In today’s fast-paced business landscape, seamless, efficient, and integrated communication is key. Enter CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service), a tool that has revolutionized the way companies engage with their customers and streamline their operations.
We often talk about CPaaS in use case-related contexts; however, we rarely discuss it from a more holistic angle, considering its versatile roles in different aspects of the business.
I spoke with Divya Ghai Wakankar, Executive Vice President of Enterprise Market & Marketing at BICS, to try and offer a bird’s eye view of the transformative power of CPaaS, reviewing the way it’s being used in a few main business domains.
CPaaS and Top-of-the-Funnel Activities
Regardless of vertical, any business has one important goal: attracting customers. This is typically done using top-of-the-funnel activities, which are marketing activities aimed at creating brand or product awareness. CPaaS may not sound like the classic tool for marketing, but according to Wakankar, it can serve as a powerful ally to those types of activities.
“Traditionally, salespeople would be the ones to pursue potential clients, but now, this is often done using interactive and personalized CPaaS-powered communications,” she explains.
“CPaaS platforms allow companies to reach out to customers through different channels with interactive, contextualized communications, which makes it easy for brands to meet them where they are.”
This can be done using SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or whichever means of communication is prevalent in their region.
Top-of-the-funnel activities can be either interactive or one-way, depending on the scenario. According to Wakankar, the use of interactive communication is on the rise.
“Top of the funnel is in the process of getting much more fine-tuned,” she notes.
“In the past, brands simply used to send out a campaign, but now it’s becoming more interactive – they send a message, then make sure there’s a follow-up, and all of this is done using automated processes,” she explains.
“CPaaS platforms play a key role in allowing that, as the campaign reports and metrics generated by the platform can help identify the performant channels, preferred by the customers.”
CPaaS and Business Processes
Another important business function of CPaaS is allowing omnichannel communication, bridging the gap between various channels. The integration of these channels into one coherent flow ensures a consistent and customer-centric approach.
“The thing with digital channels is, using different ones intermittently can create a disconnect, where agents operating in one channel are not aware of interactions with the customer in other channels,” Wakankar explains.
CPaaS platforms solve this by serving as a single pane of glass for agents to support the customer. Other than bringing together the different channels, they also integrate the business’s CRM and ERP systems, providing agents with all the relevant information about customer-specific pain points, needs, and past interactions.
CPaaS and Internal Operations
Beyond customer engagement and interaction, CPaaS extends its influence into optimizing internal operations. It does this by integrating with employee processes and enhancing efficiency and accuracy.
“We normally talk about CPaaS in the context of customer-related benefits, but employees can benefit from it, too,” Wakankar says.
“A great use case example we’ve seen up close is a company allowing its employees to use a communications channel to easily clock in when they are out in the field, via the CPaaS platform.”
This effectively means that if an employee sends a message using the defined channel like SMS or WhatsApp, the relevant departments are notified they’ve clocked in. The information is automatically added to the company’s ERP system, ensuring they’ll be paid accurately for their time.
“CPaaS is a very powerful tool for businesses today, and its potential contribution is far more diverse than many people might think,” Wakankar concludes.
“It’s become one of our key focus areas at BICS, and we plan to continue enhancing our CPaaS services to help customers enhance customer engagement and optimize operations.”
To learn more about leveraging CPaaS BICS’s platform, visit their website.
from UC Today https://ift.tt/QYbjnZi
0 Comments