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What is the difference between UCaaS and CCaaS?

UCaaS vs. CCaaS or Both: Choosing what's best for your enterprise

What is the difference between UCaaS and CCaaS

UCaaS vs CCaaS: Differences, Similarities & When to Use

The war between on-premise and cloud-based services was already won and cloud won the battle. Today, it’s not an issue of deciding between on-premises or. cloud, but instead which cloud communication platform is best for your company.
This is true for collaboration and communication solutions too. With the increase of “as a Service” technologies in the marketplace that rely on cloud technology, a variety of options are now available to address your communications issues in business. This leads to a dilemma businesses face in the present. What is the difference between UCaaS and CCaaS? Which one is better? Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) or. Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS)?

Table of Contents

Difference between UCaaS and CCaaS

What is the difference between UCaaS and CCaaS?

What is the difference between UCaaS and CCaaS? The main difference between the two UCaaS in comparison to CCaaS can be seen in the fact that UCaaS concentrates upon keeping the team engaged within a company (internal communication) and CCaaS was designed to keep customers in touch with sales and support representatives (external contact.)

What is UCaaS?

UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) is cloud-hosted software that integrates and seamlessly syncs a variety of business communication channels onto one platform (a “unified” interface.) It is also referred to as “Unified Cloud Communications,” UCaaS applications enhance communication between outbound and inbound channels without the need to constantly switch between different platforms.
Most common UCaaS attributes include:
  • Team chats
  • Video conferencing
  • VoIP audio calls
  • Screen sharing, whiteboards, and other in-meeting collaboration features
  • Mobile applications
  • Third-party integrations and APIs with CRM tools and project management software

The Benefits of UCaaS

Below, we’ll discuss the major advantages of UCaaS.
  • No Hardware Costs: In contrast to the on-premise PBX systems or even physical conference rooms You won’t require expensive equipment that takes time to install and also add significant maintenance fees on top of operating expenses. All you require is an Internet connection, smartphone, as well as (optionally) VoIP-enabled desk phone.

  • Better Employee Experience: If your employees work from an office or at the convenience of their home, having a reliable UCaaS platform makes it much simpler for them to communicate with colleagues.

  • Cost-Effectiveness: In the majority of instances it is cheaper to purchase a subscription to an UCaaS platform than to purchase individual subscriptions to each feature or tool your business might require. There are a variety of options available, including Zoom, Jira, and Mixpanel; however, although you’ll probably get higher-end features, the yearly subscription will be higher than the majority of UCaaS platforms currently available on the market.

  • Improved Team Collaboration: In both remote workspaces as well as physical offices, there’ll be instances when employees operate on their own, instead of sharing their work with colleagues. This lack of collaboration could result in delays in turnaround times as well as a greater frequency of miscommunications. However, the implementation of UCaaS software can help employees know what their coworkers are working on, and opens the way to greater collaboration by incorporating features such as sharing editing or subtask creation.

  • Workforce Optimization: Whether you’re an administrator, or an incoming employee, the use of a reliable UCaaS platform will assist you in keeping the track of deadlines, assign the tasks to team members and gain a better understanding of deadlines and workflow responsibilities.It can also help companies distribute the load across several team members, ensuring that nobody is left having a huge amount of work to complete.

  • Mobility: As the majority of UCaaS solutions are mobile-friendly, with mobile apps, it will make it much more convenient for your employees to work efficiently traveling wherever they’re located around the world! It’s important to know that some mobile apps are more effective than others in relation to UCaaS solutions.

What is CCaaS?

CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service) is similar to UCaaS in that it is cloud-hosted subscription-based platforms that are designed to improve communications. The major difference between the two however, lies in the features offered and purpose of use.
The majority of UCaaS solutions are used for internal communication, that’s why they focus on video conference calls, project management and collaboration functions. In contrast, CCaaS is meant to be utilized in contact centers, therefore the features and functions are focused on external communication as well as tools that can enhance customer service.
Customers expect better levels of customer service with each new year. In fact 64% of consumers who are younger than 40 believe that customer service seems to be a hassle with many of the companies they purchase from.
Due to the sheer volume of transactions conducted exclusively on the Internet (whether via corporate sites or through social networks) it is crucial that businesses provide something more than just virtual telephony voice call support.
Common CCaaS features include:
  • Multichannel and Omnichannel capabilities in messaging
  • Real-time and historical analytics as well as the contact center KPI reports
  • Queuing, routing and call queueing
  • SMS text message
  • Voicemail and video voicemail
  • AI-powered assist workflows
  • Social media messages
  • International numbers
  • Custom-designed greeting cards
  • Live chat
  • Menus for IVR
  • Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVAs)
  • Automation
  • Integrations with Help Desk and CRM

The Benefits of CCaaS

Let’s take a look at some of the best benefits of CCaaS.
  • Cost Savings: CCaaS platforms can save the contact center in a variety of ways. In the first place they can reduce the amount of time lost because agents switch between tabs or using different applications throughout the workday.The cloud-based nature is a key feature of CCaaS solution also implies that that contact center personnel can access their mobile devices instead of relying on costly hardware in the office in order to complete their tasks. In addition, CCaaS software tends to lower the rate of turnover among employees and lowers the cost of hiring.

