What Is CCaaS and Why Your Business Needs to Adopt It?

Moving to the cloud is nothing new in the business world. In fact, findings from CITO Research and Commvault, for example, reveal that business leaders are “rapidly embracing the cloud, with the majority of respondents saying that they are already cloud-only or plan to move to the cloud completely.”

Nowhere is cloud-based operations more important than in the contact center industry. Customer service is the first point of contact for customers getting in touch with any business. Therefore, it goes without saying that seamless customer service operation is a must for any business that wants to thrive in the long run. And cloud-based solutions increasingly offer a level of service operation that simply cannot be matched by on-premise options.

And, along with the rising popularity of cloud-based systems, CCaaS (‘Contact Center as a Service’) solutions are also rapidly gaining ground among businesses.

CCaaS is a cloud-based software solution that allows businesses to utilize any provider’s contact center software that is hosted in the cloud. Call and contact centers have quickly embraced the idea, and for good reason: companies who adopt the CCaaS model reap major benefits.

But what are those benefits? Check out our article and find out for yourself!

Cost savings

Cost savings are the holy grail of business. Whatever industry you’re working in, I bet you’re constantly thinking about how you can reduce costs while maintaining the same quality of service.

In particular, if you work in the call center industry chances are cost savings are like to be even more of a struggle for you. Call center operations are extremely costly to run, and customer service, in general, is not well known for being a great source of revenue.

Therefore, at call centers it is cost cutting, rather than revenue generation, that is always high on the list of priorities. Luckily, CCaaS is the perfect solution for call centers who are looking for cost-effective solutions.

With a CCaaS solution, physical hardware and telephones are no longer necessary, as cloud-based software can connect through the internet, meaning there is no need to pay for server rooms and an IT infrastructure. Similarly, the CCaaS model reduces the need for IT maintenance support, as you can turn directly to the provider for help when there are issues.

High level of scalability

It’s inevitable that call centers face peak operation periods from time to time. For many call centers, handling these increased call volumes causes a lot of headaches.

Your call center is also likely to have to deal with an increased seasonal influx of customer calls throughout the year. What you will need in such situations is a CCaaS solution, which will allow your business to react successfully to such fluctuations.

One of the biggest advantages of the CCaaS model is that it allows businesses to easily scale up when there are peak periods. With a CCaaS solution, you will only need to pay for what you use, so you can forget about purchasing additional capacity and software licenses that you may never use.

Just make sure you have a pool of backup agents, provide them with access to your cloud-based call center software, and you’re good to go.

Improved customer experience

In our ever-connected world, great customer service is truly the fuel for business growth.

However, in many cases customers often still experience endless on-hold times and ineffective problem solving when contacting a company’s customer service. CCaaS solutions, in contrast, are designed to be customer-centric, offering a wide range of features that will help you improve your customer service.

Amongst other things, multichannel integration will allow your agents to easily switch between channels such as phone, email, chat, and social media, in order to best serve customers.

Furthermore, features such as powerful statistics and analytics allow businesses to gain valuable customer insights and use them to make customer interactions personal. With CCaaS, it is not only possible to record calls but also supervise agents and calls in real time, helping businesses improve the quality of their interactions.

Better agent experience

As it is your agents who represent your company, agent retention is an issue that needs to be at the heart of your business. Providing agents with a CCaaS solution will not only boost team morale but also increase your customer experience.

In contrast, outdated systems can seriously hurt your business. If your systems are not integrated, for example, your customers will be required to repeat the same information again and again. This, of course, will make your agents appear uninformed and unable to solve customer issues efficiently.

CCaaS solutions, however, are all-in-one software solutions, meaning they include every required feature on a single platform. This saves significant time for agents, as they don’t need to set up several systems and navigate around them, but instead access all the information required via the same platform. As a result, your team will be able to react to customer issues in a timely manner.

Reliability and availability

If communication is interrupted in a call center, the inevitable result is that the call center will start losing revenue and generating costs. Of course, an unexpected power outage can happen at any time, and there’s no doubt that they can cause major operational disruptions.

In such cases, your call center will need a reliable backup solution so that your agents can continue to handle customer calls.

Luckily, CCaaS solutions allow users to run their applications from virtual servers. Indeed, by transferring your workload to a backup call center solution you can minimize your call center’s operations downtime and the number of lost calls.

CCaaS solutions also offer the highest levels of availability and reliability, guaranteeing uptime as high as 99.99%. Therefore, in terms of business continuity and disaster recovery, a CCaaS solution is definitely the best option for your call center.

As you can see, CCaaS, or contact center as a service, has great benefits for call centers that strive to improve their CX! Make sure your call center too adapts CCaaS and reap the success of a modernized call center!