CCaaS or Contact Centre as a Service platforms offer companies the freedom and flexibility they need to create dynamic CX centres that can be accessed from anywhere. In an age of hybrid and remote work, these tools have become increasingly popular. In fact, according to Accenture, they are accelerating toward an expected value of around $11.76 billion by 2028.

As interest in these cloud solutions grows, so does their range of features and functionality. In this post, we look at some of the major trends that are likely to influence CCaaS solutions in the coming years.

What CCaaS Trends Await Us?

1) Aligned CCaaS and UCaaS Tools

As companies move more of their communication to the cloud, it becomes more and more common to combine the back-end environment with the customer support team. Aligning UCaaS and CCaaS solutions on a single platform makes it easier for companies to maintain comprehensive visibility across all of their technology.

It also ensures that employees responsible for managing customer experiences can collaborate with subject matter experts and team members from across the company. With an all-in-one environment for communication, organisations can reduce the number of disparate invoices they need to manage each month and ensure their employees stay in sync and aligned.

Many evolving CCaaS providers are even starting to consider the concept of “XaaS” or “Everything as a Service”. These platforms allow companies to integrate not only their Unified Communication (UC) tools, but also other SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions with their call centre environments.

2) Advanced Features for Employee Experience (EX)

Engaged and empowered employees are crucial for any company that wants to create effective customer experiences. When workers have the right tools and support to work seamlessly in any environment, they are more productive, efficient, and able to satisfy customers. This has led many CCaaS providers to incorporate employee engagement tools into the Contact Centre as a Service space.

Increasingly, we’re seeing a growing number of tools built specifically to support all kinds of in-office, remote, and hybrid workers. Workforce engagement and management tools help schedule and organise employees, while gammification features keep staff motivated.

New call centre features are even emerging to provide business leaders with a way to track employee experiences. Reporting and analytics tools can track everything from technology adoption to changing levels of efficiency in an employee’s workflow.

3) More Channel Options

Both the UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) and CCaaS industries have begun to see an increasing focus on using multiple new channels and tools to communicate with customers. Over the years, consumers have begun to move away from relying solely on phone and audio conversations for the service and are starting to look at channels like messaging, social media, and even video.

In the years to come, CCaaS platforms will continue to introduce a variety of new platforms for business leaders to explore. Some already include tools and APIs that allow companies to integrate contact centre functionality into their own mobile apps or link to tools like WhatsApp. Many also include multiple options for aligning voice, video, and text communications in a single environment so agents can more easily manage their workflow.

4) Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) For Proactive Service

Most companies know that if they want to deliver valuable and personalised experiences to their target audience, they need to collect and leverage the right information. As a result, we are seeing a multitude of new analytics capabilities emerge in call centres. 

By using a combination of intelligent monitoring tools, machine learning (ML), and historical information, organisations will be able to stay one step ahead of potential issues facing their target audience. This could make it possible to remove them before they appear.

5) Improved Self-service

Artificial Intelligence is starting to play a bigger role in helping customers navigate their buying journey. While self-service solutions have been available within contact centres for some time, older solutions have largely focused on question-and-answer bots, designed to respond to specific words with predetermined phrases.

With 81% of customers indicating they prefer to troubleshoot on their own rather than contact an agent, self-service tools need to get more advanced. CCaaS providers are beginning to implement conversational analysis and natural language processing tools in their self-service portals to improve the customer experience. Intelligent bots and virtual agents can now complete tasks for customers and solve a wider range of queries with intuitive strategies.

These enhanced self-service solutions can also help optimise the employee experience by giving staff members’ access to intelligent tools that help them find crucial information automatically. The right tools can even provide next-best-action suggestions to employees when they’re struggling to deal with a complex query.

6) Increased Security and Control Functions

Finally, as regulatory guidelines and compliance concepts continue to evolve around the world, CCaaS providers are beginning to focus more on security and control. Many of the best tools now offer companies more choice in how they structure their contact centre environment.