  • Better Customer Experience: If you provide customers with different communication channels and implement self-service options and self-service options, you’ll enable them to make it much simpler for them to resolve problems on their own or to connect with an agent who can solve the problem for them.In short? You’ll have the ability to provide the best customer experience. Hot-desking features that can be ported to mobile apps can also cut down on the resolution time by a significant amount as agents are in a position to handle support tickets even if they’re away from office office. Finally, CCaaS advanced routing protocols will ensure that customers get the correct person immediately.

  • Scalability and Reliability: The past was when businesses had to be concerned about the reliability and quality of their customer support as they increased the size of their customer support. It could occur due to the physical PBX systems being overwhelmed, agents being working with the same issue or simply an absence of coherence. But, businesses with CCaaS infrastructure don’t have to face these issues because smart dashboards allocate agents and tickets automatically, do not require additional hardware for scaling, and provide insightful analytics that help you spot issues early.

  • Stronger Security: CCaaS platforms typically place greater focus on security because they handle external communications and will be in contact with confidential customer information. Two-factor authentication and encryption from end-to-end are essential when choosing for any CCaaS software.Of Of course, the top UCaaS providers such as RingCentral are renowned for their record of success. However there are some UCaaS software providers in the security department with crucial features like 2FA not standardizing across the entire sector yet.

  • Efficient Communication: The process of communicating with customers is much more efficient across all channels with a CCaaS platform. One of the reasons it’s more effective is the capacity to keep and sync customer messages and other data across all of your channels.This multichannel communication syncing makes sure that your customers won’t need to repeat themselves, even in the event that they’re talking to a different agent using a different channel. The CRM integrations that are available for CCaaS solutions also unify the customer information for your business.

  • Analytics and Insights: Instead of relying on loosely connected third-party software to collect data on your customers, using one CCaaS platform that monitors every aspect of agent performance to metrics for call centers will simplify the gathering of data to help you target your customer.

    A few call center metrics you could track with CCaaS software include:

    • First call resolution (FCR) 
    • Cost per call (CPC)
    • Average speed of answer (ASA)
    • Customer satisfaction (CSAT)
    • Net promoter score (NPS)
    • Customer effort score (CES)
    • Average handle time (AHT)

  • Increased Revenue: The ROI on satisfaction and efficiency of CCaaS is already worth the investment for its own sake, however there are financial benefits to think about. Being able to effectively communicate and automate repetitive tasks and provide more opportunities to sales teams by using chatbots or live chat will surely assist in scaling revenue.Lastly the process of upselling or cross-selling customers to be more effective when your company has an online presence on several platforms. It is possible that they won’t convert the first time you tweet an announcement, but looking at the announcement again on Facebook might change their minds.
UCaaS Vs CCaaS

What are the Differences Between UCaaS and CCaaS?

  • Video Conferencing: Although certain CCaaS platforms provide web-based conferencing, generally the feature is not as well-known as UCaaS solutions. This is due to the fact that video conferences are typically utilized for internal communications and not to resolve support ticket issues.

    Some video conferencing features you should be looking for are:

    • Screen sharing
    • Whiteboarding
    • Text chat
    • Hand raising
    • Virtual backgrounds
    • Breakout sessions

  • Self-Service Support: One area in which CCaaS platforms excel is customer-self service support.You’d not find any kind of knowledge base on UCaaS platforms. However, CCaaS solutions go an extra mile by using chatbots and AI which can provide users with resources before they are added to in the customer assistance queue.Having an IVR (Interactive Voice Response) and the ability to route calls, chatbots that incorporate natural language processing, as well as in-house knowledge bases. These are only one of the ways a CCaaS platform can help customers to address their own problems. According to one study, 73 percent of customers would prefer self-service.

  • Call Routing: Although UCaaS platforms offer auto-attendants and simple routing features, they are unable to be as advanced in call routing capabilities you’d get from an specialized CCaaS platform.Certain CCaaS solutions even come with visual call flow editors which make it simpler to determine your plan for routing your calls.

What are the Similarities Between UCaaS and CCaaS?

Let’s take a look at some of the features UCaaS along with CCaaS have in the same.
App Name
  • Channel Aggregation: Yes, UCaaS focuses on internal communication and CCaaS focuses on external communication.
    However, both platforms seek to unify multiple communication channels so admins, customers, and team members can access everything within a single dashboard.
  • Third-Party Integrations: UCaaS and CCaaS platforms often feature large third-party integration galleries, allowing you to use your existing business software in your SaaS solution interface.

    However, there’s less similarity when it comes to which tools are available as integrations. UCaaS platforms often emphasize task management and time tracking, while CCaaS leans towards CRM tool integrations.
  • Per-Seat Subscriptions:The pricing structure tends to be rather similar for most UCaaS and CCaaS platforms. Per-seat subscription pricing is by far the most common but there are also solutions of both kinds that charge a fixed monthly rate with unlimited seats available.

