From Call Centers to CCaaS: The Evolution of Contact Center as a Service

"Excellent customer service is the number one job in any company. It is the personality of the company and the reason customers come back." - Connie Edler.

All too often, businesses fail to realize the importance that their communication systems have on overall customer success. CCaaS provides multiple communication channels on one platform enabling you to interact with consumers on their favorite media. This fosters conversation and increases active engagement. In this post, we'll explore the development of Contact Center as a Service and what it means to your business.

From Call Centers to the Cloud

To understand the future of CCaaS, we first must realize how we got to this point. The Birmingham Press and Mail implemented the earliest functioning call center in the 1950s. A Private Automatic Branch Exchange (PABX) system could filter and assign incoming calls to the available agents.

In the 1970s, larger corporations implemented call centers for receiving orders, confirming reservations, and supporting sales. By 1985, the Direct Line Insurance Company was selling its policies exclusively over the phone, a practice many retail companies adopted.

Call centers evolved to contact centers in the late 1990s courtesy of technologies like the internet, email, and mobile devices. They opened new business communication possibilities alongside traditional phone calls, including email, text messages, IP calls, website forms, and more.

It wasn’t until the early 2000s that CCaaS got its first start when providers saw great perks in hosting contact center software in the cloud. The first wave of CCaaS revolutionized contact centers in the following ways:

• Multichannel capabilities
• Utilization of the existing infrastructure
• Lower total cost of ownership than company-owned equipment
• Quick and straightforward deployment
• Flexible and scalable subscriptions
• Free software maintenance and upgrade
• Easy integration and customization

The sky's the limit when it comes to the capabilities of today's cloud-based contact centers. They combine inbound and outbound calls, interactive voice response (IVR), chat, instant messaging, SMS, email, voice and video conferencing, and much more.

Redefining Customer Success

The customer success department is responsible for ensuring optimum client experience at all touchpoints. Customer experience defines customers' feelings and opinions throughout their interactions with your brand — from marketing and the sales process to ongoing support.

It also covers how your product or service impacts the consumer's life. Does it solve an existing problem or improve their lives in some way? When customers are happy, they do more business with you and become your brand ambassadors.

Call centers came to enhance customer success, but they often failed. They supported one or a few communication channels with limited capabilities, with one manager overseeing all calls.

As a result, long hold times, confusing phone trees, ineffective representatives, and inconsistent problem-solving were common. These bottlenecks decreased customer satisfaction, jeopardizing overall business success.

CCaaS redefines customer success by facilitating speedy assistance that customers expect regardless of the device or channel they use. Enterprises that use omnichannel strategies realize 91% higher customer retention rates than companies that don't.

Customer Success Through Omnichannel Integration

Modern-day consumers use multiple devices and communication channels. They can find something when using their desktop to browse the internet and head to your store to make a purchase. If they can't find the specifics they want at your brick-and-mortar outlet, they can use their smartphone to check your online store's inventory.

CCaaS enables omnichannel marketing, the unwavering solution to building customer success. It requires viewing customer experience from the consumer's perspective and making it consistent, integrated, and seamless across all channels. The result is a connected and harmonious CX and purchase journey.

With omnichannel integration, your company assumes customer-centric communication by directing interactions to the specific channels various customer segments prefer. Besides supporting multiple channels, CCaaS integrates them to maintain consistent brand messaging and reputation. It ultimately offers consumers a unified experience.

Analytics capabilities of CCaaS platforms give insights into contact center data that you can use to heighten customer success. Internal employees are more readily available to assist customers when you have a hosted contact center. These perks aren't possible with legacy call centers.

The Current State of CCaaS

CCaaS is an excellent tool for boosting productivity in organizations. For instance, agent absenteeism dropped from 62% to 5% after a Belgian telco migrated 188 representatives to a cloud-based contact center. Average calls per day swiftly increased from 1,300 to 1,800.

If you thought that CCaaS is for communicating with customers only, you are wrong. Today, cloud-based communication technology is instrumental in facilitating collaboration in organizations.

Combining unified communications as a service (UCaaS) with CCaaS enables employees and managers to interact with each other in real-time. It breaks down departmental silos and barriers that hinder efficient communication.

Real-time communication also enhances a collaborative environment that companies with distributed stations and remote workers require. As a manager, you can intervene when an employee needs help without looking like you are micromanaging them. With a CCaaS tool that shows you how your agents are working, you can reach out to those needing assistance.

The Future of CCaaS

According to research, the global CCaaS market in 2019 was $3.07 billion. Experts project it to reach $10.06 billion by 2027 at a CAGR of 16.1%. We can attribute this growth to the increasing need for more flexible ways to deliver personalized customer experiences in the corporate world.

What’s Next?

If you are still using an on-premises contact center, it's clearly time to switch to a cloud-based CCaaS solution. It will enhance customer success in your organization through omnichannel communication and rid you of the maintenance burden.

Due to the growing popularity of CCaaS, more and more carriers are entering the market with various solutions. Therefore, choosing the best platform for your specific business needs can be quite confusing.

We at Adler Advisors are here to help. We provide honest and unbiased consulting so you can find customized solutions for your business.

To boost customer success, you need a robust communication system to address your customer concerns during all touchpoints. We can recommend the right cloud CCaaS solution to enhance a superior customer experience in your organization. We seek to understand your challenges and offer solutions that drive results.

Contact us to receive tech and communication solutions from experts who listen to you.