Many CCaaS solutions are built in for encryption, multi-factor authentication, and access control, so businesses can maintain full visibility over the flow of data. It is even possible to create IVR tools and bots capable of complying with GDPR guidelines.

New advanced tools can help protect consumers and mitigate fraud by using biometric scanning to determine if a customer is who they say they are. AI bots can also automatically scan for policy risks and inform employees and business leaders when there is a security issue on their network.

Exploring the Evolving CCaaS Landscape

As the demand for flexible and agile call centre environments in the cloud grows, providers in this space are constantly looking for new ways to improve the quality of their solutions. Today’s CCaaS tools offer access to everything from AI automation and sentiment analysis to intelligent self-service.

La entrada What CCaaS Trends Will We See In The Coming Years? se publicó primero en Enreach ES.

Its rise is expected to continue as new capabilities and deployment patterns constantly emerge that will provide organizations of all sizes and industries with more ways to consume and benefit from their cloud investments.

Thus, it is estimated that global spending on cloud services will reach 482.155 billion dollars in 2022, compared to 313.853 billion dollars in 2020 according to Gartner. While it is impossible to predict the future with certainty, it can be helpful for companies to consider some of the trends that could cause changes in the industry.

What Will Be the Most Prominent Trends in Cloud Computing in 2023?

1) Alternative cloud providers that support multi-cloud and hybrid solutions

In a hands-on approach to cloud computing, IT and business leaders will select cloud solutions designed to support their organizations’ specific goals. As a result, many companies have found themselves in a multi-cloud environment, using different products from different vendors. A hybrid cloud approach, where some applications are hosted on-premises and others are hosted in the cloud, which can help reduce complexity.

Developers and companies are increasingly looking for employment alternatives. As the cloud market continues to boom, more organizations are looking to cloud providers that can meet their specific needs, rather than complex and expensive offerings. This trend will continue to gain strength as multi-clouds become the dominant cloud strategy for enterprises.

2) Artificial Intelligence (AI) Powered by Cloud-Based Machine Learning (ML)

As businesses continue to embrace digital transformation, IT operations teams must be equipped with the right mix of people, processes, and technology to optimally support business objectives.

This methodology not only reduces operating costs through automation, but also helps increase operational efficiency by providing real-time information on ongoing operations. AI/ML models (when trained and deployed in a cloud environment) can access vast amounts of data.

3) Cloud Computing, Blockchain and Security

As more companies move their workloads to the cloud, IT leaders will need to protect their organizations from cyber attacks. By the end of this year, IT environments are likely to shift from reactive to proactive cybersecurity strategies, with the goal of anticipating and mitigating problems as close to real time as possible.

Blockchain has the ability to seamlessly integrate into Cloud Computing systems, improving data protection and ensuring uninterrupted services. It has a significant impact on storage, transactions, and business processes by making them safer, faster, and more reliable to work with. Therefore, combining blockchain and the cloud for more security and decentralization results in better authorization, privacy, and efficiency.

4) Advancement in Serverless Computing and Sustainability

The cloud and related technologies can help energy conservation efforts in an always-on infrastructure model while managing costs efficiently. The serverless cloud is an exciting new option for enterprise application development.

Unlike server-based cloud platforms, which require users to pay for rented server time or fixed amounts of data storage, the serverless cloud allows businesses to pay only for the resources they use, and scale invisibly as needed. A serverless approach, on the other hand, allows for faster deployment and scalability of services.

The shift to cloud computing is expected to accelerate as more organizations recognize the benefits and efficiencies of running applications and services in the cloud. In fact, many companies have expressed their willingness to increase their use of SaaS (Software as a Service) applications by 50% or more. In the coming years, more organizations are likely to move their digital offerings to the cloud and make them available to a broader audience. This is likely due to increased demand for easier and faster access to content, as well as a desire for more administrative control over data storage and privacy.

La entrada Cloud Computing Trends: What Awaits Us in 2023 se publicó primero en Enreach ES.