilities and custom application development tools for creating tailored enterprise solutions.
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