Contact center as a service (CCaaS) solutions have emerged as game-changers in enhancing customer experience and streamlining communication. They offer scalability, flexibility, and robust functionality, marking a significant shift from the traditional, hardware-based contact center infrastructure.
Experts predict CCaaS adoption will pass 60% by 2028,1 so if you haven’t transitioned to this flexible cloud-based contact center solution, it’s likely only a matter of time. But choosing the right contact center as a service platform can be tricky, given the many options in the market. In this blog, we’ll explore key considerations to help you navigate this complex landscape and see which CCaaS providers align with your business needs.
CCaaS solutions provide businesses with a wide range of communication channels, such as voice, web chat, social media, and more, in a single platform delivered via the cloud. Cloud contact centers allow organizations to provide great customer service and improve operational efficiency with flexible, scalable contact center software that employees can access from anywhere.
Providing exceptional customer service is a must in today’s competitive business landscape. CCaaS providers can help your business improve customer satisfaction by making it easier for customer service agents to manage and respond to customers efficiently – across every communication channel. Many CCaaS solutions also come with features like artificial intelligence and advanced analytics to improve customer engagement and drive strategic decision-making.
Contact centers are the frontline of customer interactions, making contact center as a service one of the most expensive IT solutions your business will invest in. But because business leaders often struggle to understand the various contact center options available, finding a solution that meets their customer service needs at the right price can be difficult.
If you’re shopping for contact center solutions, you’ve likely come across call center software. While both call center and contact center solutions are designed for customer engagement, there are significant differences between the two.
A call center primarily focuses on handling customer interactions over the telephone. It’s a traditional model used for customer service or telemarketing and typically includes technologies like interactive voice response (IVR) or customer relationship management (CRM) integrations.
Contact centers, particularly CCaaS solutions, incorporate multiple communication channels to provide customers with an omnichannel experience. Customers can interact with businesses using their preferred channel – phone, chat, text messages, mobile apps, email, or social media – and receive consistent service regardless of which channel they use.
A complete CCaaS solution offers many benefits that can help you drive business growth with better customer service and efficiency. Here are some key advantages:
Modern customers want your business to meet them where they are. CCaaS solutions allow your contact center agents to provide customers with a consistent support experience on their preferred channels, which is essential since 89% of customers get frustrated by having to repeat their issue to multiple representatives.2
A CCaaS platform eliminates the need for costly on-site contact center infrastructure and maintenance. Additionally, many CCaaS providers allow you to pay only for what you need, allowing you to optimize your communications costs.
Because they’re cloud-based, you can deploy a CCaaS solution much faster than traditional on-premises contact centers. CCaaS providers are responsible for handling maintenance and updates, ensuring you always have access to the latest contact center features and improvements.
A CCaaS solution is designed to scale easily based on your contact center’s needs. You can add or reduce the number of agents, channels, and features as your business grows or to accommodate fluctuating call volumes.
An estimated 32 million Americans will work remotely by 2025.3 Since CCaaS is cloud-based, your agents can access the platform’s communication features from anywhere with an internet connection. This accessibility allows agents to work from home or anywhere outside the traditional office, supporting the shift towards remote and hybrid working models.
Many CCaaS providers offer platforms that integrate seamlessly with CRM solutions and other business tools, which can streamline workflows, improve productivity, and allow your agents to access customer information easily during interactions.
When selecting a contact center solution, it’s important to consider the features that best suit your unique business and customer service needs. While different CCaaS providers offer their own unique set of features, popular contact center capabilities include:
Omnichannel support offers multichannel customer interactions, typically over voice calls, SMS and MMS texts, online chat, email, and more. With an omnichannel contact center, customers can switch between multiple channels without disrupting the conversation or the need to repeat information.
Call recording enables your contact center to record customer calls for quality assurance, training, and compliance purposes. Supervisors can also monitor live calls to provide real-time support and coaching to your agents.
IVR allows customers to interact with your customer support system via voice or touch commands and receive personalized responses. It’s an efficient way to handle routine customer inquiries without the need for live agents.
Automation can be used to standardize customer service operations and free up your agents’ time by automating mundane tasks like data entry or responding to simple questions. AI-powered bots can also help customers find answers, complete transactions, and more.
By integrating your CCaaS and CRM systems, your agents can access customer information during interactions to streamline and personalize the customer journey.
Advanced speech analytics analyze customer-agent conversations to gather insights, sentiment, and potential areas for improvement in customer interactions.
Data-driven insights are essential for measuring customer service performance and identifying areas of improvement. Many CCaaS solutions offer advanced analytics and reporting capabilities to help contact centers make strategic decisions based on customer data.
Workforce management tools help in predicting call volumes, scheduling agents, and monitoring their performance. This ensures that your contact center has the right staff and resources available to handle customer inquiries efficiently.
