A market shattering move into a UCaaS offering
“You’re joking, right?” “So what’s the catch?” These are the most common questions, among others, that have customers and analysts alike both grinning from ear to ear and scratching their heads. Why has NICE put together an all-in-one UCaaS offering at an unbeatable price? The answer is quite simple – customers asked for it. But there are a few facets that come into play to reach such a simple response.
UCaaS, We all CaaS
The growth of UCaaS, or Unified Communications as a Service, came about alongside the rise of an internet infrastructure that could handle increasingly heavy bandwidth demands. As the clamor for bandwidth receded into its own comfortably utilitarian market, the opportunity opened for internet calling and collaboration such as screen sharing and whiteboarding. The pace of business sped up beyond scheduled phone conferencing meetings and email and into impromptu online meetings so that questions were answered in real-time, with no excuses for allowing a project to fall behind because of lack of communication. Work became infused with fast-paced chat conversations and screen sharing sessions across individuals and teams that helped employees not only work more efficiently, but work from anywhere at the same pace.
The contact center, no longer its own silo, is now connected to the rest of the organization by a single click.
Not to mention the intermingling of the wireless wave to boost our mobile phone capabilities and create an explosion of wireless devices for us to delight ourselves with as the office chair became increasingly empty in favor of on-the-go business meetings. This naturally led to video calling, face to face meetings with cameras, webinars, podcasts...the list is long, the story familiar to all. This familiarity, just like the rise of internet bandwidth availability, is because UCaaS is also reaching a peak “everyone needs it, everyone has it” mature market. Email inboxes are increasingly spam vehicles, while business chat programs buzz away at all hours.
CCaaS for CSAT
Pivot to CCaaS, Contact Center as a Service. The Contact Center of today is an increasingly omnichannel environment, fielding customer inquiries via phone, chat, email, text, social channels, and (so many) more. Just as UCaaS was experiencing a meteoric rise on the heels of internet and wireless availability, Contact Centers attempted to keep pace and offer employees improved solutions for providing good customer service across more than just a phone line. So much so that what resulted often became a tangled, disjointed mess for agents to navigate while only piling on friction for customers who increasingly expect seamlessly connected journeys.
NICE, a recognized CCaaS industry leader among analysts and industry experts, works tirelessly to deliver innovative, AI-powered solutions to boost contact centers and the organizations they serve into realms of efficiency, performance and both employee and customer satisfaction previously unattainable. Its complete, connected platform removes infrastructure, reduces tech stacks and infuses AI into data and experiences that drive business growth and customer loyalty.
UCaaS + CCaaS, the Super Cast
So getting back to the original questions. No, NICE isn’t joking. No, there really aren’t any catches. And yes, customers wanted a unified top-tier UCaaS and CCaaS solution and they now have it. Period.
This isn’t AI that’s 5 or 10 years down the road. It’s here, fully operating in contact centers around the world, and getting better by the minute.
Unified communications is now available across the contact center and the rest of the organization, helping to simplify contracts and support to a single vendor. The contact center, no longer its own silo, is now connected to the rest of the organization by a single click. Two mammoth industries that grew up alongside one another finally meet harmoniously with one sole unifying purpose: to serve customers with excellence.
And NICE continues to do what it does best as an organization: focus its extensive Research & Development resources on continued AI development to create customer experiences that customers and contact centers don’t yet know are possible.
The Experience Continuum with CX AI
A key element of these developments is CX AI, or AI that is fully CX-aware. This awareness turbocharges performance through three harmonious forces: the first is augmentation, CX AI that supercharges employee performance with copilot and automation capabilities. This extends into automation, where performance and automation is progressively improved with human input and skills exchange with AI agents. Lastly, awareness. CX AI has continual awareness to proactively recommend actions, optimize processes and devise creative solutions.
All of these forces combined create a powerful Experience Memory. The contact center can see each customer as a whole, with an individualized memory graph that knows their interaction history, preferences and behaviors. CX AI adapts and predicts, dynamically orchestrating each and every customer interaction in real-time, with relevant and timely context.
Customers experience AI created for them – it predicts their intent, understands their preferences and anticipates their needs. Not only do they get personalized and proactive engagement, their journeys are optimized and they are ultimately satisfied at the point of contact, with long term loyalty a highly likely outcome for the business.
But don’t misunderstand, this isn’t AI that’s 5 or 10 years down the road. It’s here, fully operating in contact centers around the world, and getting better by the minute. Resistance to change is ultimately futile; embrace the CX AI future, and enjoy the ride.