In the enterprise market there sometimes exist a hesitancy to fully embrace cloud-based solutions due to a variety of justifiable and legitimate reasons. Unwilling to relinquish ownership and control over the business systems which they rely on has often led to a stand-off between the enterprise and cloud-based providers, especially within the telecommunications industry.
However, with the recent advent of CPaaS (communications platform as a service), an entire new world of possibilities has opened up for enterprises to benefit from, both financially and operationally.
Enterprises are using the CPaaS technology to improve customer experiences, expand sales and marketing campaign effectiveness, and even integrate such applications with business back-end systems and workflows, all the while reducing telecom and development costs.
This article provides practical examples of the many ways enterprises benefit by using CPaaS to achieve their ultimate business goals.
Does CPaaS Work with Enterprises that Use On-Premise Business Solutions?
CPaaS enables enterprises to use custom built cloud-based voice, IVR, and text messaging applications for a variety of business purposes without compromising the integrity of their current communications and network infrastructure.
This means although CPaaS itself is a cloud based technology, enterprises can still use CPaaS even if their own business communication systems and tools are on-premise and not cloud based.
The ingenious design of CPaaS is exactly what the enterprise market has been waiting for. In 2016 ShoreTel, a leading provider of business unified communications entered the CPaaS market with the purchase of Corvisa one of the first CPaaS providers who had their own CPaaS product. ShoreTel took the product and improved upon it which is now known as Summit.
Introducing Summit a Cloud Based Development Platform for IVR, Voice, and Text Messaging Applications
In basic terms, Summit is an online development platform that runs in the cloud. That means companies don’t have to use localized programming environments and purchase expensive developer licenses to purchase and renew every year.
Also not only is Summit where the development process occurs, but it is where the final application is hosted and run, thus freeing up the enterprise from this responsibility.
Do Enterprises Have to Find Their Own Voice Provider to Integrate with Summit?
The Summit platform uses ShoreTel’s SIP Trunking for the routing, termination, and number ordering services. This means customers don’t have to source and field their own telecom provider willing to collaborate to make a custom application for successfully transferring voice and text message (also called SMS for Short Message Service) related communications over their voice network.
The Summit CPaaS offering is built from the ground up to work seamlessly with ShoreTel’s SIP service which uses top tier carriers to provide reliable national and global voice communications.
The enterprise is now freed from the constraints of time and expense incurred by attempting to handle this on their own. Summit handles it all.
Examples How CPaaS Can be Used to Improve the Customer Experience
The repercussions of forsaking the value of a positive customer experience can be damaging to say the least. Enterprises understand this well and look to technology to offer new and improved methods of communication and service that meet customer needs and requests to the highest extent. CPaaS enables enterprises to do just that.
Here are four practical use-case examples that illustrate how enterprises can use a CPaaS like Summit to improve their customer service.
Create an Application to Automate Appointment and Call Scheduling Tasks
For businesses which rely heavily on scheduling and appointments, such as those in the medical industry, the Summit platform can run an application that allows a customer to call in and select the appropriate IVR options to create, change, or cancel a scheduled appointment without the need to speak to a person.
When the call is completed, the backend scheduling software where the appointment is recorded for that customer is automatically updated with the newly submitted information. The Summit application can also be programmed to notify anyone else associated with the appointment of the changes via email, SMS or voicemail.Create an Application to Allow Customers to Pay by Phone 24x7
Enterprises can create applications on Summit to provide their customers the convenience of paying their bills 24x7 using the IVR system. Whether paying medical bills, utility bills, or even making a purchase, the custom IVR allows customers to update their accounts with the utmost convenience.
It also reduces the call volume for agents who are working directly with other callers since a percentage of callers will elect to use the self -service IVR. Since the Summit platform has its own SIP trunking service, there is no extra internal bandwidth usage issues incurred unless a call is transferred to your main phone system.
Create an Application to Integrate with Enterprise Level CRM Software Programs and Databases
Applications that run on Summit can be designed to integrate with CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software packages in multiple ways to increase efficiency. For example, the application can be designed to locate an account in the CRM by passing the caller’s information which they entered through the IVR.
When the call is answered by an agent, the customer’s account is immediately located and opened in a pop-up window. The caller does not need to repeat any of their information to the agent who is now able to service the caller with greater speed and ease.
Create Applications to Send Text Messages for Convenient Reminders and Communications
With Summit, it’s possible to create applications that provide automated text messages to your customers depending on a particular scenario. Whether payment reminders, payment confirmations, appointment reminders, or special discount offers and codes, the options are limitless.
