CCaaS Trends 2021: The Evolution of Call Centers in the Cloud

In the age of smartphones, where support is just a click away, consumers have high expectations when it comes to customer service. In fact, it is so important to today’s users that it has overtaken price and product as a key brand differentiator.

While the proliferation of wearable devices has a lot to do with customer expectations, it is also natural. In the past, call centers could stay ahead as long as they made sure they used the right tools and solutions to serve customers. Now, the world is heading toward a pandemic-accelerated cloud-hosted future and has witnessed a new phenomenon called Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS).

According to a survey, CCaaS will become the favored adoption model for 50% of call centers by 2022. In addition, the sector is projected to exceed a gross market of $ 50 billion by 2025. CCaaS will focus on managing interactions with clients intelligently by connecting to cloud-based applications.

CCaaS Solutions Will Comprise the Following Features

• Universal call queue and call routing.
• Intelligent virtual assistants to attend customer inquiries.
• Secure storage and access to customer data.
• Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Automatic Call Distribution (ACD).

Furthermore, the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) and their subsequent penetration into business processes are considered to have a major impact on CCaaS.

CCaaS Trends 2021: The Evolution of Call Centers in the Cloud

1) Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI has made it possible for human capabilities to be implemented through software inexpensively and on a large scale. Its impact has been so massive that 55% of organizations have started investing in it, according to Gartner research.

What’s more, the pandemic has not been shown to stop or even delay the development of AI, and 30% of companies plan to invest more in it. Additionally, AI-powered call center technologies such as natural language processing (NLP), chatbots, and machine learning (ML) will peak productivity within 2-5 years, resulting in will make the following use cases more functional:

• Intelligent call routing: Artificial Intelligence will be able to determine the services that best suit the client’s profile according to their communication history and, consequently, route their call to an agent.

• Multi-channel support: AI-powered support systems will become complex enough to direct customers to other channels when their problems cannot be solved with traditional approaches.

2) Advanced Self-service Tools

According to studies, consumers are increasingly self-sufficient and prefer to use self-service channels such as live chat (42%) and chatbots (86%) rather than contact customer service.

These developments are in line with Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Customer Service and Support Technologies, which identifies five solutions that will leverage the customer experience in the future: Customer Service Analytics, Engagement Centers, Voice of the Customer (VoC), virtual agents (live chat) and chatbots.

Of these technologies, chatbots are already being used to service routine inquiries, automate tasks, and route complex support tasks to human agents via live chat.

Live chat is one of the main online methods of contact for customers, with 46% of them preferring it to social media and email.

What’s more, these tools have also been shown to improve the efficiency of the support team. Therefore, it is no wonder that CX leaders continue to increase their investments.

3) Migration to the Cloud

Today, organizations are implementing call centers in the cloud that allow remote agents to engage consumers in the same way as they did in physical centers. Migration to the cloud will allow these companies to access the software necessary to provide customer service over the Internet as a service. This will allow support personnel to access the contact center system from any location and at any time to connect with customers.

In fact, 57% of companies have already migrated or are planning to migrate their customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities to the cloud.

What Are the Benefits of Migrating to the Cloud for Call Centers?

• Functionality: Emerging cloud solutions come with APIs that allow data to be synchronized with commercial systems such as CRM or ERP, among others, while facilitating outbound campaigns, managing users, obtaining detailed statistics, and more.

• Reduced costs: Maintaining and running legacy infrastructure on premises is very expensive. Cloud Computing, in turn, presents a simpler solution in which there is a pay-per-use option.

• Flexibility: Cloud Computing allows you to work remotely by moving your entire workload from your local location to the cloud.

• Data security: Storing important data in the cloud is extremely secure and eliminates the dangers generally associated with the location of data on premises, such as data theft, data center damage, and more.

4) Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

The Interactive Voice Response (IVR) feature in call centers is sure to see an increase in adoption due to its ability to allow callers to choose the type of service they want. Additionally, using voice-enabled support enhances the human experience by providing a personal touch.

IVRs can be combined with the Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) feature to provide customer information to the support agent, thus enhancing the customer experience.

What’s more, as AI and machine learning capabilities develop further, call processing solutions like IVR will be able to leverage their capabilities to make decisions and actions based on customer insights gained from previous calls.

5) Omnichannel Communication

90% of companies have jumped on the omnichannel train with the intention of providing a unified experience across all channels through change management activities, advanced trip mapping and the application of analytics.

Omnichannel also enables organizations to better understand their customers. According to Invesp, omnichannel customer engagement strategies also allow companies to retain 89% of users, making it clear why omnichannel solutions will increase next year.

In conclusion, CCaaS is where the future of call centers lies, and it is a plausible solution that all contact center organizations should embrace sooner rather than later. As companies slowly migrate to the cloud, they will find it easier to implement CCaaS solutions and capitalize on them to improve business continuity and customer experience.