CPaaS: the key to digital transformation, agility and flexibility

The communication platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) has become a key asset in the digital transformation toolkit, especially in light of the Covid-19 crisis. The pandemic has forced organisations to adapt quickly; many shifted their businesses online and moved employees into home offices, which, from the outset, often lacked the right equipment and infrastructure needed for work to continue effectively. For some businesses, these transitions did not go as smoothly as hoped, creating confusion among customers who consequently began to demand more information and clarity from contact centre agents.

CPaaS has proven to be the ultimate problem solver for these challenges and is the key to maintaining business continuity in challenging times. CPaaS and application programming interfaces (APIs) help businesses meet this heightened customer demand by enabling them to integrate new features from other providers into their applications. This way, businesses can quickly make up for any support features they lack and continue providing a positive experience without customers feeling left in the dark. Equally importantly, it saves them time and money, enables them to pivot their business quickly, and helps them stay agile and adaptable in a world of fast-paced change.

In today’s market, it is clear that reacting quickly to any market changes is the key to survival. Another essential element for success is meeting the needs of ‘the everything customer’ – here are some ways CPaaS enables you to achieve both:

Using AI to improve customer interactions
In such a technology-rich, on-demand world, it is little surprise that customers today can sometimes be walking contradictions. They want the best of everything, but not all at once. In some cases, they wish to speak with a human agent – other times, they simply want to be left alone and use self-service. When they’re on the go, they may choose to communicate with a brand over WhatsApp, but when they’re relaxing at home, they might prefer to take their time and speak with an agent over a traditional phone call.

Essentially, their wants and needs are a moving target. In the past, businesses would have spent a significant time building a customised product or service to meet these needs – but in today’s fast-moving world, however, those features would have become outdated or no longer relevant to customer needs by the time the application is complete. If businesses cannot deliver the right experience customers want, when and where they want it, they will fall behind.

With CPaaS, businesses can integrate artificial intelligence (AI)-based virtual agents into their existing call infrastructure so that customers can not only serve themselves more efficiently but also have their query automatically recognised and intelligently routed to the most appropriate human agent based on the information given during self-service. AI also enables businesses to obtain and track rich customer analytics, allowing them to gain a better understanding of customers’ needs and ultimately improve their offering.

Ensuring a seamless customer experience across various digital touchpoints
CPaaS also enables businesses to communicate and engage with customers over a broad range of digital touchpoints. Naturally, no two customers will have the same communication platform preferences, however, CPaaS means no customer gets left behind. With CPaaS, it’s as simple as deploying an API for WhatsApp or Telegram on top of the existing framework, ultimately empowering customers to communicate with a business in the way they want to.

Additionally, CPaaS ensures minimal waste; APIs and different channels can simply be turned on or off depending on the levels of customer demand. That way, businesses only pay for what they need and can easily scale up or down as customer needs evolve.

Staying one step ahead of the customer
The best experiences are the ones that anticipate what customers need before they even ask for it. By integrating SMS and messaging APIs, businesses can be proactive, get ahead of any potential issues and mitigate any backlash. For instance, retailers can immediately notify customers of any supply chain issues that may impact delivery times, whilst offering alternative delivery methods.

CPaaS supports solutions that automate communications to specific individuals or groups, ensuring that customers are kept in the loop at every stage of their journey. Additionally, solutions can also come with response tracking, scalable messaging, and delivery analytics so that businesses can measure the success of their outreach. It enables all the critical messaging capabilities a business needs, allowing them to scale up quickly using their existing phone infrastructure.

With the CPaaS market predicted to grow to $17.2bn in 2023, there is no doubt that it will play a key role in serving today’s ever-evolving customer demands and expectations. The ability to seamlessly integrate applications will help businesses create strong customer experiences and drive increased loyalty.

Nick Dicksee is sales engineering manager at Avaya