Contact center as a service (CCaaS) refers to cloud-based contact center software that is hosted and managed by a third-party company or vendor. This means a company can purchase the technology and tools required for their contact center to run smoothly without hiring a complete contact center team or managing the pros and cons of contact center outsourcing through another organization.
CCaaS software contains a robust suite of the best enterprise contact center features and tools that the vendor keeps up to date alongside contact center trends and innovations, so you always have the best tools, security, and integrations to build your contact center and improve the customer experience while reducing operational costs.
What is the Difference Between Call Center and Contact Center?
The main differences between a contact center and a call center include the following:
- A contact center has multichannel systems for connecting with customers, and a call center has only an inbound or sometimes an outbound function. But it is a single-channel medium of communication.
- A contact center has more personalized data on every customer, while a call center can only gain customer data by monitoring calls.
- A contact center can be available 24/7, while a call center is like an urgent helpline for the customers but isn't always available 24/7
- A contact center uses the latest contact center AI integrations to manage customers while a call center uses methods like ACD or Automatic Call Distribution for agents to work efficiently.
- Contact centers integrate CRM software to maintain their data, but call centers don’t necessarily need one.
Tell us what you're looking for and we'll offer you personalized software recommendations.
What is CCaaS Software?
When discussing contact centers as a service, we must examine what CCaaS is and its primary functions. CCaaS stands for Contact Center as a Service and is a cloud-based contact center software that a business can buy and work with to get an affordable contact center as a service solution.
A contact center as a service is entirely hosted by the provider and not the person who has purchased it. However, like any other efficient working system, a contact center as a service system saves the business from the extensive budget of buying all the IT machines and hiring a team specializing only in contact center services.
A contact center as a service provides cost-effective solutions and modern and customizable features to use for your company’s requirements and offers multichannel support as well as a way of ensuring the customer analytics are in place.
What is the Difference Between UCaaS and CCaaS?
The main difference between a Contact Center as a Service and Unified communications as a service is that Unified Communications as a Service focuses on joining the team members of an organization together; however, the contact center as a service mainly works on connecting the customers to the company and its support channels.
Following are a few main features that can be seen in the contact center as a service that differ from unified communication as a service:
- The contact center as a service offers modern AI-based self-support modules and chatbots for customers to help themselves when it isn't possible to communicate with a contact center as a service employee. However, such systems are not so prominent in the UCaaS.
- The contact center as a service offers features like video conferencing, including excellent features like screen sharing, which aren't observed in UcaaS.
- The contact center as a service has omnichannel support, whereas UCaaS doesn't.
- The contact center as a service has an IVR-based menu that a regular UCaaS system doesn't offer.
What are the Different Types of Contact Centers?
When considering contact centers as a service, we have many different options to focus on. The contact center as a service mainly focuses on the following methods of providing contact center services.
- Inbound Call Centers
- Outbound Call Centers
- On-Premise Contact Centers
- Cloud Contact Centers
- Omnichannel or Multichannel Contact Centers
Inbound Call Centers
Inbound contact centers when we talk about contact centers as a service, these centers are located inside the building and only accept or receive customer calls and try to navigate them better with their issues. These centers can work with another contact center as a service software and redirect calls to them if an unsolvable or complicated problem appears.
Outbound Call Centers
The outbound contact center as a service works with the telemarketing and on-call deals with the customers and, in some cases, reminds them to renew their subscriptions with the companies they represent. Such systems are still helpful for a company but aren't used as before.
On-Premise Contact Centers
If a company wants a contact center on premises, they can have a complete hardware installation in their offices, set up a whole system, hire staff, and start everything in their main office.
Cloud-Based Contact Centers
Cloud contact centers, often called remote contact centers, can provide multi-channel support. They can also use contact center as a service software to work better for a company. A cloud contact center has all the data and analytics and can easily handle multi-channel communications.
The contact center as a service software can be used on an off-premise system that doesn't want to deal with all the hardware of contact centers and wants to operate independently.
Multichannel and Omnichannel Contact Centers
When we discuss terms like multichannel and omnichannel contact centers in terms of the contact center as a service, we ultimately understand that multichannel refers to multiple-channel communication done to communicate with customers about the product or market the product. However, the omnichannel also uses more than a single communication channel, but it falls solely with customer care and helps them resolve issues. Both these types of contact centers work with the customers to ensure that the business runs well.
How to Compare the Best CCaaS Systems
Following are a few main features that a contact center as a service should possess.
- A contact center as a service must have omnichannel interactions. Since it is essential to have omnichannel interactions with customers to ensure their problems are resolved.
- A good contact center as a service software should contain data analytics management programs and should be able to focus on each customer and their needs
- The contact center as a service should also integrate with different Customer Relation Management Software, and the customer stats should be uploaded there.
- Self-service features should always be there in a contact center as a service facility or software for the customers to help themselves instead of waiting in queues for a simple problem.
- A good contact center as a service software should have well-secured systems to ensure the safety of the customer’s and the company’s data.
The contact center as a service should have some essential systemic features that ensure the customer well being and satisfaction that should be considered as you compare contact centers.
