Customer service and improving the customer experience is no exception to the transformations happening in all businesses since the pandemic. Businesses learned they needed to be more nimble, customers needed to connect on new channels like messengers, and cloud contact center software which is by it’s nature nimble became more central to companies to improve customer connections.
This year, a shift toward full-stack CCaaS solutions is making waves in customer service and CX. Cloud call and contact centers are the most cost-effective, more efficient, and offers a vast array of powerful features that are perfect for today’s world of fast-paced change.
But many businesses don’t understand CCaaS solutions’ benefits. Companies yet to adopt CCaaS are often working with outdated call center technology that is costly to maintain and missing many of the newer digital channels customer expect when they interact with companies. CCaaS insures that as new channels emerge they are instantly available to business providing a future-proof solution to change.
So in this article, we’ll explore the latest CCaaS trends and how they’re advancing customer service and the state of the customer experience in 2022.
What Is Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS)?
The CCaaS model allows companies to purchase customer service software or contact center software on an as-needed basis. CCaaS firms run their software in the cloud, but premise-based options exist which require hardware and software to maintain and must be upgraded when new functionality is needed.
Flexibility is a key benefit of CCaaS solutions. CCaaS clients pay only for what they need, meaning a low-entry and reduced costs. And if they outgrow their current plan, CaaS users can add more features quickly and without hassle. New channels can also instantly be added – like messengers or webchat – without the time and expense of an upgrade.
For example, Bright Pattern delivers a CCaaS solution offering an immense feature set at a fraction of competitors’ costs.
What Are the Benefits of CCaaS?
Flexibility is just the beginning of what CCaaS can do for your customer service and customer experience. CCaaS offers numerous perks, including:
1. Better Customer Service/Better Customer Experience
Thanks to its whole-system approach, CCaaS enables companies to provide faster, higher-quality service to their customers. For example, customers can interact with companies on the channel of their choice – from voice channels to SMS to webchat, messengers, bots, email and more. And because all interactions are captured in the CCaaS platform the customer’s complete journey history is at the agent’s fingertips making it easier to offer better customer service.
2. Enhanced Agent Productivity
Streamlined CCaaS solutions enable agents to respond to clients quickly and efficiently with all interactions on a customer at the agent’s finger tips in a single desktop application. CCaaS platforms give agents the full context of every customer interaction to better help customers from every angle in a “single pane of glass” with one desktop application vs a separate desktop application for each and every channel.
3. Lower Costs
It’s significantly less expensive to use CCaaS than to set up and maintain a contact center manually. All the costs involved in a traditional on-premise solution—hardware, software, and ongoing maintenance —are eliminated by outsourcing your contact center. In addition, cloud contact centers offer self-service options such as traditional or AI-powered conversational IVRs which also lower costs.
4. Customer Self-Service
With CCaaS, customers don’t have to contact live agents for routine service issues. AI-powered chatbots or Conversational IVRs can provide answers tailored to your client’s responses. And if the chatbot can’t solve the problem, it can move clients to agents with the full context of the interaction.
5. Customer Analytics
CCaaS analytical tools make it easier to understand customers’ behavior, allowing firms to optimize customer care from every angle by understanding each aspect. Better customer care leads to lower churn, higher average spend, and greater success for your business.
What Are 2022’s Latest CCaaS Trends?
CCaaS’ future is rapidly evolving. As CCaaS companies compete for the best features and customer experience, their customers benefit from the inevitable improvements.
In that vein, here are 2022’s top CCaaS trends:
1. Agents Working From Home
Customer service was no exception to the work-from-home (WFH) revolution brought about by the 2020 Pandemic. But instead of making things harder, WFH increased employee happiness without compromising service quality. This improved agent morale brought about greater employee retention and productivity—boosting CCaaS firms’ bottom line.
The WFH transition also forced CCaaS firms to reimagine employee training and monitoring. CCaaS companies were worried WFH would erode their culture, but it didn’t.
But since over 70% of service employees prefer WFH, this CCaaS “trend” isn’t going anywhere, and CCaaS will need to adapt.
2. Omnichannel Approach
Consumers today expect companies to be able to communicate with them on their preferred channel and digital channel adoption vaulted forward in the last 2 years due to the pandemic per studies by McKinsey and others. Surprisingly, most companies are still not offering a true omnichannel approach – though they are striving to get there. CCaas is the fastest way for companies to get to a true omnichannel customer experience for their customers. Modern contact centers can’t afford the inefficiencies of a traditional channel-by-channel approach. When client information isn’t transferred across lines, angry customers have to re-explain their situation to each new agent. When a customer’s already upset about an issue, further frustration can lead to churn. Omnichannel experiences, on the other hand, reduce friction and make for an effortless experience that improves CSAT and NPS.
The solution to information inefficiency is the omnichannel approach. Omnichannel contact centers let you offer seamless customer service through any channel, integrating voice, email, texting, SMS, web chat, video chat, messenger apps, and more.
3. Accelerated Move to Digital Channels
Customers increasingly used digital channels to interact with companies during the pandemic – often because agents weren’t available to help. Studies indicate that digital adoption vaulted forward 5 years in only 8 weeks due to the pandemic. One of the fastest growing new digital channels are messengers like Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp and others. As part of this change customers are increasingly on mobile devices so the shift to digital channels has also occurred with a shift to more mobile interactions as well.
4. Greater Customer Personalization
Customers expect personalization as service develops into a holistic concept. CRM integration makes CCaaS solutions exceptional at delivering tailored customer experiences. Because CRM provides detailed information about each customer, both human and automated assistants can provide service based on clients’ unique needs.
CCaaS trends show clients will expect more personalization as time passes. Choose a proven CCaaS solution like Bright Pattern if you don’t want to be stuck with poor personalization.
5. Cloud Adoption
Cloud-based software enables contact centers to operate anywhere at any time, causing CCaaS to become cloud-based. And the cloud isn’t just versatile—it makes the contact center more holistic by integrating everything.
A cloud-based contact center requires no on-premise configuration. No setup means huge savings on installation and maintenance. Even better, CCaaS puts security entirely in the provider’s hands.
The above benefits—and more—make total cloud adoption an inevitable CCaaS trend.
6. Faster and More Nimble Deployment
Time until deployment plays a massive role in choosing a CCaaS solution. While a company is setting up a firm’s new contact center, they’re stuck with the old one. Those delays mean angry customers and lost revenue. Fast deployments were also key when agents suddenly needed to be remote during the pandemic – in some cases within days or weeks.
In response, CCaaS companies have made faster and flexible deployment time a top priority. This year, Bright Pattern leads the market with a 1.4-month time-to-live estimate.
Move Your Contact Center to the Cloud Today
The latest CCaaS trends prove CCaaS’ future as the premier customer service solution.
CCaaS solutions are transforming into cloud-based, omnichannel solutions providing seamless customer service for big and small companies. Every year, CCaaS solutions become more efficient and cost-effective.
CCaaS solutions improve agent productivity, reduce resolution times, and boost customer satisfaction. Your company wants to offer the best customer service possible, so request a Bright Pattern demo today.
