News & Events A Guide to Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS)

There are four main types of contact center environments: 

1. On-premise contact centers host their contact center data on the company’s own servers and infrastructure. This gives the organization complete control over all of the required hardware and software. However, the organization must take on the cost of the hardware, ongoing maintenance and upgrades, and limited scalability.
2. Hybrid contact centers use some combination of on-premise and cloud-based infrastructure to run operations. Some teams prefer (or have to) maintain control over certain components, but want the scalability and flexibility offered by cloud technology.
3. Cloud contact centers don’t rely on any on-premise contact center software or hardware at all. Instead, everything is hosted on remote servers that allow access over the internet. Cloud contact centers can run on either a public cloud—a shared computing environment owned and managed by a third-party provider and open to multiple users—or a private cloud—a dedicated computing environment owned or exclusively used by a single organization, offering greater control and customization. Public cloud contact centers are ideal for organizations seeking flexibility, low upfront costs, and shared infrastructure, while private cloud contact centers cater to those requiring enhanced security, compliance, and tailored solutions on a dedicated platform.
4. Outsourced contact centers contract with a third party to handle some or all customer interactions. Contact centers outsource calls, emails, chats, and other forms of customer service. The main advantages of outsourcing are potential cost savings, scalability, and access to specialized expertise that contact centers may not have (or be able to afford) in- house. The market for global contact center outsourcing is expected to grow steadily over the next ten years. A number of Bucher + Suter customers offer outsourced contact center services to their subsidiaries and affiliated organizations.

Helping enterprise contact centers adopt CCaaS is one of our core service offerings. Here’s our in-depth look at CCaaS, including: 

• What is CCaaS?
• Why Enterprise Contact Centers Choose CCaaS
• How to Move from On-Premise to CCaaS
• Navigating the Future of CCaaS

CCaaS is a means for providing contact centers with the cloud-based tools and infrastructure they need to deliver exceptional customer service. A CCaaS solution typically includes all of the cloud-based technology, artificial intelligence (AI), and reporting capabilities necessary to flexibly and securely run, manage, and monitor customer service interactions across a variety of channels, such as:

• Call routing
• Queuing
• Agent assistance
• App and CRM integrations
• Analytics and reporting

On-Premise vs. CCaaS vs. Hosted Cloud

In Battle of the Contact Centers, we break down the key differences between on-premise, CCaaS, and hosted (or “managed”) cloud solutions. Similar to CCaaS, a hosted cloud solution means some provider manages and maintains cloud infrastructure on the customer’s behalf, with some caveats. For your convenience, we’ve recreated a handy comparison table that covers many of those caveats:

Running a contact center is expensive. And many business leaders still regard the contact center as a cost sink. They have a point: in on-premise call centers, the cost per agent tends to be higher. Scalability is limited, while the maintenance of on-site software, servers, and network access add up. Many legacy contact centers still suffer from long wait times, inefficient case routing, and poor overall experience. All of which contribute directly and indirectly to cost.

On the other hand, no two contact center environments are exactly alike. The customer service requirements of the finance sector may differ from those of the public sector. Within each ecosystem, companies may have specific consumer expectations, compliance and privacy concerns, or technological limitations that they must prioritize.

This presents a dilemma for many contact center teams: staying put with a legacy contact center environment may be untenable cost- and experience-wise; but modernizing is in and of itself is a costly, time-consuming lift. 

CCaaS provides a viable path forward.

 

The advantages of CCaaS

Rather than piecing together contact center infrastructure on their own, companies can work with a trusted advisor to build a more efficient, cloud-based system. In addition to scalability and potential cost-savings, CCaaS opens the door to new technology adoption, such as intelligence-based routing, GenAI assistance, and comprehensive, real-time reporting.

All of which are critical to modern CX. As data from PwC indicates, CX is everything:

• Customers are willing to pay up to a 16% price premium on products and services with good CX, which also leads to increased loyalty
• More than a third of customers would abandon a brand they loved after a single poor experience
• The vast majority (80%) of American consumers consider “speed, convenience, knowledgeable help, and friendly service” to be the most important aspects of CX

To move the needle from cost center to revenue driver, contact centers need to make their customer service a differentiator. CCaaS enables many of the underpinnings that make this possible.

Omnichannel customer service

In a cloud-based contact center, you have a unified platform for handling all customer interactions across all available channels. This encompasses voice, email, chat, social media, and messaging apps. CCaaS integrates these channels, core apps, and services with intelligent routing and analytics, providing additional means for optimizing the customer journey. As a result, you have access to deeper personalizations based on user profile, interaction history, and preferences.

Improved cost management

How does CCaaS create cost savings? More often than not, CCaaS operating costs are delivered in a pay-as-you-use service model with monthly billing. CCaaS doesn’t typically require high upfront investment, ongoing maintenance costs, nor recurring renewal projects. Overall, cloud-based lifecycle management and upgrades demand far less in terms of execution. Plus you enjoy the reliability and stability of a cloud-based system, leading to less downtime and disruption.

In addition, CCaaS offers flexible licensing models. For example, Bucher + Suter offers Cisco Flex licensing, allowing the enterprise to switch between different on-premise and cloud operating models at any time.

