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Sales of new as well as add-on outbound dialer (OBD) systems for use in debt collection activities has increased, according to new analysis from Frost & Sullivan.

This is a welcome news after the decrease in sales last year as a result of tightened budgets during the economic downturn. The research firm says that telemarketing and pro-active customer contact are other leading applications for OBD systems in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

Both the United Kingdom and Germany continue to be the largest markets for OBD systems in EMEA, says the new report titled “EMEA Outbound Dialer Systems Markets.”

The report indicates that the markets earned revenues will reach €90.2 million in 2016. Following regional markets were covered in this research service: United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Benelux, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and Russia, Rest-of-Europe as well as the Middle East and Africa.

“Support for debt collections continues to be a major driver for the sales of OBD systems in EMEA,” says Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert) Principal Analyst Joe Outlaw. “Proactive customer contact will emerge as the most significant long-term driver of growth for outbound customer contact solutions across regional and vertical markets in EMEA.”

All industries today have begun to use outbound dialer system as a single tool for pro-actively contacting customers primarily with service-related information. OBD systems are mostly used by the banking/financial services sector, outsourcers and telecommunications companies.

Frost & Sullivan also notes increasingly restrictive and overlapping government regulations across EMEA and says that it is making a significant impact on the usage of OBD systems in debt collection campaigns.

Other methods and the media are supplementing the use of agent-assisted outbound calling to comply with laws and reduce campaigns cost. There is a heightened demand for unified campaign management tools, which include OBD systems.

Also, point solutions for outbound customer contact have lost their sheen in contrast to multifunction and unified outbound customer contact campaigns. Customers in the EMEA markets are shifting away from point solutions to outbound contact.

“To handle the growing demand shifts for unified outbound and blended inbound/outbound functionality it is imperative for vendors of outbound solutions in EMEA to build out suites of outbound functionality and make them interoperable with the inbound customer contact applications,” concludes Outlaw. “Minimum functionality for pro-active customer contact application suites would include support for the predictive dialer, outbound IVR/voice portal applications, notifications and alerts, pro-active survey, and unified campaign management.”