The way we access information and services, communicate, work and shop has changed and we continue to use lots of different apps and platforms to ask companies questions, receive order updates, reschedule appointments or buy products.
Laura Brown, Head of Marketing, Esendex, discusses the power of CPaaS, and explores how business communication is evolving to support personalised experiences…
There’s little doubt that we want seamless and immersive customer experiences and aren’t willing to wait for companies who haven’t caught on. Businesses who are thriving understand that providing a great customer experience is as important as the quality of their products and services – and they’re using cloud and smartphone technology to manage these expectations.
The need to be more responsive has contributed to the rise of Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) technology. It provides a flexible, frictionless and seamless way of interacting with customers across whatever platform they choose, without having to rip and replace existing technologies or processes.
Organisations traditionally operate with a combination of platforms and processes including sales software, CRMs and collaboration platforms. Switching from these legacy systems to entirely new platforms is a costly undertaking. CPaaS effectively allows smaller businesses to compete with larger organisations by allowing them to jump right in at a minimal cost. Instead of limiting the technology to companies that can afford it—companies of all sizes can deploy cutting-edge CPaaS innovations for a seamless user experience.
Communication without limits
A turnkey CPaaS solution has almost limitless potential but at its core it needs to deliver a best-in-class user experience, through an interface that makes navigation across channels easier than ever, providing a wrap-around view of customer experience with authentication and management functionality built in.
Key use cases include:
Two-way chat or automated chatbot functionality:
· Automated appointment reminders
· Schedule updates/changes
· Order/shipping updates and confirmations
· Bulk messaging and group messaging
· Marketing/marketing automation
· Customer/technical support
· Customer polls/surveys.
· Click & Collect
· Transactional payment
Authentication/verification:
· Two-factor authentication
· Account login attempt push notifications
· Verification codes
Third-party integration:
· Users can easily integrate with applications such as Salesforce, Slack, Microsoft Teams or Zoom
Analytics & reporting:
· To make more informed business decisions.
Where to next?
Business messaging solutions continue to evolve by focusing on the channels that people are using – text/SMS, email, WhatsApp, chatbot or voice.
No one can predict the future (yet), but some computer science and human communication trends are clear. New developments such as serverless and low code or no code have started to redefine our space. Omni-channel communication expectations have also accelerated the need for AI, speech, and bot interactions to provide a more robust, cross-channel functionality as improved customer interaction becomes both the key objective – and the result.
Our aim is to demystify and simplify the digital journey, making it easier for businesses to build, launch, and scale two-way, multi-channel conversational communication with real impact. If you’d like to tap into the additional benefits of CPaaS to deliver a richer customer communication experience, talk to one of our expert team today.
