What is CCaaS?

Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) is a cloud based virtual environment consisting of traditional phone communication and other services used to communicate with your customers.  Agent software is deployed to help outward focused communications, typically with with a customer base using an Omnichannel approach, Enterprise Chat, SMS/Text, Email, Social and of course Call Paths.  CCaaS replaces legacy PBX & Call Center environments swiftly taking advantage of Chat, SMS/Text, Email, Social communication all help create a true Customer Success experience.  CCaaS vendors vary in scope and capability however the core tech is focused on outbound/inbound communications with customers or potential prospects.  This architecture and call/communication path is the opposite of Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) which delivers more internal communications within a company.

Call Centers began with traditional SIP and TDM services and now have gone virtual.  Are you new to this virtual environment?  Check our post on What is a Virtual Call Center

A recent article by GlobalTrade on How to Deliver a Great Omnichannel Experience

CCaaS and UCaaS have helped many businesses adopt a Cloud PBX strategy, removing many of the burdens of maintaining a legacy pbx.  Implementing a Contact Center in the Cloud, provides an organization immediate benefits:

1. 1. Reduction in Cost & Support Hours: Eliminates the Customer Datacenter costs – utilizing a vendor’s Cloud Contact Center footprint for decentralized access to customers.  Possessing Cloud PBX capabilities also allows an organization to take advantage of VOIP/SIP capabilities from the vendors who are buying large network capacity, outpacing your cost per Mb/Gb.
   2. Call Path: Latency, jitter and packet loss usually improves across the core network as the provider has built larger infrastructure to support many organizations.  However, organizations must consider where their Agents sit and how they connect to the Contact Center platform.  If they are work from home Agent, prioritizing bandwidth for VOIP/Video should be implemented to create a quality call flow.  Typically with a Cloud Contact Center solution, entry points to their network will have greater reach vs. standing up an environment on your own.
   3. Deep Call & Communication Analytics: CCaaS allows the Contact Center Leader to truly see how a customer interacts with your business.  Antiquated legacy PBX environments are painful to pull call detail information and measure non call path customer “touch points.”  Now, organizations can triangulate data from the various touch points customer interact with you in the business.  Scoring Email, Text and other Omnichannel facets, allows the business to scale, support and focus on a solid Customer Experience.  This data assists with scaling, training and multiple options for potential cross-sell, upsell improving the Long Term Value (LTV) of your customers.

1. Better Agent Experience: Agents now have powerful tools as their desktop affording organizations faster onboarding and reaching new potential employee agents across the globe.  Interacting with an organization over the phone and receiving action items over email, text etc, along with powerful updates is not available in a legacy PBX environment.  Customers are won and lost by the first touch and that begins with the Agent experience.  Agents today have the ability to work in cool collaboration rooms like Zoom & other tech.
2. Remote Workforce: Once you deploy CCaaS, you have the ability to place agents anywhere in the world.
   1. Hiring in lower cost of living regions. How many candidates could you hire in other parts of the country but the commute would not work?  Employees are happier to live in their specific locale while still being plugged into the Call Center.
   2. Follow the Sun: Agents can support your customers as the Time Zones change and it does not require you to staff local employees in one building working the graveyard shift.  Employees can support in-country regions, languages & customs.
   3. Disaster Recovery: Inclement weather, pandemics or a loss of a building are now less impactful by deliver a true remote option for employees and customers do not suffer.  Losing a building with a legacy PBX and call center in the past would be devastating, now the redundancy is the burden of the vendor.

Interested in trialing a Contact Center as a Service environment or want to explore how to migrate to one?  Ask us, we’d be happy to show you a demo & discuss options to leverage cloud contact centers!