It’s not only customer service reps that use contact center tools anymore. With a CCaaS platform that effectively integrates with MS Teams, various departments can benefit from the technology. Every Teams user becomes a potential agent.
Indeed, when businesses have a CCaaS solution that leverages a UC like Microsoft Teams, they not only enhance the main service desk, but spread its capabilities throughout the company.
Now, agents have real-time access to back-office experts, creating a dynamic connection between the customer experience and employee experience.
From IT helpdesks to sales teams, delivery drivers to store associates, the list goes on.
Yet, many businesses still resist equipping employees with these tools. Why? Because they envision two possible options. Both have significant shortcomings.
When There Were Only Two Options
Traditionally, businesses choose one of the following options when proliferating contact center tools across the enterprise:
- Buying more seats from their CCaaS provider
- Extending their UCaaS solution
The first option typically means working with a vendor such as Genesys, NICE, or Talkdesk. Yet, these vendors provide fully-fledged contact center platforms that often prove too capable.
“Businesses frequently find that they only use 20 percent of the capabilities within their specialist contact center solution,” adds Peter Broeckx, Regional Sales Director of Contact Centers at AudioCodes. “The bells and whistles don’t meet their everyday needs.”
As such, many organizations instead choose to extend their UCaaS platforms. Within enterprises, this is typically Microsoft Teams. Indeed, with 300MN active monthly users, Teams has become the de facto UC choice.
However, the native contact center capabilities within Teams are limited.
Sure, the platform offers a voice channel to connect with customers. There are also foundational call queues and auto-attendant features. Yet, that’s about it.
Making this point, Broeckx concludes:
“There is an enormous gap that exists between the capabilities in Teams and those within a fully-fledged CCaaS platform.”
Thankfully, AudioCodes is putting forward a new approach to give businesses a happy medium.
Layering Contact Center Tools Over the Top of Teams
The Voca Conversational Interaction Center is a solution developed by AudioCodes that allows businesses to add layers of contact center functionality on top of Teams.
It is not a Genesys, NICE, or Talkdesk – nor does it claim to be. Instead, it is a “contact center lite” that allows businesses to pick and choose from the most critical components of a CCaaS solution.