Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS)
Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) is a customer experience solution that provides the capabilities required to route inbound customer interactions to call center agents. Cloud-based CCaas solutions let businesses only buy necessary tech and reduce reliance on in-house IT.
Because CCaaS platforms are highly customizable, businesses can modify the solution to meet their evolving needs and requirements over time.
Key features of CCaaS solutions
CCaaS providers offer a range of features designed to enhance the customer experience, streamline operations, and increase efficiency. From omnichannel communication to advanced analytics, here are some of the key features you should be aware of when exploring CCaaS solutions:
- Automatic contact distributor (ACD) – Automatic call distribution, or ACD, is a skills-based routing engine that manages a universal queue for messaging, social, voice, self-service artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot interactions, provides a consolidated omnichannel agent desktop with customer context and a drag-and-drop application for designing contact flows. Contact center agents are assigned skills based on their training and expertise. The ACD then routes interactions to them to ensure optimal customer experiences.
- Interactive voice response (IVR) – Interactive voice response is an interactive menu that lets callers choose the type of help they want, such as by saying options out loud or pressing a number. Callers frequently will opt for self-service for basic issues such as paying a bill or account queries, and the IVR system facilitates that option. When the IVR system is integrated with the ACD, companies gain additional functionality and efficiencies as they share data between them, such as data collected in the IVR system being shared with the ACD.
- Outbound software/predictive dialer – Contact centers can handle inbound customer interactions (inbound call center) and provide agents the outbound software, called a predictive dialer, needed to conduct proactive outreach to customers (outbound call center). Modern predictive dialers can help sales and contact center agents achieve a higher connect rate and eliminate the awkward pause common among outbound contact center software solutions.
What does it mean to have cloud contact center software?
Contact Center as a Service (CcaaS) means that the software itself operates in the cloud without on-premise hardware to manage. True CCaaS solutions are cloud-native – meaning they were developed to be run in the cloud, take advantage of modern microservice technologies, have elastic scalability, are architected to empower users to adapt to rapidly changing market conditions and more.
The advantages of CCaaS solutions
Businesses that transition from on-premise systems to CCaaS solutions experience numerous advantages, including the following:
- More agility. CCaaS platforms have characteristics such as easy integrations and nearly unlimited scalability that enable businesses to react quickly and effectively to disruptions and changing business conditions.
- Access to innovative features. The best CCaaS vendors constantly add new and innovative capabilities to their software, which means their clients have immediate access to cutting edge technology.
- Improved customer experience. Improved agility and use of advanced technology directly impact the customer experience. With CCaaS solutions, meeting customer expectations such as seamless omnichannel customer service and exceptional self-service experiences can be a reality.
- Budget friendlier. Because the CCaaS vendor hosts the software, much of the user's IT overhead - hardware, software, and database management - is reduced or completely eliminated. Additionally, CCaaS pricing is typically based on what is actually used, which is more cost-effective for businesses whose volume tends to widely fluctuate than purchasing inflexible software licenses.
How NICE can help
CCaaS, which is an abbreviation for Contact Center as a Service, is customer service software that is hosted in the cloud by a solution provider. The CCaaS vendor hosts the software on their own hardware and their clients access it through a browser, an arrangement which greatly simplifies technology management for end-users.
Good CCaaS solutions contain the functionality modern contact centers need to run efficient operations and provide superior customer service, including:
But CXone goes well beyond these core capabilities to include:
- Workforce optimization – manages your workforce with workforce management, quality management, customer satisfaction surveys and performance management.
- Automation & Artificial Intelligence (AI) – leading-edge, intuitive technology that eliminates mundane tasks and speeds resolutions of customer issues for better business outcomes. It provides self-service, agent-assisted and fully automated alerts and actions.
- Analytics – turns insights into results by making data relevant, easy to consume and actionable to drive measurable improvements and understand the omnichannel experience customers receive. These solutions include interaction analytics, reporting and performance management.
- Open Cloud Foundation – enables rapid innovation with an extensible enterprise-grade platform that scales securely, deploys quickly and serves customers of all sizes globally. We guarantee an industry-best 99.99% availability and offer easy customization through RESTful APIs and DEVone developer program.