    CCaaS seats tend to cost $50 to $300 per month while UCaaS subscriptions tend to go for $360 to $480 per year. This means that, on average, UCaaS software tends to be cheaper than CCaaS software.

An Overview of UCaaS vs CCaaS

UCaaS CCaaS
Best For
Businesses that highly depend on voice and video communications for both internal and external communication and team collaboration
Businesses with a high volume of inbound and outbound external communication on various channels, that prioritize and optimize customer experiences
Available Communication Channels
  • Team chat
  • Video conferencing
  • VoIP audio calls
  • Email integrations
  • Live chat
  • Social media
  • VoIP audio calls
  • CRM integrations
Essential Features
  • File sharing
  • Cloud storage
  • Task management
  • HD audio and video
  • Ticketing system
  • Advanced routing
  • Call center metrics
  • AI-powered support
  • Customer self-service
Average Monthly Cost
  • $20 to $40 per month for each seat
  • $70 to $200 per month for each seat
Top Benefits
  • Team collaboration
  • Productive workflows
  • Internal communication
  • Customer satisfaction
  • Omnichannel support
  • More efficient call flows

UCaaS and CCaaS: Better When Bundled Together

Office workers, contact center staff, remote sales representatives and other departments of a business that rely on effective collaboration and communication to accomplish their tasks might not always communicate with one another, however, the tools they employ certainly should.When they mix UCaaS and CCaaS together, companies benefit from both tools with a single cloud-hosted service provider. This means less expensive hardware installation (or maybe none at all) and an individual contact point for billing, as well as a single source of contact should any questions arise.
UCaaS and CCaaS: Better When Bundled Together
Let’s examine five advantages businesses can reap when they combine UCaaS with CCaaS
  1. Stronger Office and Contact Center Collaboration: In certain situations contact centers may work in direct collaboration with departments within the company like outbound marketing calls that send warm leads internally to sales. Some contact centers might be generally self-sufficient, but may occasionally require insights or information from employees of other departments.

    Imagine a client calls a contact center to ask an issue with the product, which the representative cannot respond to. Agents can look up the company directory within UCaaS and check the status of employees to determine who is available within the department of manufacturing. They can then begin a chat with an internal expert, and receive instant responses. If the answers are unclear and require conversation, the customer will connect the customer directly with the expert’s number.

  2. Better Customer Experience: The majority of people who talk to businesses don’t know (or aren’t aware) whether they’re speaking to someone at an office in the corporate building or a call center. They are still looking for speedy service and a seamless experience. They don’t want to verify their identity repeatedly or be told to dial an alternative number. This is the situation when office workers and call center employees aren’t able to communicate in real-time, or forward calls to each other.

    Take a look at a client that needs technical support. They called the salesperson who offered them the item. Instead of providing the customer with the tech support number the salesperson could connect straight to the customer service, set up the conversation, make sure that someone is available to assist, and then bring the customer onto the call.

    Integration of UCaaS and CCaaS is especially useful in functions or industries where the callers need to be authenticated, and their interactions recorded and logged to ensure compliance. When both systems are integrated, the callers need to authenticate at once, even if they are routed from one place to another.

  3. Optimized CRM Integration: The top unified communication platforms are built to be integrated to CRM (customer relationship management) applications, providing features such as click-to-dial or automatic call log. While logged in to UCaaS users can view screens that display a message identifying callers in the coming days and displaying customer information that are gathered from CRM systems. Additionally, they will be prompted to take notes about every interaction with a customer, which will be recorded into CRM data.

    In integrating CCaaS and UCaaS Contact center agents receive the same capabilities. In turn, the CRM system is always up-to-date and teams across different regions and functions can exchange data on customer interactions; there is no switching or multiple logins are required.

  4. Integrated Data: Business leaders have heard for a long time about the need to reduce silos and consolidate their data. The consolidation of communications is an excellent starting point.

    In the short-term integrated communications data implies that teams from different divisions and functional areas are sharing the same team. In the long run, this means having the ability to use sophisticated data analysis tools and the internet of things (IoT) automation as well as artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms.

  5. Reduced Cost of Communications: In their own way, UCaaS and CCaaS reduce communication costs because they offer all-in-one shops. Instead of joining together telephone service, conferencing options and video apps Businesses can get all of these services through one platform or even two platforms, because many companies are inclined to consider UCaaS and CCaaS distinct solutions and purchase these services as such.

    Through bundling UCaaS and CCaaS companies can access the benefits of both platforms through one cloud-hosted service provider. This means no expensive hardware to install or maintain, only one bill to be paid and a single platform to use for IT to control.

Frequently Asked Questions

UCaaS brings together communication channels onto one platform to improve internal communications. VoIP is a method of communication that allows calls using broadband internet connections instead of traditional landlines that are powered by PSTN

VoIP calls are one of the elements frequently integrated to UCaaS solutions, alongside instant messaging, video conference and project management.

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