Choosing the right CCaaS provider directly impacts your customer service and, by extension, your brand reputation. Here are some factors to keep in mind when comparing CCaaS providers:
Your contact center software should be capable of supporting all the communication channels your customers use. Additional features like AI, automation, and real-time analytics can also be helpful as your business grows, but make sure to figure out whether your business will truly benefit from these tools to ensure you’re not spending more for contact center functions you won’t use.
There are an estimated 2,200 cyber attacks per day,4 so your contact center as a service provider should include robust security measures in their platform. Look for CCaaS providers who offer data encryption, secure access controls, and compliance with industry regulations.
Make sure your contact center as a service solution can integrate with your existing business systems, such as your CRM, ERP, and marketing automation tools. Seamless integration ensures a smooth workflow and enhanced productivity for your agents.
Contact center as a service providers should offer fast, responsive support to help you resolve any issues that may arise. Ask about your potential provider’s customer service record to ensure you’ll be well looked after as a customer.
The cost of your CCaaS platform should fit your budget and provide the right level of value for your money. Most CCaaS providers offer flexible pricing models, so you pay for only what you need in terms of features and capacity.
We’ve forged exclusive VIP relationships with dozens of contact center and CCaaS providers, which we can leverage to help you find the right mix of features, functionality, and special, negotiated pricing to raise your contact center game. Some trusted providers we work with include:
NICE inContact’s CXone contact center platform empowers customer service agents to provide better experiences across every channel. Features include omnichannel routing, customer analytics, automation, and more – all backed by a 99.99% uptime guarantee.
Five9 provides a leading CCaaS platform designed to increase business agility and help your agents exceed customer expectations. The Five9 platform offers advanced features like intelligent omnichannel routing, AI assistance, pre-built CRM integrations, and more to deliver the insights your teams need to intelligently respond to customer needs.
Vonage’s contact center software offers easy-to-manage omnichannel features in a single, cloud-native solution. Along with advanced unified communication tools, the software includes analytics and QA tools, KPI monitors, and more to help you customize your contact center platform to meet your customer service team’s unique needs.
Cisco’s Webex contact center offers a wide variety of communication channels in an intuitive platform. Agents can access customer context histories and in-app messaging to stay connected, and advanced analytics provide insights on the customer journey across any channel to allow agents to provide the best customer experience.
Talkdesk offers a cloud contact center platform that helps businesses modernize their customer service with omnichannel support, AI-powered virtual agents, advanced analytics, employee collaboration tools, and more.
The Genesys contact center platform offers integrated voice and digital channels, automation and AI capabilities, real-time reporting, and an intuitive agent experience in a cloud-native solution that scales with your business’s needs.
8×8’s cloud contact center solution provides omnichannel routing, self-service options, workforce management, and an intuitive interface purpose-built to help your contact center agents and supervisors deliver a better customer experience.
Dialpad’s contact center helps businesses improve customer engagement and agent workflows with integrated digital channels, self-service, AI-powered automation, real-time coaching, sentiment analysis, and more in a unified interface.
Evolve IP’s unified contact center platform is loaded with features to optimize your workforce, integrate with critical tools, and connect with customers across a range of channels. Plus, agents can collaborate with other team members from anywhere thanks to Evolve IP’s flexible deployment options, including softphones, desk phones, and mobile devices.
Zoom, the popular cloud collaboration provider, offers an omnichannel contact center solution that empowers agents to engage with customers and access back-office experts from a single, intuitive application. It also enables intelligent self-service with an AI-powered virtual agent to improve first-contact resolution and solve your customer’s problems faster.
The SharpenCX contact center platform unifies communication and collaboration tools into a single, remote-friendly experience. It also uses AI and automated workflows to route and record customer interactions across every channel for better agent and customer experiences.
LiveVox’s cloud contact center solution boosts agent productivity and enables your team to make faster, data-backed decisions to enhance the customer experience. On top of the platform’s advanced features, LiveVox also offers industry-leading, end-to-end SLA coverage for peace of mind.
The right contact center solution can help your agents deliver an exceptional customer experience while improving efficiency and reducing costs. But with the CCaaS market forecasted to double in size by 2027,5 finding a provider that can meet your needs and give you a competitive advantage can be a time-consuming, complicated process.
With hundreds of contact center implementations under our belt in every vertical, use case, and geography, CommQuotes has the experience to help you migrate to a CCaaS solution that’s right for your business. We’ll help you learn about CCaaS providers, focus on the features you need, and choose a platform that can help your business grow at the lowest possible price.
Ready to upgrade your customer and agent experience with a flexible, cost-effective CCaaS solution? Reach out to our contact center experts today to get started.
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