COVID-19 has shown us that business continuity planning is an immediate and mission-critical requirement. For CCaaS solutions, this means an emphasis needs to be placed on scalability, reliability, and access to digital channels.
The cloud-based contact center industry is poised to touch $56.37 billion by 2027. According to Fortune Business InsightsOpens a new window , the pandemic has ushered in a rapid demand for cloud-based solutions offering high security and scalability to minimize disruptions. Also, companies are increasingly deploying AI-powered call assistants to drive growth and enhance customer experiences.
This interview with Vasili TriantOpens a new window , the Chief Operating Officer at UJETOpens a new window offers a refreshing window into how the COVID-19 pandemic pressured the contact center industry to move away from legacy, on-premise technologies to cloud-native CCaaS solutions that promise scalability and enterprise integrations. But simply being cloud-native isn’t enough. Though enterprises are making tangible progress with the cloud, the key to continued growth is hyper-elasticity — the ability to scale up to meet the customers’ demands.Â
Key takeaways from this interview:
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- How the pandemic informs future CCaaS product developments
- The key benefits of modern CCaaS solutions
- Why retailers and e-commerce services should adopt ‘hyper-elasticity’
Here’s the edited transcript of the interview with Vasili Triant:
1.Tell us a bit about yourself and your role at UJET?
I’ve been involved in the customer service industry for more than two decades now. I held key leadership roles at companies like Serenova, ShoreTel, and Cisco, where I was General Manager and Vice President of Cisco’s global contact center business. As Chief Operating Officer at UJET, I spearhead UJET’s corporate partnerships and alliances and help strengthen UJET’s position as one of the fastest-growing cloud contact center solutions on the market today.Â
2. As a longtime industry veteran, how, in your view, has the collaboration industry evolved?
I’ve seen the customer service, contact center, and collaboration space evolve tremendously over the years, and we’re currently in a transformative time for the industry. Digital transformation and the migration to the cloud are opening the door for companies to leverage next-generation tools at scale to communicate with customers in a modern, digital-first way.
While the refresh cycle was already driving cloud adoption almost exclusively, the actual adoption rate has been painfully slow. Now with the pandemic essentially mandating remote work, demand for cloud-native solutions is skyrocketing. But we’re also seeing that just being ‘cloud-native’ isn’t enough. Â
See More: Contact Center Priorities for 2021: Customer-Centricity Will Rule in Digital-Only World
3. Where do you think the industry currently is and your predictions on market growth?
Enterprise executives focus on digital transformation, which naturally includes the mobile and app experiences they provide to customers.Â
Almost all of the major cloud-native solutions across the collaboration ecosystem treat mobile as a channel because they were all built on the old desktop cloud.
But mobile isn’t a channel – it’s a modality upon which modern consumers rely and a totally different approach to cloud architecture, interaction design, and data modeling. So the business requirements for Digital Transformation have suddenly changed. This sudden spotlight on the cloud accelerates the next wave of innovation as demand shifts to the Cloud 2.0 providers.
4. The pandemic accelerated digital transformation but the focus is also on security and privacy in new collaboration solutions. How has UJET responded to this?
Security, compliance, and data protection are part of our DNA and a core component of our solution. We’ve achieved numerous certifications, including multiple regional and industry-specific compliance standards. We also place a strong emphasis on data minimization and transparency.Â
Through our tight CRM integrations, we bring together both CRM and CCaaS data for a more holistic view of the customer. Most importantly, UJET does not store any communication data.
5. How did the global health crisis inform future CCaaS and customer support software product developments?
The pandemic has changed how businesses operate and how consumers interact with brands via mobile apps and other online platforms. This change has brought a new paradigm to the fray that may forever change how we do business.
The pandemic has accelerated the shift from on-premise contact centers to cloud-native solutions. These solutions make it easier to provide a more modern and reliable customer experience and the best way to ensure remote work productivity and the safety of customer service teams.
COVID-19 has also shown us that business continuity planning is an immediate and mission-critical requirement. For CCaaS solutions, this means an emphasis needs to be placed on scalability, reliability, and access to digital channels. Customer service must rapidly scale to meet sudden spikes and increases in demand while ensuring that service reliability remains consistent. This becomes even more challenging with teams working remotely.
The pandemic has fast-tracked the move towards digital channels. Remote teams combined with an influx of calls means that to avoid long queues and wait times, CCaaS solutions must look at leveraging digital channels and the smartphone’s capabilities to gather contextual information and better steer customers to the right queue and the right agent.
See More: Why Intelligent Automation, And Not AI Drives Contact Center Efficiency
6. Can you outline benefits and savings seen from CCaaS solutions that go beyond business continuity?
Consumers are placing a higher value on customer experience than ever before. According to a recent Salesforce report, 84% of customers said their experience with a company is just as important as its products or services. A CCaaS solution like UJET allows companies to transform their customer experience and deliver experiences and journeys that create satisfied and loyal customers.
A key benefit of CCaaS solutions is that businesses can eliminate the high costs associated with bulky hardware and large on-premise contact centers since it is in the cloud. With a cloud-native solution, agents only need an internet browser and stable connection and can be up-and-running from anywhere. Secondly, CCaaS solutions are complex in function but simplified in administration. This allows a significant reduction in administrative costs that companies typically have for on-premise systems.
See More: From Cost Center to Business Enabler: 8×8 CTO on Contact Center Evolution
7. In the pivot to remote work, organizations quickly added UCC tools. How can businesses right-size their enterprise unified communications stack post COVID?
Hyper-elasticity is going to be critical in a post-COVID world. Businesses are going to need to be prepared to flexibly scale their services almost immediately to meet their customers’ demands. Before the pandemic, most businesses had a general understanding of when they would need to ramp up or ramp down their services. For example, retailers and e-commerce companies always knew that they needed to prepare for the holiday season. At the same time, healthcare providers could anticipate the need to scale around open enrollment.
The pandemic has shown us that businesses must now be prepared to quickly and efficiently become hyper-elastic at any time. In order to do so, they need to transform their technology stacks with tools that can truly accomplish this.
About Vasili TriantOpens a new window : As UJET’s Chief Operating Officer, Vasili Triant spearheads UJET’s corporate partnerships and alliances, and helps to further UJET’s position as one of the fastest-growing cloud contact center solutions. Triant brings more than 20 years of experience in Telecoms, Unified Communications (UC), and Contact Center industries, having previously served as VP/GM of Contact Center at Cisco, where he achieved the fastest growth in over a decade through a focus on global alliances and enterprise cloud-readiness.
Triant has also held executive-level roles at companies like ShoreTel, LiveOps, and Serenova, where he served as CEO, leading the company through a significant phase of growth and recognition.
About UJETOpens a new window : UJET is the world’s first and only cloud contact center platform for smartphone era CX. By modernizing digital and in-app experiences, UJET unifies the enterprise brand experience across sales, marketing, and support, eliminating the frustration of channel switching between voice, digital, and self-service for consumers.
Do you think the pandemic has changed how contact centers operate and drive business growth? Comment below or let us know on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We’d love to hear from you!