Demystifying and Harnessing the Power of CPaaS: A Comprehensive Deep Dive with Telarus HITT
This week’s HITT session was hosted by Adam Hiatt, the Director of Unified Communications, and Vincent DeCicco from Vonage, where they delve into the world of Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS). They aim to demystify, dispel, and debunk some of the common themes, pushbacks, and challenges that we often hear from our technology advisors regarding this technology.
What is CPaaS? CPaaS, or Communication Platform as a Service, can be considered a customer communication cloud. Providers like Cinch, Vonage, and Telepear Infobip, among others in our portfolio, have assembled all the necessary components to work with whatever your customers already have to create purposefully built solutions. These solutions create hyper-personalized interactions and experiences for their customers. It can encompass anything from messaging, chat, voice, video, and email to specific forms of customer outreach, such as verification and deliverability.
Common Myths About CPaaS They debunk the following myths surrounding CPaaS:
- CPaaS is Confusing: CPaaS is simply a set of features, a set of functions, a toolbox of ways that we can go to our customers and say, “Listen, are you able to communicate, reach out, work with your customers in every way that you want and every way that they want?”
- CPaaS is Complicated: CPaaS is more about identifying unique business outcomes that will provide value for our customers.
- CPaaS is Expensive: CPaaS is usage-based. It could be something as simple as wanting to send out 50,000 SMS messages a month to your customer base, promoting a new product that you’re releasing.
- CPaaS isn’t Commonplace: The mobile device and the mobile platform are the future of all forms of customer interaction. If we don’t help our customers communicate with their customers via this preferred channel, then they are simply going to miss out on all the associated benefits and value adds.
The Power of Seasonality and CPaaS: Adam highlighted the power of seasonality in businesses like the Spirit Store, which changes locations annually. CPaaS could be a perfect tool for such businesses to send out text messages to their customer base, informing them about the new location each year.
Vonage: A Comprehensive Solution: Vonage was mentioned as a ‘wedge’—a great way to solve immediate needs. Once a need is solved, Vonage can discuss the rest of its offerings, including a complete UC and CC suite.
The Role of Technology Advisors: Vincent encouraged all technology advisors to start thinking of CPaaS as something that can either pull through to the conversation or kickstart a conversation they’re already having with their communication project clients.
Engaging the Telarus Team: Adam emphasized that every technology advisor on the call is at a different point in their journey regarding how comfortable and experienced they are within UC, within the contact center, and now with CPaaS. He encouraged partners to engage the Telarus team and sell together.
The Next Step for Technology Advisors: Adam recommended that technology advisors put themselves in the position of being a customer of their customer. This could involve calling their support line or trying to place an order on their website and abandoning the cart. By doing this, technology advisors can identify gaps and bring them to their customers with a relatively simple-to-deploy solution.
In conclusion, CPaaS is a powerful tool that can help businesses communicate more effectively with their customers. By debunking the myths surrounding CPaaS, we encourage more businesses to explore this technology and discover how it can benefit them. Whether it’s sending out promotional information, appointment reminders, or preventing fraud, CPaaS offers a range of solutions that can be tailored to meet the unique needs of each business. As the market continues to evolve, CPaaS stands as a great stepping stone for other discussions that technology advisors need to have about security, UCaaS, and other technologies.
Click here to access the recording in Telarus University to learn more: https://lms.telarusuniversity.com/forums/topic/31582