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Tag: CPaaS

  • Low-Code Development: The Future of Communications Experiences

    Low-Code Development: The Future of Communications Experiences

    The benefits of embedding real-time communications features into business and consumer applications are well-known. When it comes to customer service, most people would much rather click-to-call from within a web experience, social media site or business application to connect with another person, than find their phone to dial a number and wait in a queue. 

    In today’s new digital world–where instant gratification comes when consumers can choose their communication channel of choice and get their issues resolved more quickly–businesses only stand to benefit from delivering better service with fewer intermediaries. Customer service isn’t the only beneficiary of innovation in communications platform as a service (CPaaS)–web developers can add options to get answers automatically, or from an expert, without the presence of a full contact center. Even small businesses with limited staff can interact with customers through communications channels embedded into their websites or mobile apps, automatically directing questions about specific products, orders or services to the right person through text messaging, email or voice.

    This is all made possible through CPaaS–and this is where the future of customer communications experiences lies.

    Breakthroughs in CPaaS Are Powering Embedded Communications

    CPaaS is one of those industry acronyms that has been tossed around for a few years now, but what exactly is it? CPaaS is a cloud-based platform that enables developers to add real-time communications features to their own applications without the complexity of building infrastructure typically required when developing apps. 

    The ability to embed communications capabilities directly into apps or websites enables businesses of any size to engage customers more effectively across different communications channels, including mobile, web and desktop environments. The result is a much-improved customer experience leading to increased customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and recurring revenues.

    Breakthroughs in CPaaS are making it increasingly easier to embed voice, video, messaging, chat, presence and collaboration into experiences than ever before. Instead of building backend infrastructure and interfaces, CPaaS-based applications are made accessible through low-code development platforms. These platforms allow developers to access the robust application logic within the CPaaS with just a few lines of code, made possible through APIs. These APIs empower developers to quite literally copy and paste code by dragging and dropping application components and connecting them together to create a mobile or web app.

    As an industry, we’ve spent the better part of the last few years building out embedded real-time communications solutions. With low-code development, new communications capabilities take only minutes to create and launch, versus years, months, weeks or even days. By making it easier to add immersive communications solutions into existing applications, low-code development allows companies to introduce innovations such as communications-enabled business processes and automate any component of business processes.

    The Future of Communications Experiences

    There’s no doubt–the future is low-code solutions. In our digital world, with the right CPaaS technology, and a little creativity and planning, businesses can now accomplish things that would have been impossible without the support of APIs. 

    We are just at the beginning of even more exciting and valuable applications. By accessing the massive compute and software application capabilities of CPaaS through just a few APIs, harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and natural language processing is possible. Applications including voice recording, transcription and analytics for greater insights will be made a reality. Bots that sound like humans and can speak in multiple languages, with multiple choices for voices, will leave old breakthroughs like interactive voice response in the dust.

    We’re still early in the cycle, but the benefits and applications of low-code development continue to grow. Jump in–you may be surprised how easy it is to roll out new services that customers will love, and your business will thank you for.

  • Putting Customer Communication at the Core of New Apps

    Putting Customer Communication at the Core of New Apps

    As developers and entrepreneurs create new products and services, it is critical for a powerful communication solution to sit at the heart of the solution and support all customer engagement. Reason being, when customers begin to engage with the application, they’ll expect easy access to troubleshooting tools like live support chat. 

    Neglecting to offer such support could make or break the overall customer experience. In fact, 78% of customers have reportedly backed out of a purchase due to a poor customer experience, and at least 54% of respondents said they would prefer to speak to a chatbot instead of a human customer service representative if it saved them 10 minutes. 

    However, doing so is no easy feat when it comes to automated communications services. Human-level support is effective, but often creates unwanted lag and is not easy or cost friendly for companies to scale. Automated customer service technologies and solutions are a viable choice but need to be able to quickly recognize the intent and context of what a human is saying in order to solve their problem effectively. 

    Not only that, bots need to be able to maintain a live dialogue with the customer and keep the conversation flowing in the same way a human customer service representative would. This ultimately creates an even bigger challenge for the developer, outside of the initial task of developing an effective and engaging application.   

    How Have Developers Traditionally Approached Customer Communications? 

    We often see companies looking to implement things like text message, video or voice calling into their customer communication strategy. While it may seem like a small task from afar, most in-house or self-built solutions require intensive upkeep and are often difficult to scale. 

    Not only that, once a company decides the type of communication it wants to deploy, the developer often struggles to find the right overall architecture and means for implementation. Once these are finally in place and working properly, expanding that functionality down the road makes for yet another grueling process. Because of this, many developers often decide to outsource all together.  

    Most enterprises and contact centers will have communications systems, such as Private Branch Exchange (PBX), that are based on software as opposed to being delivered as a service. This software may be completely run within an office or partly inside the enterprise’s cloud environment. This software was not designed for the modem cloud era, and the more advanced software option generally won’t offer any flexibility to alter or customize communications flows.

    What Are Some Best Practices for Integrating Customer Communications into New Applications?

    There are a few things for developers to keep in mind when building out their customer communications capabilities. First, you’ll need to decide what type of communications methods are required for optimal customer experience, whether it be text message, voice, video or a combination of the three. 

    From there, you’ll need to determine the communication logic that leads to the best customer experience. For example, there is no longer a need to follow the traditional model where a customer calls, navigates through an Interactive Voice Response (IVR), waits on hold and then finally talks to someone. Communications flows can be centered around what provides the best experience for the customer, not what the communications system can handle. If a customer service call results in scheduling an appointment, why not text details of the appointment for easy reference by the customer? 

    Proactive reminders as the appointment approaches are even better. Rather than subjecting customers to annoying IVRs with many simple prompts, they can leverage the technologies that drive Alexa and Google Assistant to help direct customers. Instead of the customer struggling to accurately describe what they are seeing, why not escalate to a video call so a technician can see what the agent is seeing? We also see this with options like automated call backs instead of having the customer waiting on hold to prolonged periods of time. 

    Next, you’ll need to find the appropriate technology stack that aligns with those standards. This often means using a CPaaS (communications platform as a service) platform that is compatible with your needs. Once you’ve found a solution that can cater to your needs appropriately, you can start building and integrating your communications system.

    Choosing the Right Solution

    There are a few things to consider when choosing the right solution. 

    • The solution you’re choosing needs an API function that suits your needs. Most of the apps and services need to connect your account with a consistent user ID that offers context into a user’s information and history. The most common practice is using a phone number as the ID because SMS is the fastest and easiest way to reach the customer, but you’ll need robust API capabilities in order to do that in a way that’s quick and catered to the individual’s account. 
    • If scaling your call-handling staff is a concern, you’ll need a solution that automates parts of the interaction to offload human callers. When implemented correctly, this will increase the efficiency of customer communications by solving customer problems faster. Done right, you can increase call volumes without adding to call hold times.
    • Unfortunately, scale is useless if you’re compromising quality. Automated customer service technologies and solutions need to be able to quickly recognize the intent and context of what a human is saying. Solid Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities can maintain a live dialogue with the customer and keep the conversation flowing in the same way a human customer service representative would. It doesn’t matter if the robot sounds and listens like a human if it doesn’t know how to respond to questions and statements in a human-like manner. 

    Customer communications should be a priority when it comes to building out any new application, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a hassle to implement. By keeping the best practices above in mind, you can deploy quality customer support in a way that’s approachable, scalable and simple to augment as needed.

    — Alexey Aylarov