How CCaaS is Changing in 2023
The Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) sector is changing as it experiences continued double-digit growth for the past decade. Still, until recently, it has mostly been small and medium-sized businesses that have bought into it.
Large enterprise contact centers have mostly stuck with on-premises or private cloud solutions.
However, that is starting to change as the transition to cloud-delivered services is well underway for all sizes of contact centers. CCaaS providers regularly announce new features, portfolio expansions, and acquisitions to make the service more appealing to enterprise-level companies.
Let’s briefly examine how the CCaaS market has performed recently and the trends that drive it.
A Brief Look at Recent Events in The CCaaS Market
One of the main reasons for the gradual shift towards CCaaS for larger contact centers is that initially, the value proposition simply didn’t resonate with them.
The benefits of outsourcing and operating expense (OpEx) models, which are inherent in cloud-delivered services, are less likely to appeal to larger implementations with highly customized and integrated systems.
Additionally, scalability, one of the key advantages of CCaaS, is less of a concern for larger contact centers with multiple capacity change options, including time-zone shifting and outsourcing relationships.
However, the pandemic accelerated the shift towards CCaaS for larger contact centers as the traditional on-premises, or private cloud solutions were found to need to be in sync when support staff, agents, and customers were all working remotely.
According to Synergy Research, in Q4 of 2021, infrastructure services passed the $50 billion mark and were up 36% from the prior year. Cloud spending went up, and hardware sales went down. Cloud stocks such as the First Trust Cloud Computing ETF (SKYY) outperformed the market in 2021.
Beyond the pandemic, CCaaS crosses the chasm into enterprise sales because that’s where development and improvement occur.
What Trends Are Driving the CCaaS Market?
According to Metrigy Research’s “Customer Experience Transformation 2020-21” survey, businesses only invest 3% of their sales in CX solutions.
Depending on the technology, more than 70% of the 700 firms surveyed in the research want to raise CX investment through 2025, while fewer than 10% intend to cut back. The most common CX technology is contact center platforms, and businesses that presently use contact center as a service (CCaaS) want to expand their investments until 2025.
What, therefore, makes CCaaS so attractive to investors? Let’s talk about the trends.
Changing Workplaces
Remote work has been on the rise for a while, but the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the shift as many companies had to move their contact center agents to work from home quickly. Cloud-based CCaaS providers were able to offer rapid deployments and free services to support this shift, making it a more appealing option for companies.
CCaaS also made it easier for organizations to add more applications from app stores. Many organizations reported that their remote work experience during the pandemic improved their perceptions of working remotely.
Integration of UCaaS and CCaaS
Many organizations want to integrate their UCaaS and CCaaS platforms to provide better customer support. They do this by bringing in experts to help resolve issues.
Many providers now offer integrated services on different platforms or on a common native platform. This means contact centers are no longer operating as an island but are now a part of the organization.
Artificial Intelligence
CCaaS providers focus heavily on integrating AI into their platforms to offer innovative solutions for customers.
Start-up vendors focusing on AI for the customer experience can drive innovation and acquisitions. Thus, many CCaaS providers have acquired other companies to enable AI innovation.
Self-service
As agent turnover rates continue to rise, self-service is becoming increasingly important for contact centers. CCaaS providers are now offering virtual assistants to guide customers to resolution. As self-service becomes more sophisticated, the number of interactions resolved through self-service will continue to rise.
Foundation For Apps
CCaaS providers now offer advanced apps for customers and employees to improve the customer experience. These apps include virtual assistants, sentiment analysis, and voice customer analytics. Furthermore, CCaaS becomes the foundation.
CcaaS Has a Future Among Large Enterprises and Businesses
In conclusion, the shift towards CCaaS for larger contact centers has been gradual but it is changing. After all, the pandemic accelerated the transition, and the development and improvement of the service made it more appealing.
The benefits of CCaaS, such as outsourcing, scalability, and an operating expense (OpEx) model, are increasingly resonating with large contact centers.
Providers are also steadily announcing new features, portfolio expansions, and acquisitions. This enhances the overall experience and makes it more appealing for enterprise-level companies to make the switch.
