CPaaS is transforming enterprises into customer service kings

Digital transformation in its broadest sense defines how companies are embracing technology to run more efficiently, reach new consumers, and grow. Most companies, to a greater or lesser extent, have a baked in digital strategy. They are aware of the need to keep up with digital transformation as an urgent business need.

Futurum Research has indexed how well companies today are coping. It found that 76.6% of enterprises describe their relationship with technology and digital transformation as generally average, or above average. Whilst 40% report having a dedicated digital transformation team in place.

Whilst that is encouraging, there are many moving parts to digital transformation. Firstly the pace of technological innovation. What seemed like a future-proof technology last year, could easily be replaced by something better today. It follows that at the sharp end of any digital transformation strategy is the ability to embrace change, not just as an annual review, but as part of a dynamic process that centralizes change and innovation as a continuous process.

Secondly, consumer expectation in how the brands and businesses they interact with digitally has grown. Consumers want to interact in the moment, on the platform of their choice.

Ride-sharing app Uber for example, touts six ways that its customers can contact them, blending in-app support with web, SMS, email, bots and humans while mobile first banks like Revolut, Starling and N26 are winning customers away from traditional banks, because they make a virtue of customer service via smartphones and apps.

It’s fair to say that today communication is synonymous with customer service, and the technology underpinning it provides the blueprint for disruption, differentiation and innovation.

But with so many competing platforms, how can enterprises embrace communication (so that it meets consumer demand) without major investment in infrastructure that could potentially be redundant before the sun has set?

From a technology point of view, the Communications Platform as a Service model (CPaaS) is helping companies stay on top of technological innovation and meet changing consumer expectation head-on.

CPaaS platforms enable developers to add real-time communication features (voice, video and messaging) to their own applications without needing to build backend infrastructure and interfaces. Where once the cost of building and maintaining an infrastructure to support even the simplest of tasks, like appointment reminders via SMS, was prohibitive, now the infrastructure is held in the cloud and maintained by the CPaaS provider.

Because it’s based on the ‘as-a-service’ model, CPaaS can scale quickly to provide integration with multiple communication channels via a single API. New features like in-app support, calls to service desks and SMS can be easily added into any service almost as off-the-shelf modules. CPaaS also opens up the possibility of embracing new technology as it becomes viable. AI-based chatbots and automated customer service agents are an example of this happening right now.

Where once new technology meant back to the drawing board for enterprises, CPaaS puts digital transformation, at least in terms of customer communication, within the grasp of any enterprise that is serious about competing for the digitally savvy consumer.

Get in touch with CLX now to discuss how CPaaS can help your business meet changing customer expectations, or take a look at our eBook – Enterprise CPaaS, the Customer Service Imperative.

Originally Published by CLX Communications