Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) – what is it and how can it benefit your business?

Introduction

In the era of smartphones, where support is just a click away, customer experience (CX) has evolved substantially. Today’s tech-savvy, gen-Z customers are looking for hyper-personalised, seamless, frictionless experiences. Offering product and price as the key brand differentiator is no longer enough. Moreover, the competition is so stiff that customers can easily move to another service or brand if they do not find yours convincing.

So, how can you offer customers impeccable support right from the first touchpoint with your brand? Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS), one of the crucial trends in communication at present, is your go-to option.

What is CCaaS?

Projected to peg a market value of about USD $11 billion by 2028, according to Grand View Research, CCaaS entails providing contact centre technology and capabilities to businesses over the cloud “as a service.” This staves off the need for organisations to set up their own premises-based technology. While cloud-based contact centre solutions are not a whole new concept, the concept has picked immense momentum over the past few years. Driven by a demand for flexible, scalable customer engagement and service solutions, CCaaS is becoming a table-stakes investment for any organisation.

Six ways CCaaS can help your business

There are several reasons driving organisations to take their contact centres to the cloud. Let’s look into some of the significant business benefits of CCaaS platforms:

1. Easy setup on a dime

While CCaaS is attractive for various reasons, one of the primary ones is that it lets you purchase only the technology you need, decreasing additional costs tied to conventional call centre systems. You will save on IT support, expensive hardware, and overall energy expenses.

In addition, cloud-based contact centres do not have proprietary hardware that depreciates with time. The software in the cloud undergoes constant upgrades to avoid depreciation.

Furthermore, with a CCaaS solution, you only pay for your specific needs and know their costs upfront (as per the size of your business), allowing for predictable budgeting. This simple monthly subscription or pay-as-you-go pricing keeps the costs down and scales with your team.

2. Supercharge omnichannel customer experience

The degree of customer support you deliver can make or break your business. Customers feel a tad better when they have multiple ways to reach out to a company. CCaaS makes it all possible – it covers a slew of channels, not just voice. As a result, customers can seek your help via multiple channels – email, phone, or Facebook messaging - and your agents will receive all the queries through a single platform. As such, your customers will get faster responses (without being put on hold), thus boosting your overall ROI from customer support.

3. Streamlined business insights

As CCaaS integrates all the communication channels into a single pane of glass, you can better monitor your KPIs, such as uptime, downtime, missed calls, and declined calls). This will offer you a better view of your business.

Besides, you can evaluate how many interactions it takes to fix customer problems. For instance, if you see a massive uptick in missed calls, you may need to analyse if you have enough agents during peak hours to keep pace. This way, you can spot any loopholes in your support process and optimise them.

And such end-to-end insights into the customer journey and business operations will help you take the necessary steps to make your company more efficient.

4. Smooth data collection

Each time your agent communicates with a customer, CCaaS gathers the data (assuming it is compliant with data privacy norms) to help your business know more about your customers and their needs. Demographic insights and other data points offer actionable information to your business, as well as insights on deliverables or customer success.

Unlike the traditional siloed systems, the cloud keeps all of the data collected on your customers. Therefore, anybody contacting a specific customer can see the data related to them in a bid to serve them better.

Also, you can create targeted campaigns based on your recent customers to engage with new audiences, boost your bottom lines, and mint more money in the long haul.

5. Flexible working

The flexibility which CCaaS offers in terms of remote working is a boon for employees. Thanks to CCaaS platforms, you can provide vital contact centre software and tools to your agents online. As such, it becomes considerably easier for the agents to work in various geographies yet still be managed efficiently.

Offering your employees more liberty and flexibility to work wherever they want might also boost their morale and productivity.

Having some of your agents working remotely can also help slash business expenses if you want to downscale your workspace or are not all set to expand.

6. Higher efficiency

Being a customer agent is a demanding job. However, CCaaS can make the work of the agents ‘n’ times easier. The solution has all the tools your agents may require, including video meetings, call monitoring and recording, and instant messaging, all in one piece of software.Performing all of the jobs in the same place will indeed speed up their work. What’s more, CCaaS platforms allow quick and easy sharing of updates or files among team members.

Also, such platforms have in-built automation features to deal with recurring tasks, such as sending emails or updating databases. That means more time for your agents to serve your customers.

Also read: Unified Communications as a Service: How UCaaS is driving the modern workforce

The future of CX is with CCaaS

CCaaS promises businesses of all shapes and sizes a much-needed edge in terms of providing top-notch customer journeys. Whether you are helping clients with a holistic support system or reaching out to customers with smart sales tactics, CCaaS can be your saviour.

Moreover, CCaaS is where the future of contact centres lies, and it is a feasible solution that businesses need to get on board with as soon as possible. The gradual move to the cloud will make it easier for companies to leverage and capitalise on the titillating features of CCaaS for better business continuity and customer experience.

Do check out Tata Communications CCaaS offerings!