Huge surge to cloud based contact centres

When COVID first struck in early 2020 one of the most immediately commercial impacts of lockdown was on contact centres.

Companies with old on-prem systems who lacked the flexibility to send their agents home faced an almost impossible task: establishing whole new ways of providing customer support at the very moment customers were smashing the call centres.

By contrast, companies who had shifted their contact centre infrastructure into the cloud had a relatively more relaxed transition (and so did their customers). Now, a new study by Juniper Research has found that global CCaaS (Contact Centre-as-a-Service) market revenue will reach $15.6 billion by 2027; rising from $4.9 billion in 2022.

This phenomenal growth of 216 percent will be driven by the breadth of services offered within comprehensive subscription-based models, including advanced analytics capabilities, AI‑enabled chatbots and personalised video solutions.

CCaaS platforms are cloud-based solutions that provide the services required to run a contact centre over multiple inbound and outbound communication channels.

The research assessed leading CCaaS platforms and evaluated them on criteria such as depth and breadth of offerings, service innovation and future prospects. It ranked the top 3 vendors as Twilio, CM.com and Infobip

 
Twilio has built a flexible CCaaS product offering by supporting multiple OTT messaging applications and voice services. Juniper Research commended Twilio on its intelligent routing and performance‑tracking capabilities, which are key in supporting enterprise adoption of omnichannel communications strategies.

Research author Elisha Sudlow-Poole remarked “Offering unique innovative services is not enough to stand out in the market. Enterprises will choose their preferred solution based on the comprehensiveness of the value-added services available. As a result, vendors must look to expand the solutions offered via their CCaaS platform to provide crucial differentiation in a highly competitive market.”

Social Media Is the Next Key CCaaS Channel

The research predicted that social media platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook, will become an important medium for enterprises to interact with their customers in the future. In turn, it urged CCaaS vendors to integrate inbound communications from these channels into their solutions immediately to provide the maximum reach to end users for CCaaS clients.

Offering omnichannel functionality will enable CCaaS vendors to strengthen product portfolios; mirroring the success of the CPaaS (Communications Platform-as-a-Service) ecosystem.