Over the last five years, two of the hottest and most hyped technologies in the enterprise communications space have been Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) and Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS). And deservedly so – CCaaS played a big part in helping our economy push forward during the COVID lockdowns, and CPaaS continues to play an increasingly important role in our daily lives as a tool to drive communications the way we want them.
COVID presented a double whammy to customer service organizations, sending call center agents to work from home while simultaneously increasing demand for customer service due to questions about COVID, transportation disruptions, supply chain issues, and more. The ability for contact centers both large and small to support at-home agents was critical in keeping our lives and economy relatively stable during incredibly turbulent times. Organizations that hadn’t moved to the cloud were able to make the transition in a matter of days, something that the industry should forever be proud of.
Often the real magic happens when CCaaS and CPaaS are combined, providing the right tools for organizations to manage their contact centers, in addition to automating communications in ways that end-user customers want.
But some might argue they are overhyped. As an analyst, I can appreciate that argument even as I might be guilty of said hype. I think one of the fundamental problems is that a lot of content focuses on what these technologies can do, their potential, and how organizations could use them, as opposed to how these technologies are actually being leveraged with great success today. End users are growing increasingly tired of pitches and are most interested in hearing from organizations that have migrated to CCaaS and implemented CPaaS.
The good news is Enterprise Connect is right around the corner, and I have the great honor of moderating two panel sessions on, you guessed it, CCaaS and CPaaS.
As a former consultant who has worked with both technologies, I'm excited to hear from organizations that have implemented these technologies to gain insight into their real-world experience. I think these two sessions could be amongst the strongest at Enterprise Connect, not because of the stellar moderator (cough, cough) but because of the value of the knowledge to be gained from the panelists.
Below are the details and links to the sessions. Please click on the link for more information and to add the sessions to your agenda.
Date: Monday, March 27
Time: 10:00 am - 10:45 am
CPaaS Case Studies: Making Integration Work -- and Pay
Date: Wednesday, March 29
Time: 3:00 pm - 3:45 pm
While there are several areas I will be exploring with the panelists, below are the top three areas I'm most interested in diving into in both sessions:
What were the key business and technical drivers that led to the decision?
These CPaaS or CCaaS migrations proceeded for specific reasons, but what factors led the enterprises down the migration path? Who championed the project -- the business or IT? Were legacy limitations a factor? How important was ROI?
For organizations considering moves to CCaaS and CPaaS, hearing how others built the case for the migrations and navigated through the approval process should aid in their own journeys.
What were the biggest challenges faced?
Like every hero's journey, there are multiple dragons to slay during the quest. What were the biggest challenges faced during the migration to either CCaaS or CPaaS? How were they overcome? What lessons were learned in the process?
Every project will run into speed bumps. Attendees should come away from the sessions with at least an idea of the challenges they should prepare for.
What have the results been?
Project success can be measured in many ways, but what were the critical KPIs impacted by the project? What about ROI – how did the actual results compare with the expected ROI? What were the biggest surprises post-implementation?
Understanding what success looks like is perhaps the most important part of any project. It is needed at the beginning to justify the project, but many times organizations don't take much time to measure the success of the project at the end.
Again: communications technology professionals hear a lot of hype around CCaaS and CPaaS, but hearing how the success of the technologies provided a significant improvement to the business – or in some cases didn't – will be of great interest to all that attend the sessions.
I look forward to seeing you at Enterprise Connect in just a few weeks.
Enterprise Connect 2023 will be held from March 27-30 at the Gaylord Palms in Orlando, FL. You can check out the attendance options here and dive into our line-up of sessions and keynotes here.
