The rise of omnichannel communications and increasingly complex contact center operations has led to the surge in popularity of CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service). In fact, the global CCaaS market represents a major chunk total SaaS (software as a service) market as of 2022.

There are many CCaaS offerings a business can explore, from access to basic call management apps to more sophisticated multi-channel suites with reporting. But which of these solutions you should go for? There are several factors you’ll need to consider, which we’ll help you navigate in this guide.

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What are cloud contact centers?

What are CCaaS platforms?

Why is CCaaS important?

Features to look for in a CCaaS solution

How do I choose a CCaaS provider?

Top CCaaS providers you may want to check out for business

Traditional contact centers are departments that serve as hubs for a company’s communications with customers—and they primarily use phone systems for these. That’s why most people refer to them as call centers even if they also use other channels like email. These business divisions rely on on-premises technology and require agents and representatives to work in a designated office space.

Cloud contact centers, in contrast, rely on cloud-based technology and allow representatives and agents to work from anywhere if necessary. Communications in this case are coursed through the internet.

Most cloud contact center solutions are available as platform-based services owned and maintained by a provider. Client companies typically subscribe to them, paying a monthly or annual fee.

Contact centers vs. call centers

The terms “contact center” and “call center” are sometimes used interchangeably, but they actually refer to different things.

A call center is devoted to voice calls. It doesn’t cater to communications outside of phone calls.

A contact center addresses omnichannel communications. This means it doesn’t just use phones to talk to customers; it uses other modes of contact like email, SMS messages, web conferencing or video conferencing, and social media.

Here’s a quick illustration of how these differences matter—

The technologies that need to be incorporated into their IT infrastructures also tend to diverge; but in general, what we’ve shown above are the most basic distinctions.

Why use cloud-based technologies for contact and call centers?

Cloud contact center solutions offer several advantages to both contact and call centers. These include:

• Portability. Cloud-based technologies allow your staff to work wherever they want—in another building, another town, another country, or even another continent. All they need is a stable internet connection.
• Easy implementation and rollout. Setting up a contact center using the cloud and customizing features to suit operations (omnichannel or otherwise) often takes less than a day. Plus, these solutions tend to be user-friendly because they’re designed to accommodate different needs. This means less work for a contact center’s IT department.
• Cost-effectiveness. Cloud tech also doesn’t force you to invest in specialized hardware to make it work. Your pre-existing computers and headsets are enough; all you’ll need to do to access the system is to either download the service provider’s software or use a browser, then log on via the internet. The vendor will take care of setting up and maintaining the data centers supporting the technology.

There are, of course, other benefits to choosing cloud solutions to support your call center or contact center. But these are the ones most businesses can appreciate.

CCaaS platforms are a subcategory of software as a service (SaaS)* that focuses on delivering contact center capabilities to organizations via the internet. Top CCaaS platforms use subscription models that allow clients to pay for and access technology they consider critical for their operations via web browsers or desktop and mobile applications.

_{* Quick aside: Software as a service is basically a kind of digital platform that tech companies use to manage and sell cloud-based solutions. This is in contrast to more traditional models, in which actual copies of the software are sold to users who then need to install and manage it using their hardware.}

What is CCaaS?

As mentioned already, CCaaS stands for “contact center as a service”. It’s a cloud-based service that allows a regular or virtual contact center to remotely tap into capabilities that support an omnichannel customer experience.

How does CCaaS work?

Contact center as a service providers develop software-based technology that addresses different functions contact center agents need to perform, which they allow subscribed users to access through their existing devices (personal computers, laptops, etc.) via the internet. This is all made possible thanks to cloud computing, which gives the vendors the ability to maintain their platforms in a virtual environment.

To illustrate how this is used by contact centers, here are a couple of examples -

Scenario 1: Inbound contact centers

A customer support representative working from home turns on their laptop and accesses their agent console by turning on a web browser and navigating to a specific URL. From there, they log in with an assigned user name and password.

Once they’re logged in, they’re presented with a user interface that shows them their status (Available, On Break, etc.) as well as tasks assigned to them. Assignments could include responding to emails, answering inbound calls, or managing chat messages.

As they handle all these customer-engaging interactions, the system gathers data that helps managers monitor performance and augment customer information in real time even though they’re working from a coffee shop.

After the agent’s shift, they’ll sign out of their virtual workspace. The next day, they can log in again—this time, from their computer at their office desk.

Scenario 2: Outbound contact centers

A sales agent for an omnichannel contact center operating from a hotel room logs on to their virtual workspace by navigating to the correct URL with their internet browser and entering their user name and password. From there, they can switch their status from “On Break” to “Available” and check on the campaigns they’ve been assigned to.

If the agent is working on a phone call-based operation, the system will initiate an outbound dialing process that will contact relevant prospects and connect the resulting live conversations to employees. However, if the sales rep is part of an omnichannel customer engagement campaign, they’ll start working on the relevant section of their workspace—emails, for example. From there, they can follow scripts and deploy messages to relevant contacts.