Cloud security

Working with a trusted CCaaS provider helps contact centers address their most pressing cybersecurity concerns. Nearly 100% of organizations are moderately to extremely concerned about cloud security. The main obstacles to cloud adoption include budget constraints (48%), staffing issues (42%), and data privacy concerns (40%). At the same time, as much as 47% of cloud data is sensitive.

While CCaaS is well suited to address these concerns, it’s important to work with a vendor that prioritizes security. Bucher + Suter operates private cloud contact center solutions from high-security data centers, for example. Our certifications include: 

• ISO 9001 (Quality Management)
• ISO 27001 (Information Management)
• ISO 27017 (Security Management) 
• ISO 27018 (GDPR Data Protection)
• ISAE 3000 Report Type II (Cloud for Banks)

Yes, CCaaS can enable encryption, access controls, and other security measures. So long as the solutions you choose and your CCaaS provider are strong in these areas.

Scalability 

Few business units contend with flux quite like the contact center. Accounting for sudden case spikes, seasonal surges, and shifting requirements—adding or subtracting resources as needed—can prove cost-prohibitive for traditional contact centers. 

A CCaaS model allows you to add or remove resources and channels with ease. You can adjust agents’ workloads (rapid activation, functional adaptation, etc.), call routing, and available channels up and down without delay. Some solutions include auto-scaling capabilities, which automatically adjust agents and resources based on real-time need.

Agent productivity

The integration of channels, core apps, and services tends to enhance agent productivity. Our CCaaS solutions make it possible to surface answers directly in the agent desktop (whether the CRM or the contact center app), proactively display case insights and recommended solutions, and let agents easily toggle between cases and channels. At the very least, these capabilities save agents a significant amount of time.

CCaaS can also enable advanced agent assistance use cases that incorporate AI. For more, read our overview of AI-powered agent assistance.

Performance, intelligence, and reporting

CCaaS allows you to see holistic contact center data in one place. This comprehensive view enables supervisors to make informed decisions and optimize performance without needing technical expertise.

Supervisors can build and share comprehensive and consumable reports that business leaders want to see. They can also quickly view all available services, workflows, and configurations in one interface. 

Perhaps best of all, CCaaS enables supervisors to make critical adjustments on-the-fly without involving IT, minimizing operational disruptions and downtime.

And when out of the box reporting won’t suffice, Bucher + Suter’s CCBI solutions integrate with Webex and Cisco Contact Center data, providing a wealth of actionable interaction, customer, agent, and queue insights in intelligent reports and dashboards.

The first decision to make is between private cloud vs. public cloud. Your decision will depend on regulatory compliance, the location of data, and data sovereignty. Your existing architecture, how you want your cloud data managed, and your familiarity/compatibility with a given architecture (are you already using Cisco UCCE/PCCE, for example?) will also factor in.

Example high-level workflow for migration to CCaaS

From there, you’ll typically follow a few high-level migration steps, which we’ve synthesized here for quick reference:

1. Assess current infrastructure including hardware, software, and network capabilities.
2. Choose a CCaaS provider based on scalability, reliability, security, and customer support.
3. Plan the migration including timelines, resource allocation, and potential risks.
4. Configure and test according to your specific requirements. 
5. Train contact center staff on the new CCaaS platform.
6. Monitor and optimize based on performance data, staff input, and customer feedback.
7. Maintain security and compliance with relevant security and compliance standards.

In practice, most migrations are far more nuanced. For example, companies ought to devote some energy toward voice quality, an important component that many CCaaS migrations overlook. Failing to prioritize voice quality can lead to packet loss, jitter, and latency. Cisco offers robust codecs that help to compress audio without losing quality. 

Recently, Bucher + Suter helped Bluebeam transition from an on-premises contact center to CCaaS. Bluebeam was already running an on-premise Cisco Contact Center Express (CCX) solution.

For Bluebeam, CX modernization was a top priority, as were reliability, scalability, and a vendor with platform and contact center expertise. Read the Bluebeam case study for a detailed look at this migration project. In the meantime, here’s a snapshot of the migration process: 

For Helvetia, their migration depended on compelling pricing and a partnership built on trust. Their migration requirements included:

• Salesforce CTI  integration
• Lift + Shift of data centers  (on-premise to cloud)
• Replacement of telephony with Microsoft Teams
• Webex Contact Center for call-routing

You can read the full Helvetia Case Study here.

The right migration path will vary from contact center to contact center. CCaaS certainly has its advantages. A Forrester Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study found that, over a three year period, Webex Contact Center delivered 304% ROI and better operational quality overall.

Of course, CCaaS itself is always evolving. When asked to weigh in on the future of CCaaS by CX Today, industry experts highlighted five important trends to keep an eye on:

• Stiff competition from CRM and CEC vendors
• Convergence with the CX tech stack
• Demand for more guidance for managers on how to maximize value
• More embedded AI
• A new wave of cloud-native CCaaS platforms

In a rapidly evolving CCaaS market, your choice of provider will be critical. Do they have experience with your industry, operational profile, and infrastructural needs? And can they tailor a solution to meet all of these requirements? 

Bucher + Suter is a leading provider of contact center solutions and has extensive experience in managing migrations from on-premise contact centers to CCaaS. Learn more about our Cloud Contact Center solutions.