What will change in 2026, which developments should you keep a close eye on, and which 'trends' can go in the trash, refrigerator, or storage?

 

Definitely take this into account in 2026

1. Working conditions for customer contact employees – The new ABU collective labor agreement will take effect on January 1st. The "hired-in" remuneration will be replaced byequal payThose who make extensive use of temporary workers will face concrete and structural changes, including those related to costs. One significant change is the increase in the StiPP pension premium.

Facility contact centers are also faced with wage cost increases based on the dog.

Separately, the unions are pushing for higher wages in 2026: FNV is aiming for a 6% wage increase, CNV for 3,5% to 5%. The changes – combined with the use of technology – could lead to sourcing strategy (flexible/permanent, in-house/external, onshore/offshore) to be examined.

2. iDEAL becomes Wero – and this has consequences for contact centers that answer customer questions about orders and payments. Customers can report a problem from the payment transaction within the Wero app or their own banking app, which means that payment transactions and customer contact are direct connection This can lead to additional (message) traffic to customer service. Contact centers must prepare for the integration of these messages into the CRM environment and their processes. Wero will be phased in gradually starting in 2026.

3. Telemarketing in the Netherlands – As of July 1, 2026, calling without consent will be discontinued. Exceptions exist for charities, lotteries that contribute to charities, and publishers of newspapers, magazines, and other weekly newspapers. Managing consent will become a core process: you must always be able to demonstrate that you were authorized to call someone. The opt-in will therefore become a data issue: where is the opt-in recorded, how long is it valid, how do you revoke it, and how do you audit this per campaign? When outsourcing, this becomes an additional risk that must be managed contractually (and through audits).

These stricter regulations are a European phenomenon, as Ziptone analyzed. For (small) contact centers that rely heavily on telemarketing, 2026 will be a challenging year.

4. The EU AI Act is fully applicable from August 2, 2026 (with exceptions), which means that governance, risk classification, transparency and AI literacy must be integrated into daily work processes.

5. Getting started with future skills – AI literacy is a legal requirement, but the changing work practices of agents increasingly require them to be able to think in processes and translate the output of AI solutions into customer outcomes.

In other words: agent assist does not mean that the agent can stop thinkingOn the contrary.

Many leaders see opportunities in AI for further efficiency gains and cost reduction. This drives an "automation-first" approach, requiring contact center managers to evolve from people managers to AI leaders.

 

Watch out in 2026

1. Gen AI and agentic AI – Gartner expects that a large proportion of agentic AI initiatives will fail if there are no good business case is and as data quality, knowledge management, rights/roles and end-to-end process data problematic On the supply side of the market, competition for generative AI solutions is expected to increase. This could lead to lower costs—an advantage—but also to the collapse of smaller players you had just selected to implement an AI solution.

2. Towards voice control – Forget the early versions of Siri and Alexa, which supposedly let you look up facts, play music, or control the living room lights. The first generation of virtual assistants was rules-based and therefore limited in its applications. GenAI and speech technology, combined with human voices, will lead to a breakthrough, if Karen Kwok of Thomson Reuters is to be believed. Speech input is three times faster than text, and with an error rate of only 3%, accuracy is "adequate."

Instead of using a web browser or mobile app to order food or call a taxi, it will become increasingly common to simply speak to an AI assistant. Uber Technologies, for example, already supports voice commands for Siri users in English, German, Japanese, French, Hindi, and Portuguese. In theory, a customer wearing earbuds could order their favorite sushi without taking their phone out of their pocket. This should also appeal to older or visually impaired users, who are sometimes less comfortable texting.

According to Reuters, consumers are already ready for audio AI: More and more people wear headphones or earbuds for a significant portion of the day. WhatsApp users send more than 7 billion voice messages daily. Revenue from the total voice AI market, including smart earbuds, is expected to triple between 2025 and 2030. Tech giants are already exploring ways to move AI from the screen to the ear. Apple's AirPods now offer live translation in five languages, allowing users to understand what a foreign speaker is saying in real time.

Reuters predicts a market for specialized audio AI models that will replace systems based on text conversion.