As the representatives perform these activities, the system takes note of the interactions and keeps a record of the prospect’s responses to the outreach. With these, it can generate data that will inform agents and managers on how to approach customers and/or leads for other campaigns.

At the end of their shift, the sales agent will log out of their virtual desktop and log back in again the next day—this time, using the internet connection at their home.

What is the difference between UCaaS and CCaaS?

Both UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) and CCaaS are SaaS models, but they have some key differences.

UCaaS is all about managing standard communication channels (essentially, the ones most businesses use for internal communications as well as for communicating with vendors) through one interface. Most unified communications solutions cover the following:

1. Business phone functions (which now frequently includes business SMS)
2. Instant messaging (also known as team messaging or team chat)
3. Meetings (including audio-only conferencing and video conferencing)

In the UCaaS setup, the technology people are using for their phone, messaging, and meeting services are owned and delivered by a provider.

CCaaS focuses more on communications solutions that specifically support activities meant to enhance customer interactions from the perspective of both the callers and the agents. As such, much of the technology on offer here puts emphasis on CX (customer experience). CCaaS in general helps sustain more than one communication channel for interacting with customers, though they also provide a lot of value for call centers, which tend to rely on phone calls. Some functionalities associated with contact center as a service include:

1. Live chat or chatbot capabilities
2. Video conferencing and screen sharing
3. Social media outreach and support
4. Email outreach and support

As is the case with UCaaS providers, it’s the CCaaS companies that maintain the technology and deploy them to users.

What is the difference between CPaaS and CCaaS?

While CCaaS is all about effectively serving the customer, CPaaS (Communication Platform as a Service) is more about adding communications capabilities to business applications that otherwise don’t have them by means of APIs (application programming interfaces. Examples of this include:

1. APIs that let employees have video meetings with the employee benefits team directly from their company’s bespoke HR portal
2. APIs that let customers contact delivery hubs directly from their online shopping apps

Unlike UCaaS and CCaaS, CPaaS isn’t really SaaS. Instead, it’s a PaaS (Platform as a Service)—a cloud-based environment where users can develop and test apps. Providers that offer this type of solution allow customers to pick, mix, and match the capabilities they want to add to their software rather than presenting them with an entire suite of ready-to-use capabilities. This requires more IT knowledge, specifically coding skills, from the people paying for this service, meaning implementation and management take a bit more work.

Summary of UCaaS vs. CPaaS vs. CCaaS

Want unified communications, integrations, and contact center solutions for your company? Check out 8x8.

8x8 XCaaS (Experience Communications as a Service). delivers UCaaS, CPaaS, and CCaaS to its customers. It’s designed to serve all users—the customer experience and customer success reps who have complex workflows, as well as the marketing and product development teams who need unified business communications and augmented apps to collaborate effectively.

Enterprise telephony and omnichannel contact center technology, embeddable communications, team chat, live chat and chatbots, and video meeting functionality, come together as one solution providing communications-based support for your business needs.

CCaaS is important for many businesses because it gives contact centers far more flexibility than they’ve ever had before. Traditionally, these departments or organizations needed to rely on specialized on-premises technology that also tended to come from multiple providers. Contact center as a service solutions offer them practically all the tools they need to get their work done no matter where they are—from a single source.

Benefits of using CCaaS solutions from providers

Below are some advantages of working with a CCaaS provider.

• The provider maintains, manages, and upgrades the phone system and other technologies you use for operations, so you can focus your attention on serving and acquiring customers.
• CCaaS solutions can be scaled easily according to the needs of your campaigns, providing businesses the ability to quickly recalibrate processes and resources as circumstances evolve.
• Collaboration across the company—sometimes not just between agents, but between agents and other employees—becomes more effortless with CCaaS. This means representatives always have access to resources that help them handle more unusual cases..
• The contact center as a service provider ensures the solutions adhere to compliance requirements. This is especially important for outbound operations bound by the TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act) in the US or TPS (Telephone Preference Service) in the UK..
• CCaaS providers stay abreast of the evolving needs of the industry, as well as its trends, so they can develop and deploy upgrades—sometimes even before the users realize they need it. This ultimately helps contact centers stay future-proof
• Best of all, CCaaS pricing is incredibly reasonable given the functionality you get out of a service that requires little overhead.

If you’re shopping around for a CCaaS solution, you want to make sure the provider you choose can offer you the following features (and can ensure they’re user-friendly).

Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

Interactive Voice Response is a call answering solution that gathers information about callers (for validation purposes and more) via a menu. Once this system collects the responses (which could be given via verbal response or key presses on a dial pad), it’ll push the call into a queue for call routing.