In addition, text messages can be sent via toll free numbers providing an added layer or professionalism enterprises demand. Examples could be for support or general questions regarding a previous interaction, or perhaps a reminder of an appointment, thus delivering an additional method for client engagement and feedback.
Examples How CPaaS Can be Used to Improve Sales and Marketing Initiatives
Enterprises know the value of marketing as it relates to customer service as well as for driving sales. Here are three sales and marketing uses that enterprises can benefit from by using CPaaS.
Create Phone Surveys for Marketing Initiatives
Businesses can use ShoreTel’s CPaaS to create surveys that exist as part of an on-going or time-specific marketing campaign. Callers are asked a series of strategic questions and will input their responses using their phone. The responses are stored in a database which can be viewed in real-time and historical date ranges for marketing data analysis.
Custom reports can be created beyond standard default reports using IVR reporting tools such as our Swami Vision API. Based on the survey results, companies can gauge customer satisfaction and valuable feedback to specific products or services they offer.
Swami Vision also offers advanced data metrics reporting capabilities such as important geographic and demographic data from the responders to drill down deeper into statistics that will help with future marketing initiatives and campaigns.
Create Call Center Agent Performance Surveys
Enterprises can maintain delivery of exceptional customer service with end-of-call questionnaires asking callers to rate their experience with their call center agent. The more opportunities customers have to express their feedback, the faster enterprises can respond and make adjustments to ensure the best customer service is being delivered.
Reporting tools like our Swami Vision API mentioned in the previous example can collect the survey responses and be viewed by team managers for training and evaluation purposes. Likewise, data can also be transferred to other software systems such as CRMs to record a history of the customer responses.
Send Text Messages to Provide Special Discounts or Links to Online Surveys
Use Summit to send communications relevant to your sales and marketing campaigns via text messaging. Text messages can be sent from toll free numbers and provide a means to quickly notify customers and prospects of special discount offers or codes, as well as links to online surveys to rate their online shopping experience for example.
Examples How CPaaS Can be used to Lower Internal and Telecom Infrastructure Costs
Businesses will invest a considerable amount of their budget to develop custom applications that are designed specifically to integrate with their communications solutions and internal business applications. However, with CPaaS the costs of creating highly specialized integrations or even stand-alone applications can be achieved at much lesser cost.
Here are some key points about the financial benefits of using CPaaS such as Summit:
Lower Infrastructure and Overhead Costs
When enterprises use Summit to run their IVR or other voice applications, they are no longer required to provide their own hardware, manage their own servers, or deal with the headaches of downtime, faulty patches, and other IT nightmares.
These costs can easily soar out of control causing projects to stall or worse yet be terminated. When using a CPaaS for your voice application, you avoid these costs. In addition, by using a Summit Partner such as ourselves, you’ll have the professional guidance you need from start to finish. In other words, you’re not on your own.
Reduced Telecommunications Costs
With the Summit platform using ShoreTel as their dedicated SIP Trunk provider, your exhaustive hunt for a dependable third party telecom provider comes to an end. Summit handles the termination and routing, number ordering, and provisioning.
In other words, it’s already taken care of for you since ShoreTel becomes your telecom voice provider by default. Not only does this make the integration with a voice provider a breeze, you will experience lower rates than other CPaaS offerings.
This is because the relationship between ShoreTel SIP and Summit enables the ability to hand a call from SIP to the platform at significantly reduced rates versus hopping between carriers and being charged for double inbound/outbound legs to complete each transmission.
Fewer Development Related Costs and Barriers
Since ShoreTel’s Summit is a development platform itself, enterprises are no longer burdened with additional expenses associated with custom development projects such as expensive license fees and renewals, or creating and deploying software patches or upgrades.
With Summit, you have access to certified Summit partners such as ourselves who will create what you need as you need it. Together we will help you define a project game plan that aligns budget goals with scheduled deliverables.
Using a CPaaS product such as Summit enables enterprises to build custom voice, text, and IVR applications that integrate with existing solutions like CRMs, payment processing solutions, speech recognition and self-help options or just about anything else. The reality is you can now experience reduced development and infrastructure costs, plan budget and growth applications accordingly, and witness improved customer experiences.
The options are truly limitless.
As certified Summit developers with over a decade of telecommunications and business data intelligence experience, we will work with you to create the applications that your enterprise is looking for.
To start learning how Summit can help your business, contact us today and we’ll be glad to discuss your communication needs and goals.