What is CCaaS?
Few would argue against improving the customer experience in your contact centre. After all, it’s an essential part of retaining customers and improving their lifetime value.
Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) is the tool that helps you to do exactly that. CCaaS allows you to operate your inbound and outbound customer interactions through software hosted in the cloud. By doing so, it affords you a new level of interaction that your customers will love.
It also improves the flexibility and job satisfaction of your agents and CCaaS provides the kind of scalability that delivers a tangible boost to your bottom line.
Why CCaaS makes sense for your business
Many customer service contact centres still rely on traditional landline phones routed by a PBX. These were fine for handling basic inbound calls. But there are several reasons why you should start looking at CCaaS as a more streamlined solution. And we’d argue that the first one is the most important.
1. Landlines are going the way of the fax machine
Yep, that’s right. From 2025, BT will have phased out traditional phone line exchanges. It means the entire country is moving over to digital phone lines, with calls made using Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP. This allows you to make or take calls on any device, in any location, using the same number. And usually for less than traditional call packages. You don’t need a physical handset if you don’t want one. Calls can be made by plugging a headset into your company PC or by using an app on your phone.
Given the impending extinction of traditional landlines, it’s probably time to look at how your business can make the most of CCaaS. This leads us to the next point…
2. Your customers expect a consistent omnichannel experience
Email and voice calls and aren’t going anywhere. But your contact centre to incorporate a seamless, convenient and consistent blend between every channel of interaction. That might include real-time conversations on web chat, social media or SMS. In fact, nearly 3 out of 4 customers will walk away if they don’t get the experience they want.
With a cloud-hosted contact centre solution, you can access native integration of every channel that you expect to use. Both now and in the future. So your customers get the interactive experience that makes them happy. And you can track customer interactions regardless of the route they take through your call centre.
3. You can’t predict the future for your contact centre
Don’t take that personally, not many people can. But with CCaaS, that stops being much of an issue. Because it operates via a subscription model, you benefit from not having to pay any huge upfront costs. You can also scale as the market dictates. So should you need to build additional capacity, it can be done in a matter of hours.
This is useful if your business fluctuates on a seasonal basis. But CCaaS also has advantages if something unpredictable happens. Say… like a pandemic.
By using cloud-based call centre software, your agents can log in from anywhere. It makes working from home a cinch, which will help boost morale even without the threat of a global health emergency.
4. CCaaS lets you add, improve and integrate more applications
Most CCaaS offerings can communicate with CRM applications and other bits of software through a range of APIs. This gives you the capability to connect your customer journey from initial contact through to after sales support.
It also offers more modern, customisable features like interactive voice response (IVR), automatic call distribution (ACD) and outbound predictive dialling. These tools enable your employees to improve communication, grow customer engagement and deliver a more flexible service.
A CCaaS solution is also continually upgraded. So you get the right tools to meet your customers’ needs, regardless of how they change in the future.
And because upgrades are quicker and easier to implement, your contact centre can save on IT costs without sacrificing customer service or risking downtime.
5. AI and analytics improve the CCaaS experience for everyone
There is an excellent chance that you’re already wondering where the bottlenecks in your processes are. Or how you can drive, measure and report improvements in your customer service.
A hybrid cloud-based contact centre might combine a server based CRM software solution with contact centre software hosted across several data centres.
Because CCaaS solutions integrate so effectively, this allows your company to take advantage of an enormous amount of data. Using powerful analytics, you can turn this into insights that are easy to understand and action.
Just as importantly, the introduction of artificial intelligence makes for a better contact centre experience. Whether it’s automated chatbots for your customers, or automated assistance for agents, CCaaS is all about improving the quality of outcomes for everyone.
Learn more about CCaaS
For more information about choosing the right CCaaS provider and the benefits of cloud-based contact centres, check out our resources below:
- Whitepaper: The best contact centre statistics for your business case.
- Infographic: On-premises vs cloud contact centre.
- Brand Battle: RingCentral vs 8×8.
- Brand Battle: 3CX vs Citrix.
- Case Study: Ashley Helme Associates.
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