As customer expectations continue to rise, companies constantly seek to outdo each other with every competitive advantage available to them. With 94% of enterprises already relying upon cloud services to streamline their business, it’s become even more of a priority to transition contact centers entirely to the cloud.

There are many reasons why a business would choose to adopt Contact Center as a Service, or CCaaS solutions. The following is everything you should know about this increasingly valuable option.

What are CCaaS Solutions?

CCaaS solutions offer the same capabilities as contact centers from on-premises vendors. The core benefit CCaaS solutions offer is that all separate parts that are involved in a conventional contact center are provided via the cloud from a single vendor.

Services provided by CCaaS solutions include PBX systems, advanced interactive voice response, computer telephony integration, automatic call distribution, email, chat, text, social media channels, and quality management. Some even offer cyber security consulting services, which add immeasurable value.

All of these channels for business communication are maintained and upgraded by the vendor providing them, leaving your company to focus totally on your customers.

Enticing Benefits Offered by CCaaS Solutions

Companies that choose to rely on a CCaaS solution gain an attractive selection of benefits regarding the cost, convenience, efficiency, and ease of use of their systems. This ultimately leads to greater customer satisfaction.

Contact centers exist primarily to serve customers. However, traditional solutions seem to fall short of customer expectations all too often. Between confusing phone trees, ineffective agents, and endless hold times, these systems tend to lead to a bad experience for the customer. In turn, this can jeopardize the entire business.

On the other hand, CCaaS solutions are designed specifically to be customer-centric, which means they continually evolve to meet the needs of changing times. A fully functional CCaaS provides multichannel integration, which allows agents to field queries using customers’ preferred communication channels; powerful analytics systems, providing actionable insights for service reps; and quick, convenient desktop access to all the tools a service rep needs to resolve customer complaints.

CCaaS services also integrate email, mobile, social media, and real-time chat into one unified platform. This allows for the tracking of information along each specific channel. It’s also possible to track customer wait times and high call volume periods, which puts you in control for adjusting resources according to customer demand.

Besides providing a better experience for the customer, good CCaaS solutions provide an improved experience for customer service agents. Problems with conventional contact centers include separating important information into siloed systems, which can make it difficult to access when needed. Also, single-function servers and out-of-date PBX systems make it very difficult to sort through customer information, especially when multiple channels are used to communicate with customers.

The result of these systems is that agents seem uninformed and incompetent, which not only angers customers but frustrates the agents themselves.

With CCaaS solutions, on the other hand, businesses are able to deploy “connected agents” by acting as data hubs that synthesize and display all relevant information on a single screen. This frees service reps from trying to toggle between various data sources, delivers vast storehouses of in-house knowledge, and offers access to third-party services with additional important information.

Besides matching customers to specific agents based on their skill set, pop-up windows can give representatives relevant information regarding past purchases and billing history. They can also display behavioral, demographic, and location-based customer information. This doesn’t just increase customer satisfaction, it also provides improved up-sell and cross-sell opportunities.

If your goal is to provide exceptional customer experience, then a CCaaS solution’s ability to gather, analyze, and utilize customer insights will be highly valuable to your team. The most competitive CCaaS providers feature systems that can rapidly integrate and analyze interactions with customers from across multiple different channels. This allows them to deliver the kinds of actionable data that businesses need.

Significant Cost Savings With CCaaS Solutions

Switching over to a cloud-based, omni-channel CCaaS solution basically mirrors the considerable cost savings that the majority of as-a-service cloud migrations provide. There are no upfront investments necessary, the energy costs are minimal, billing is streamlined, downtime is minimized, and there’s a reduced need for IT staffing.

From enhanced customer satisfaction to decreased cost, these are just a few ways CCaaS solutions can revolutionize your business.