The early 2000s opened up a new era for businesses all over the world. It was the time when the concept of Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) was introduced. Post that, it enabled businesses of all types and sizes to create virtual contact centers instead of investing in on-premise equipment, hardware, and software.
That meant small and mid-sized businesses could set up contact centers as per their needs and operational requirements without having to spend a lot of money on purchasing hardware, paying upfront fees, and hiring a dedicated IT team.
That not only leveled the playing field for small and medium businesses but also benefited them immensely in many ways. In this blog post, we have listed nine key benefits of CCaaS software. Read on and thank us later.
1. Cost Efficiency
CCaaS solutions are cost-effective in more than one way. Let’s discuss those one by one. First, they run on VoIP technology, which reduces communication costs substantially. As per various studies, VoIP-based communication systems reduce the cost of local calls by 50 percent and long-distance calls by 90 percent. The subscription-based and pay-as-you-go model of CCaaS solutions means that small and mid-sized organizations pay only for the services they use. Secondly, organizations that use CCaaS systems don’t have to invest in bulky and expensive hardware and equipment and pay for the installation and maintenance costs. Thirdly, organizations leveraging CCaaS don’t have to hire and maintain an IT team. By doing so, they save on huge costs.
Also, CCaaS is not just cost-efficient but also efficient. As per research, cloud-based contact centers experience nearly 35 percent less downtime than their on-premise counterparts. That makes them highly efficient. And last but not least, reliable and reputable CCaaS solutions are all about quality. As noted engineer and statistician Genichi Taguchi famously said, “Cost is more important than quality but quality is the best way to reduce cost.”
2. Data Security
Data security matters a lot in the present era. As per the latest stats, every day there are 2,200 cyber attacks. That means, on average, in every 39 seconds one attack takes place. According to another study, in 2023, the global average cost of a data breach was $4.45 million. What’s astounding is that it’s a 15 percent increase over three years and the highest average on record! As the number of cyber-attacks and data breaches continues to grow at a more alarming rate, that’s precisely where CCaaS solutions can come in handy to arrest the growth and safeguard important data.
CCaaS solutions have strong security measures in place such as robust encryption, security audits, access controls, and more. The solutions also comply with data protection laws and regulations. And more and more people are becoming particular about data security when choosing CCaaS solutions. In fact, as per a study, data security and network reliability were the top criteria for successful deployments of CCaaS solutions.
3. Omnichannel Communication
Would you be surprised to know that nine out of every ten people expect multichannel communication from contemporary businesses? As per research conducted by CX Today, more than 90 percent of customers want an omnichannel experience with seamless service. It’s hardly surprising when almost everyone has a smartphone and uninterrupted internet access. A majority of people prefer making video calls, chatting on websites, engaging on social media, sending emails, text, and instant messages to making phone calls. Businesses must keep up with the new trend.
That’s where CCaaS communication systems can enable businesses to provide omnichannel options to their customers. CCaaS systems support multiple communication channels. Be it phone calls, video conferencing, web chat, emails, or social media, customers can connect with businesses using their desired communication channels. When customers get the choice to choose their desired channels to communicate with businesses, they are more likely to continue with the company and less likely to switch over to a competitor.
4. Wide Array of Sophisticated Features
Traditional communication systems don’t have advanced features to begin with. And if any organization wants to integrate useful features in their legacy systems, they won’t be able to do that easily. Even if they somehow manage to do that, they will have to shell out exorbitant fees for the desired features. That’s because they’ll need to pay for separate features. But with CCaaS systems, they will get a wide range of built-in sophisticated features that’ll enable them to upgrade without paying any extra costs.
The features available in CCaaS software include Automatic Call Distribution, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), Call Recording and Monitoring, Skills-Based Routing, Workforce Management, Outbound Dialing, Speech Analytics, Virtual Queues, AI-driven analytics, chatbots, and more. Apart from these cutting-edge features CCaaS providers regularly update their software to keep the features up-to-date.
5. CRM integration
Businesses that don’t use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are poorly equipped to know why a customer is calling them in the first place, what the issues they faced before, what are the issues they are facing now, and what the agent can do to resolve their queries and issues. But CCaaS systems enable seamless integration of CRM systems and many other business applications.
When the CRM systems of an organization are integrated with its CCaaS communication, the business not only gets all relevant information about the customer but has quick access to order and communication history. So, instead of asking for the customer’s name and transaction history, the business shows a proactive approach and resolves the customer’s problem.
6. Excellent Scalability
For contemporary businesses, the flexibility to scale (up or down) their operations is extremely critical. That’s because many businesses experience a huge boost in their business activity during peak seasons and a slump during off-seasons. During the former, organizations must increase their contact center capacity and employ more agents to handle the heavy call volumes. In the latter, businesses need to downsize their contact center operations.
The major benefit of CCaaS systems is their flexibility and scalability. By using CCaaS solutions, businesses can add as many users and extensions as they need with just some clicks of a few buttons. Apart from adjusting their communication systems as per the scale of operations, they also can provide exceptional customer service.
7. Remote Accessibility
About four years back, the concept of remote work was extremely rare. Very few companies allowed remote working facilities and it was an exception rather than a norm. But the COVID-19 changed all that. Remote working became the new normal overnight and companies that were strictly against allowing work from home had no option but to adopt it to keep their operations up and running. Along with it came another challenge. That’s to ensure all employees can collaborate and remain on the same page.
Organizations that used traditional communication systems were poorly equipped to handle the transition from office-based work to remote working. However, the businesses that leveraged the power of CCaaS systems not only enabled their employees to collaborate and work from anywhere in the world but could also tap into a wide talent pool spread over the globe. By doing so, they enhanced their customer service operations by leaps and bounds.
8. Automatic Updates and Maintenance
On-premise contact center infrastructure needs considerable maintenance and upgrades. That’s extremely inconvenient when one is in the middle of work and the system asks for updates and maintenance time and again. But that’s not the case with CCaaS systems. Organizations that use CCaaS software don’t have to worry about updates and maintenance as it’s done by the CCaaS software providers.
The ease of use and automated updates are the major benefits of CCaaS solutions. As per a study, the top benefits organizations look for from CCaaS solutions are improved functionality and more streamlined daily management.
9. Disaster Recovery and Redundancy
Losing all critical information to natural disasters and other unforeseen events is a big risk that all business faces in today’s time. Be it a devastating earthquake, hurricane, cyclone, fire hazard, or any other human-created disaster such as a terror attack, if a business doesn’t focus on backing up its data, it can lose access to all critical information in such an untoward incident.
That’s why businesses need to have built-in disaster recovery and redundancy mechanisms. CCaaS systems come with sophisticated disaster recovery mechanisms that allow businesses to retrieve their files and switch to backup servers in case of hardware failure.
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All in All,
CCaaS software is an important invention for small and medium businesses all over the world. The numerous benefits of CCaaS software range from cost efficiency, enhanced security, excellent scalability, high flexibility, advanced features, and more. All these put together make it extremely feasible and worth the money invested in it. That’s why it’s extremely crucial to handpick the right CCaaS software that can best fit unique business requirements.