What is ccaas?
THE STATE OF CONTACT CENTER
Contact Center software has undergone its own digital transformation. These solutions were traditionally hosted in your datacenter on a virtual machine (VM). Under this scenario, your organization is responsible for all infrastructure, including power and cooling, as well as management of the full stack (such as compute, network switches, hypervisors and OS). In turn, this means you're also responsible for staffing to support this stack.
Much like PBX, Contact Center solutions have migrated to the cloud at a rapid pace. This has resulted in a number of "born in the cloud" solutions. This presents a stark difference from legacy vendors who struggle to make the difficult, but not impossible task, of moving from a hardware and premise-based focus, to a fully-baked cloud service.
THE FUTURE OF PREMISE-BASED CONTACT CENTERS
I’m sure you’re exhausted by the expansive as-a-service market. At this stage, you can consume everything in Information Technology as a service. You’re likely aware that manufacturers and providers are quickly migrating to offer all services on demand in an easy to consume format. Contact Center solutions are no different. The real question is -- why should you care?
Premise-based contact center solutions are going the way of the dinosaur. Don’t believe me? Gartner stopped tracking premise-based contact center solutions at the end of 2019. Legacy vendors who dominated the premise-based contact center space, such as Avaya, Cisco, Mitel and Genesys are announcing end of support/end of life for premise-based solutions at a rapid pace. If you’re utilizing one of these solutions, let’s talk about a migration strategy. You need to ensure you have adequate time to review solutions and plan for a smooth transition.
WHY CCaaS IS BENEFICIAL FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION
The cloud is rapidly improving the quality of customer experience solutions at your disposal. I’ve spent a fair amount of my career working in cybersecurity. One of my favorite experiences is providing a next-gen firewall (PAN, Fortinet and CheckPoint) demo for an end user who utilizes a legacy firewall (you know the ones I’m talking about). During one of these demos an end user uttered one of my favorite phrases while reviewing the power of next-generation tools. They said, “It feels like we turned on a light in a dark room.” So it is when you migrate from legacy contact center tools to the cloud. Your world changes, and your agents and customers will thank you.
Let's get down to the nitty gritty. Here's why you need to consider CCaaS.
Scalability
Long gone are the days of capacity planning. Buy the exact number of seats you need for the exact number of agents/supervisors you have.
You can scale this number up or down depending on your needs.
For example, insurance claims companies ramp up dramatically during their peak season, and ramp back down during their slow months.
Analytics
This is the crown jewel of CCaaS. The rich data and analytics that you generate far exceed that of premise-based solutions.
Data from your contact center represents some of the richest content that your organization owns while making critical business decisions. If your customer’s feedback doesn’t matter, then why are you in business?
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Sentiment is one of the best examples of the power of AI. Let's paint a picture of this powerful tool by sharing an example of a disgruntled support call. I know it’s difficult for you to imagine that people can be rude when they call in, but let’s pretend! For example, if a customer places an inbound call with your contact center and begins to elevate their tone, speak negatively about your company and use harsh language the solution can flag the call for review, as well as alert supervisors of an issue. In real time! From there, you’re able to locate a recording of the call and analyze the exact moments that the solution triggers an issue.
Natural Language Processing allows the tool to transcribe across all interactions, including chat, SMS, voice and email. This rich data is mined by the solution to reveal trends happening across all channels.
Self Service is a natural benefit of AI. Predictive analytics can be used to determine trends, which can shape the user’s experience. If you notice your users request the same simple tasks repeatedly, your organization can automate this process. This reduces the strain on your agent base and your customers get the data they need swiftly.
Agent Assist / Virtual Agent is an emerging trend that will reshape the way your organization handles customer interactions. It’s also possible to ease into the world of cloud contact center solutions by starting with virtual agents as the initial phase of migrating to the cloud.
AI in the contact center deserves its own article. Be on the lookout for future articles that tackle this topic. In the meantime, let’s start a dialogue to see if your organization can benefit from AI.
Integrations and Advanced Features
In the old days (think 2015) you had to bundle a variety of third-party add-ons to build a complete solution. That is a consumption and support nightmare. Do you enjoy opening multiple support tickets while employing Perry Mason as your prosecutor who holds the vendor’s feet to the fire as they point the finger at one of the many third-parties you’re utilizing? No, you do not. There is a better path.
CCaaS solutons are built for integrate. Many of the leading vendors in this space offer out-of-the-box integrations with crucial business applications, such as O365, Google and leading CRMs. Examples of this include Salesforce, Zendesk, Hubspot, etc...
Do you need an integration but that’s not listed out-of-box? No problem. As long as your app has open APIs, we can work with developers to create a custom integration.
Agent Experience
Agent experience is one of the features least considered during the evaluation process, but it directly correlates with your ability to hire and retain talent. If you’re an agent looking for a job, would you rather utilize a 1987 Ford F150 or a new Cadillac? Would you prefer to toggle between 47 applications (none of which are integrated) or would you prefer a seamless experience?
Happy agents are able to quickly and efficiently solve customer problems. This leads to stellar satisfaction scores and the ability to retain your employees. Anyone struggling to hire and retain quality agents? I know your hands went up!
Availability
Contact Centers demand uptime and reliability. Any CCaaS solution that you review should have a minimum of 99.99% uptime.
If you can connect to the internet, your contact center can function without restrictions with a CCaaS solution.
I know what you’re going to say. What if I lose connectivity? Great question! You should have diverse and redundant internet connections, which includes DIA (fiber), broadband (best as a backup), LTE, etc...
If your users lose their primary internet connection, your CCaaS solution can still run over an LTE connection, such as a mobile hotspot, home internet connection, or the guest network of a local coffee shop.
Customer Experience
During the pandemic it was extremely common to find customers who were struggling with abandonment rates and poor customer satisfaction scores. Their legacy systems could not keep up with the demands of WFH and dramatically increasing inbound interactions. Fun fact, all channels for the contact center saw an increase in interactions since 2020.
These solutions allow your business and agents to be more agile, while providing real-time analytics that improve performance.
In closing, you should consider CCaaS because your customers will benefit.
This is one of the most transformational solutions that your business will consider over the next twelve months, because it drastically increases your ability to service your customers. If you’d like to learn more about a migration strategy or selecting a solution that’s right for you, let’s start a dialogue.
Y’all be good!
DB
Definitions
CCaaS - Contact Center as a Service
VM - Virtual Machine
UCaaS - Unified Communications as a Service
AI - Artificial Intelligence
CRM - Customer Relationship Management
API – Application Programming Interface
WFH – Work from Home
DIA – Dedicated Internet Access
Seats - A license for a cloud-based contact center solution that is tied one-to-one with users