Contact center as a service, or CCaaS, is the latest entry in the “as a Service” offerings. In a nutshell, it’s the cloud version of contact centers. Emphasis on contact, as this particular setup is distinct from call centers. As with most new and improved technology, you can expect to see lots of buzzwordy terminology like omnichannel or multichannel, customer engagement, and real-time experiences. As always, we’re here to cut through the noise and lay everything out straight for you.
The Difference Between Call Centers and Contact Centers
When it comes to call centers, you’ll see content start with the term “traditionally” more often than not. That’s a language signal that best practices in CX and customer engagement have moved on, on par with technology’s evolution. Relying on a single communication method no longer works for customers. Enter: contact centers. One part rebrand, to dispel the stereotypical dread at having to resort to calling customer support. And one part necessary linguistic change, to capture CX communications’ evolution.
Call centers are exactly what the name suggests: a center for calls. And calls alone. But in today’s world, phone calls are no longer the end-all-be-all of communications. We talk, yes, but we also text, video chat, and use in-app messaging. Somehow, customer interactions have stayed in the 20th century for too long.
Contact centers are the shiny new version of call centers. Saying that the only difference between the two is that contact centers have additional channels for communications oversimplifies their function. It’s much more integrated with the company as a whole—more of a central hub for all customer contact. Contact center agents go beyond just answering a message regardless of the medium. They need to know best practices for each channel and tailor metrics to each in turn. It’s a blend of automation and human empathy to provide the best CX possible.
In sum, contact centers have essentially replaced call centers lately in the same way UCaaS replaced CPaaS. It’s not that the previous iteration went away entirely—it’s that everything “communications” entails evolved, and the platform options had to keep up.
CCaaS Meaning: Another -aaS on the Market
So now that we’ve cleared up the difference between call centers and contact centers, what exactly does Contact Center as a Service mean? It means that your contact center is in the cloud! Much like hosted VoIP and other -aaS options, it removes the upfront setup costs—both time and financial cost. You don’t have to worry about on-site personnel to manage all of the hardware as you scale or tweak your business continuity and disaster recovery planning. Plus with everything centralized in the cloud, you know your contact center is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do: manage and streamline customer interactions to improve customer experience.