The contact centre environment has changed, driven by an ever-more demanding marketplace of multi-generational customers.
In an age where people are always connected through their smartphones, social media, and countless other consumer communication solutions, your clients expect faster resolutions to their problems, delivered through a diverse selection of channels.
In the past, developing a connected multi-channel approach to customer contact that covered everything from workflow management to social media, SMS, video, and analytics would have required significant expertise and investment. However, as the cloud grows more compelling, and "as a service" business strategies emerge, savvy contact centres are discovering a better way.
Contact Centre as a Service, or "CCaaS" systems give businesses of any size the opportunity to access the latest solutions for customer service and satisfaction, without having to worry about significant IT investments. CCaaS delivers state-of-the-art omnichannel contact centres, pre-packed with all the scalability and flexibility you need to stay agile in the modern world.
With CCaaS, you can keep both initial investment costs, and long-term expenses low, by paying for only the technology you need, when you need it most. It's no wonder the popularity of CCaaS is growing. The question is, where is it heading next?
The Customer Trends That Shaped CCaaS in 2018
CCaaS is a compelling solution for many companies because it allows you to build your own custom contact centre experience, rather than choosing a pre-designed model. With CCaaS, you pay exclusively for the solutions that are most likely to accelerate and support your organisation. This means that businesses generally make decisions about their CCaaS stacks based on consumer trends and demands. We asked marketplace leaders, 8x8, Dialpad and West Corporation what their customers want most from CCaaS.
Bryan Martin, Chairman of the Board and CTO for 8x8:
According to 8x8, the migration of mid-market and enterprise customers away from on-premises legacy solutions and into pure cloud systems is accelerating. "2018 was a huge reminder for companies that it's important to be prepared for anything. Hurricane Florence showed us how valuable it could be to have a cloud-based contact centre strategy in place when disaster strikes."
Martin noted that 8x8 received a lot of gratitude and positive testimonials from their customers that had recently taken their solutions into the cloud before the storm.
Dan O'Connell, GM of VoiceAI for Dialpad:
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Dan O'Connell, Dialpad[/caption]
Dialpad believes that the age of the consumer is driving CCaaS evolution. "When the age of the customer first emerged, contact centres put a significant amount of effort into improving their omnichannel capabilities. Social and chatbot technology got the most attention, but in 2018 we're learning that voice remains to be the primary method of communication for customers and brands."
According to Dialpad, advancements in natural language processing and speech recognition have allowed speech to go through something of a renaissance. "These technologies are creating a whole subset of features for CCaaS, including real-time sentiment tracking, smart recommendations, and in-call guidance." This means that brands have renewed interest in improving their phone conversations and using voice as a data set.
Marcus Schmidt, VP, and Aaron Fisher, VP of Innovation at West Corporation:
According to Marcus Schmidt, VP of West, Cisco's acquisition of BroadSoft will affect the SMB parts of the CCaaS marketplace, while the rise of new solutions for collaboration like Microsoft Teams and Slack drive demand for new CCaaS applications.
Aaron Fisher feels that Artificial Intelligence is the biggest factor in CCaaS for consumers today. "The introduction of artificial intelligence has had an impact on the industry in 2018 and will continue to make a difference in years to come." West believes that smart devices like Google Home and Amazon Alexa are becoming more prominent in the marketplace, and these devices will have a bigger footprint in the year ahead.
The Technologies Creating the Biggest Opportunities for CCaaS
As customer demands continue to evolve, the technologies that brands use to serve consumer expectations transform too. Innovators like 8x8, Dialpad, and West need to remain agile and embrace the latest features in the marketplace if they want to stay ahead of the curve.
Bryan Martin, Chairman of the Board and CTO for 8x8:
8x8 and Bryan Martin believe that the key to the future of CCaaS is the creation of a completely unified contact centre experience. 8x8 recently created the X Series to provide businesses with a single platform for video, voice, contact centre technology, collaboration and team messaging across desktop and mobile devices.
Another driving technology in 8x8's eyes is artificial intelligence, and how machines can help organisations to access more data in their employee and customer interactions. "We're in the business of making our customer's data available to them. We're helping businesses to evolve, enhancing the customer experience and providing recommendations on anticipated needs, all through AI." 8x8 sees AI extending beyond the contact centre, into every avenue of customer engagement. "This is why a single platform of engagement is so crucial so that companies can have a complete data set from all of their AI and machine learning platforms."
Dan O'Connell, GM of VoiceAI for Dialpad:
Marcus Schmidt, West Corporation[/caption]
Bryan Martin, 8x8[/caption]