Automatic Call Distributor (ACD)

Once the IVR sends the call into queues, automatic routing takes effect and uses the caller’s information to ensure they’re connected to the center agent who can best help them.

Auto dialer capabilities (Outbound communications)

This is the most important feature to get if you’re running an outbound call center. Automatic dialers make it so that agents won’t have to worry about accidentally dialing the wrong numbers, or waste time waiting for contacts to answer the call. The system just does it for them, so they can just focus on making a genuine human connection with a prospect.

Coaching features

Coaching features may vary from solution to solution, but they ultimately serve the same purpose—to train agents and representatives. Most CCaaS providers offer these in the form of call monitoring capabilities. This allows contact center managers to listen in on a team member’s live calls and, if necessary, provide guidance the customer can hear (call whisper) or join the call themselves (call barge). Other features under this category include call recording and speech analytics, which can be used for performance reviews or sample training resources.

Real-time analytics and reporting

This is particularly important for contact centers that strive to constantly and consistently optimize their operational performance. This feature not only gathers customer interaction data, it also helps managers organize and visualize the call analytics information to provide actionable insights—in real-time, if necessary. This needs to be flexible enough to adapt to the metrics the organization deems most important.

Ability to integrate with tools like Salesforce and Microsoft Teams

While CCaaS could cover a good chunk of a contact center’s operations, it doesn’t cover everything. It’s primarily focused on communications and performance and typically doesn’t include the ability to manage contact details. That’s why they need to be integrated with CRM solutions like Salesforce and Zendesk, which specializes in that area You may also want to use other communication tools like Microsoft Teams for interacting with customers—in which case, you’ll want that integrated with a cloud contact center solution to augment its existing features.

You can’t just choose any old provider when finding communications solutions for your contact center. That’s why it’s important to ask the right questions. These can include:

• Does the company have a good reputation? Can it be trusted?
• Do their offer solutions to the challenges my organization faces?
• How easy will it be to roll out this technology to all the users in my team?
• Does the provider offer the training and onboarding? Are the associated materials easy to understand for a global or international workforce?
• What types of support resources can I expect from this vendor? Do they have forums, live chat, or virtual libraries?

You can come up with your own, more specific questions; the key is to be aware of what you want CCaaS to do for you.

We understand that it can be intimidating to look through all the CCaaS providers today, so we’ve compiled a short list of vendors you might want to check out.

Each of them has been recognized within the communications industry and is well worth exploring. Some of them have even been featured in the Gartner Magic Quadrant.

8x8

First up, we have 8x8. Yes, we know—this is our company. But it also happens to have won some awards for our cloud-based contact center solution.

8x8 users benefit from 24/7/365 customer support from 35 locations around the world and CRM integrations with popular customer management software. As a cost-efficient and established phone solution provider, it’s no surprise why more than two million business users put their trust in it.

8x8 contact center software offers a 99.999% uptime SLA, scalability, intelligent IVR, workforce management tools, speech analytics, customer experience analytics, and effective CRM integration. Just recently, it launched Agent Workspace—a new, simpler interface that eliminates clutter and personalizes task management to boost productivity for your representatives.

Check it out below:

Talkdesk

Describing itself as customer-obsessed, Talkdesk strives to improve the customer journey. Its contact center software is coded specifically to work on the cloud and gains points for making third-party integration easy by way of APIs.

NICE inContact

NICE inContact offers, self-service, and automation as key selling propositions. It’s a top-of-mind solution for most contact centers because of its ease of use, although some may consider it lacking in terms of user support.

Genesys Cloud

Genesys Cloud CX features voice and digital communications capabilities, workforce management tools, artificial intelligence, and analytics. It’s best known for being extremely customizable, although it’s been noted that users encounter a steep learning curve with this product.

RingCentral

RingCentral focuses on being an agile collaborative solution that ensures agents can offer the best service possible across channels by ensuring information (on products, customers, etc.) are always up-to-date. It’s a good solution for teams that want flexibility, although there are occasional issues with setup and bugs not being promptly addressed.

Cisco BroadSoft (a.k.a. Cisco Contact Center Solution)

Cisco’s acquisition of BroadSoft in 2018 and Webex in 2007 helped create what is now known as the Cisco Contact Center Solution (specifically, the cloud-based Webex Contact Center). While this is not as widely known as the brand’s other products, it’s still a good option for organizations that want to transition from on-premises to hosted solutions.

Avaya OneCloud

Avaya gives customers the choice to have a voice-only solution, a digital-only solution, or a hybrid of these two options, which makes this an appealing choice for a lot of operations. It’s got a reputation for going above and beyond in accommodating customizations as required. Its only downside is the occasionally slow team response time.

The right cloud solutions will always be the ones that cater to all your business needs. There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to finding the best CCaaS vendor for you. So if you want the technology that makes a real difference for your contact center, it’s not a bad idea to give them a try.

Why not start with 8x8?