CCaaS solutions are cloud-based alternatives to the traditional and traditionally expensive hardware on-site approach to establishing and building customer support services.
When an organization has an existing investment in on-premises contact center infrastructure, its ability to add new features or services is directly proportionate to its ability to access funds for further investment. And, in competitive sectors, this inability to improve CX in line with customer expectations or market dynamics can leave companies at a serious disadvantage.
Breaking down barriers
CCaaS levels the playing field, enabling brands of all sizes to compete head-to-head. Rather than add functionality through on-premises hardware investment, new tools and features are accessed through remote servers and web browsers. Furthermore, thanks to APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), CCaaS platforms and their features can be easily integrated with an organization’s existing software and systems, such as CRMs.
What’s more, because CCaaS is a service that — like a valve or faucet — can be turned up or down to increase or decrease flow as required, it is inherently scalable. This makes it simple to flex in line with customer demand, growth ambitions, seasonal fluctuations or marketing campaigns.
This, in turn, makes CCaaS a much more cost-effective means of delivering customer experience. By using a subscription-based model with fees that reflect need and use, large capital expenditures are converted into manageable operating expenses. For smaller organizations in particular this feature is extremely valuable as it helps to minimize upfront costs and simplify budgeting.
The functionality factor
As well as financial and strategic benefits for business, the reason why CCaaS is really moving the needle when it comes to customer experience is because of its functionality. The service isn’t about digitalizing and increasing or decreasing the volume of virtual phone lines available for customers to call in, or for agents to serve. When correctly calibrated, CCaaS enables true omnichannel CX, allowing brands to serve customers in their channel of choice, from phone or chat to email, messaging and social media.
Thanks to automatic call or contact distribution and the ability to integrate queuing and qualifying systems such as IVRs, voicebots or chatbots, customers can be connected with the agent best suited to resolve an issue, and that resolution is faster because the contact has been qualified or authenticated before being connected with a member of staff.
Know your customers
And because CCaaS solutions integrate directly into CRM systems, irrespective of which channel a customer chooses when they need to get in contact, that engagement is captured and logged. This ensures customer histories remain up to date and, critically, that multiple contacts via different channels regarding the same issue don’t result in multiple tickets being generated or cases being opened. In other words, your employees have a 360-degree view.
To help better fine-tune or optimize performance and setup, most CCaaS solutions also come with reporting and analytics tools so that organizations can better manage and deploy their human resources and focus on constantly improving the customer journey in order to identify common contact drivers, reduce the volume of live contacts and lower average handle times.
But even with cutting-edge tools, an organization’s ability to deliver a consistent and consistently positive customer experience will ultimately be decided by its customer-facing employees. When staff feel connected and engaged and have the latitude to apply their full skill sets and capabilities (rather than simply completing the same mundane tasks over and over), they perform at their best and provide higher levels of customer service.
Empower your employees
In this respect, one of the often-overlooked benefits of adopting a CCaaS solution is its ability to empower employees. When customer data can be captured, integrated and presented in one place, rather than across systems, agents can focus on delivering a resolution rather than trying to piece together disparate pieces of information to try and get a sense of the problem.
Likewise, when contacts can be automatically routed, it’s easier for organizations to balance workloads and ensure that employees receive a mix of contact types rather than dealing with the same or similar issues during every shift.
Work-life balance
The ability to map and improve customer journeys also means that lower-value contacts are easier to deflect via self-service options, so each engagement an agent undertakes is important and has the potential to strengthen the customer relationship or increase brand loyalty.
But as well as helping to manage workload, CCaaS solutions can also be pivotal in helping to optimize work-life balance. Because these systems are hosted securely in the cloud and accessed via browsers, they enable organizations to support remote or hybrid work for their existing employees. What’s more, when it’s time to grow teams, new members don’t have to be within commuting distance of a specific physical geography. This gives brands access to a much wider and diverse talent pool.
By moving to a Contact Center as a Service solution, organizations do more than simply benefit from a technological upgrade, they also enhance how they engage with their customers and empower their employees. By eliminating the constraints of traditional on-premises infrastructure, CCaaS enables businesses of all sizes to enhance their CX offerings without the burden of substantial upfront costs.
The scalability and integration capabilities of CCaaS enable companies to respond swiftly to market demands and customer preferences so they maintain their competitive edge. Increased functionality gives employees the tools and insights they need to excel and allows brands to take an end-to-end approach to customer experience design and delivery that will ultimately drive customer loyalty and advocacy. CCaaS is just one way of elevating and maintaining your CX, to discover more about how to manage and optimize every aspect of your contact center operations, read our ebook.