Alok Kulkarni is Co-Founder and CEO of Cyara, a customer experience (CX) leader trusted by leading brands around the world.
The need to meet customer expectations for seamless and personalized experiences is at an all-time high. In fact, 73% of customers expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations. They not only expect to interact with companies through a variety of channels, including video, phone, chat and more; they also expect to move seamlessly between these channels without having to repeat themselves or start the inquiry process over.
Traditional on-premises solutions make it difficult for businesses to provide these types of holistic customer experiences (CX) because they don’t connect unified communications solutions to contact center platforms. This creates a gap between customer-facing teams and internal experts. Because they operate in silos, these two essential parts of most businesses effectively function as separate organizations.
As a result, it becomes challenging to deliver unified communications across the entire business and a consistent CX across all touchpoints. Some companies are, therefore, looking to cloud-based solutions that merge contact center as a service (CCaaS) and unified communications as a service (UCaaS) platforms.
UCaaS And CCaaS 101
Before we dive into the merging of CCaaS and UCaaS, let’s define each technology:
• CCaaS provides companies with the tools to handle customer inquiries and issues while providing a better experience. It is a cloud-based software solution that allows companies to manage customer interactions across multiple channels, such as phone, email and chat.
• UCaaS allows employees to communicate with each other across various devices and locations in order to improve productivity and collaboration. It is a cloud-based platform that combines multiple communication channels, such as voice, video and messaging into one platform.
Why Companies Are Merging CCaaS And UCaaS
By merging CCaaS and UCaaS, businesses are looking for ways to provide richer and more personalized CX. This integration allows businesses to provide a seamless and consistent experience across multiple channels, making it more convenient for customers to interact with the organization and resolve their issues quickly.
In retail, for example, in-store experts can leverage UCaaS and link it with CCaaS via their cell phones to join customer conversations to provide personalized advice—allowing customers to take advantage of their expertise and availability in real time.
Combining CCaaS and UCaaS also lets businesses access customer information in real time so that representatives can provide individualized support quickly and efficiently. For instance, if a customer calls into a retail store and provides their name, the representative can immediately access their account information and purchase history. By having access to the customer’s account, the representative can retrieve information such as their preferred products, previous orders and any special notes associated with the customer’s profile. This provides the representative with more context and enables them to more effectively assist the customer.
Integrated platforms also provide analytics and reporting, giving businesses insights into customer interactions and agent performance. These insights help companies identify areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions to enhance the customer experience and optimize their resources.
Challenges With This Approach
While uniting CCaaS and UCaaS provides meaningful benefits to businesses and customers alike, it can also present new challenges in the customer journey. One of the most common issues businesses face is ensuring that the two systems are properly integrated.
If the integration is not seamless, it can easily lead to communication breakdowns between the systems. Customers may experience dropped calls, long wait times or difficulty switching between communication channels. This can lead to a poor experience and customer frustration, ultimately resulting in negative reviews and customer churn.
Looking specifically at chatbots, a recent Forrester report found that 30% of customers are likely to switch brands or abandon their purchase altogether after just one negative chatbot experience.
Finally, another byproduct of improper integration is data silos, where customer information is not shared seamlessly between systems. This can result in representatives having incomplete or outdated customer information, leading to a disjointed customer experience.
Don’t Wait For Failure
A successful integration of CCaaS and UCaaS requires a holistic approach with meticulous planning and execution. A detailed roadmap should be created, considering factors like data migration, system compatibility and resources allocation. Clear communication and collaboration between technology and contact center leaders throughout this process is key to mitigating potential issues and ensuring a smooth transition.
Before implementation, businesses should first assess their internal processes to identify potential bottlenecks or compatibility issues between the two systems. By understanding their current capabilities, businesses can make informed decisions on how to optimize and align their processes for a seamless transition.
Businesses must also have measures in place to make sure their integrated platform is functioning properly at all times. This is where automated, continuous testing comes in, which offers technology and contact center leaders a comprehensive view across every stage of the customer journey to ensure that, if issues occur, they resolve them before their customers experience them. It also allows companies to identify potential issues with individual components of the communication platform, such as call quality or chat functionality, before they impact the customer.
Mastering The Platform Of All Trades
Customers today have incredibly high expectations when it comes to their experiences with companies. Integrating UCaaS and CCaaS can help supply organizations with the tools to meet these expectations and deliver richer experiences.
That said, companies should be aware of how to integrate these technologies properly. Roadmapping, collaboration and continuous testing are paramount to delivering on CX, achieving continued customer loyalty and gaining a competitive edge.
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