3. Digital sovereignty Digital sovereignty will be a key focus for contact centers in 2026. Applications like CCaaS and CRM are both the lifeblood and the nervous system of customer service. Sanctions, escalating tariffs, and export or trade restrictions can impact the price and availability of U.S. SaaS solutions. The Trump administration's most recent (and unexpected) actions included blocking the credit cards of ICC judges and imposing visa sanctions on former EU employees. Experts warn that "Project 2025" systematically is being implemented. Part of this is resistance to European regulations on technology and data. Meanwhile, demand is growing European alternatives in "sovereign cloud'-variants. The German state of Schleswig-Holstein is phasing out as much technology of American origin as possible, thereby limiting not only risks related to lock-in, continuity, and compliance, but also costs.

4. Pre-sorting for brand value retention – Complaints about chatbots are not limited to certain companies; they are widely used and widely rejected by consumers. KPMG previously warned of a uniformity in CX. Opinion makers also emphasize the importance of digital services with a human touch and authenticity as a distinguishing feature. Digitalization and the use of technology can go hand in hand with brand retention.

5. Facility boutiques – This year, even more so than in 2025, sourcing will go hand in hand with digitalization, automation, and AI. Rising labor costs (between 5 and 6 percent by 2026) and changes to the ABU collective labor agreement are new elements in the sourcing strategy for in-house contact center managers. Which customer contact processes (voice, digital) should be handled by whom: bots or people? And what financial resources should you, as a brand, allocate to handling human customer contact? Those who focus on lowest costs have plenty of options. The vast majority of the CustomerFirst Top 20 facility contact centers have offshore locations. A small number of 'purely onshore players' are still active in that top 20: RIFF, Quality Contacts, and 2Contact. Further research is also available at onshore players who fall (just) outside the Top 20.

6. Offshoring locations – BPOs are preparing for new destinations for Dutch-speaking customer contact, such as Egypt, the Philippines, or Ghana. Real-time translation is already necessary for digital customer contact. no longer an exception, which means that language dependency for primary contact is a thing of the past. Scaling up real time speech translation It seems only a matter of time: it is a logical next option for BPOs to offer a significant wage cost advantage again.

7. Consolidation and integration of CCaaS with CRM and ITSM – Users of CCaaS platforms should be aware that their trusted brand could become the subject of mergers and acquisitions. New partnerships can also create momentum – think of Salesforce and ServiceNow, which together invested $1,5 billion in Genesys Investing to accelerate agentic AI CX orchestration. CCaaS vendors are also acquiring specialized AI players (plenty of choices) to more quickly deliver end-to-end automation solutions.

8. Consolidation of CCaaS and AI – Acquisitions such as those of Cognigy by NiCE we will see more often. The AI ​​race is increasingly about product suites and integrations. In addition, increasing regulatory pressure in the field of AI an increasing burden on smaller providers. The market has been flooded with new AI companies over the past two to three years, while their target customers are start reluctantly with AI initiatives.

Also read: All mergers and acquisitions relevant for contact centers in 2025

Also big IT/BPO players are making acquisitions to acquire scale and domain expertise in the field of AI and process automation. Analysts expect more carve-outs and consolidation. Further consolidation in the BPO sector is also expected specifically for the Dutch-speaking region, with the main arguments being increasing margin pressure and potential bankruptcies.

 

Ignore in 2026

The 2025 clichés are also the 2026 clichés. Here they come:

• automation and AI are advancing in customer contact;
• we automate simple customer contact, so that employees have more time for complex customer questions;
• Personalization is becoming more important as consumers become increasingly demanding;
• proactive and seamless service delivery becomes the norm;
• transparency is becoming even more important to maintain customer confidence;
• Poorly performing AI applications are not an AI problem, but an organizational problem.

 

Can be put on hold/in the attic for now until 2026:

• Visions of the Metaverse as game changer in customer contact haven't materialized. Even Meta shifted its focus after it became clear that this virtual world wasn't delivering demonstrable customer value. Zuckerberg has significantly scaled back his investments in this heavily loss-making project.
• Machine customers. We may see the first applications in 2026, but for now, it's mainly consumers (and professionals) who are asking AI questions.

(Ziptone/editors)

Customer Experience, Featured