What is CCaaS?

Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) solutions are usually designed to work with a company’s existing technology stack, simplifying the process of creating a future-proof contact centre. It's hosted by the provider - not the end user. CCaaS software contains a wide range of features, including all those that are likely to serve modern contact centre operations, including call routing, recording, analytics, CRM integrations, and more.

Instead of building their own contact centre, businesses can choose CCaaS software, opting for ongoing OpEx subscription fees over substantial, one-off CapEx costs. This means you don’t have to commit to multiple subscriptions for inbound and outbound communication channels, or even hardware telephony solutions. CCaaS offerings are all-in-one cloud-based solutions, with all tools you need as a contact centre. These offer a number of advantages that are likely to suit many businesses.

CCaaS vs CPaaS vs UCaaS: What’s the difference?

CCaaS is just one of several different approaches that businesses are taking to their communication strategies. Two other popular solutions are Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS) and Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS). All three approaches are cloud-based, provider-hosted, and offer benefits in terms of affordability, scalability, and flexibility. There are, however, key differences between the three forms of software.

CCaaS is primarily concerned with external communications, facilitating interactions with consumers. This is in contrast with UCaaS solutions, which have a much greater focus on internal collaboration, and CPaaS, which is more developer-focused. UCaaS provides a centralised, omnichannel interface for both internal and external communication. CPaaS provides standards-based APIs so organisations can create their own bespoke communication channels by either building apps from scratch or adding communication features to existing software. CCaaS, on the other hand, is often still multi-channel but is always geared towards improving the customer experience.

The benefits of CCaaS

The reason for the growing popularity of CCaaS software - the global CCaaS market is predicted to reach $15.6 billion by 2027 - is the number of advantages it grants business, These include:

• Affordability: Managing your own contact centre - both in terms of hardware and software can be expensive. With CCaaS solutions, these costs are covered by a third-party cloud provider, with businesses paying a recurring subscription fee. As well as reducing costs, this can also simplify them.

• Scalability: When businesses expand, they must ensure that their communication solutions can manage their increased needs in terms of bandwidth, storage, and connectivity. This growth can create an administrative burden when handled in-house but a cloud CCaaS solution can scale up and down rapidly to meet company needs.

• More detailed customer insights: The built-in analytics tools accompanying CCaaS solutions can help businesses gain a greater understanding of their customers - when they were last contacted, what their preferred communication channel is, and track voice sentiment. More advanced solutions can even employ predictive analytics to forecast future customer behaviour.

• Higher quality service: Instead of simply posting a contact number online, a CCaaS solution offers customers a more responsive experience. Businesses can ensure that calls are returned wherever their employees are based, while integrated CRM tools support the creation of more positive customer relationships.

What's the best CCaaS solution?

There are a number of different CCaaS solutions on the market, each claiming different strengths that will take company communication to new heights. At CM.com, our Mobile Service Cloud solution is an all-in-one CCaaS offering that provides everything a modern customer service team could possibly need.

Mobile Service Cloud allows businesses to interact with their customers via any channel and social media platform from one inbox, or automate their conversations using a chatbot. Our recent addition of native telephony demonstrates our commitment to continually improving the omnichannel customer experience offered by Mobile Service Cloud. That’s part of the reason why it was named Best CCaaS Solution by Juniper Research.

We will continue to focus on adding new features and channels to Mobile Service Cloud, ensuring that it meets - and exceeds - the evolving communication needs of our clients.