In the fast-evolving landscape of Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS), one name stands out as a driving force in revolutionising customer experiences – Zoom.
Today, we are privileged to talk with Ben Neo, the Head of Zoom Contact Centre and CX Sales Leader for EMEA. He is a seasoned professional with over 25 years of expertise in shaping strategies within cloud UCaaS and CCaaS.
Our guest, who began his career as a contact centre agent, brings a unique perspective to the table. Having witnessed the transformative journey of customer engagement technologies first-hand, he now leads Zoom’s Contact Centre and Customer Experience sales team. And he does so with an ambitious goal – to disrupt the contact centre marketplace during a pivotal shift towards cloud adoption.
Join us as we delve into the recent developments within the CCaaS industry. Learn how Zoom is at the forefront of these innovations, introducing tools like the AI Companion to enhance productivity and collaboration, ultimately redefining the future of customer interactions.
Please walk us through the overview of the UCaaS industry’s recent developments
The UCaaS sector is growing rapidly, with an expected 20.1% compound annual growth rate by 2030. Partly fuelling this growth is the convergence between UCaaS and Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS), with 54.2% of businesses integrating the two in the past year.
By consolidating technologies onto a single platform, companies can remove internal barriers to enable teams to work more collaboratively. Consolidating boosts employee productivity, meaning they can better support customers in getting their queries resolved faster, enhancing the customer experience. The demand for effective tools to empower contact centre employees has never been higher, with 62% of organisations now having full-time remote working contact centre workers.
Another key trend in the space is Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies moving to the forefront in UCaaS and CCaaS, helping companies manage communication more intelligently both internally and externally. AI-powered virtual assistants are helping to resolve issues without ever involving a live agent, freeing up workers to focus on higher-value interactions.
What is the impact of omnichannel functionality to improve end customer communication?
With omnichannel communications, agents can be more productive, and customers can resolve issues faster. Tools, such as video, phone and chat, offer customer service agents an easier and more effective way to fulfil their roles. Studies have shown that businesses see a 22% increase in revenue and a 25% increase in ratings after escalating an issue to a video call.
Building UcaaS and CCaaS into the same platform streamlines conversations between frontline and back-office staff within the same app, reducing toggle tax. It also enables both agents and supervisors to assist customers, with video or screen sharing during customer calls.
What are some of the main sectors that see the benefits of omnichannel customer service?
Industries you might not traditionally expect to adopt omnichannel technologies are also recognising its benefits when it comes to customer service. For example, the Formula 1 team leverages Zoom to connect with fans in Zoom Events, improving the connection between the team, racers and their customers. Elsewhere, in hospitality, hotels are turning to virtual kiosks which can be deployed at the front desk, meaning that customers can access a virtual receptionist without needing to man the front desk full-time.
Any sector where customer queries are routinely quite complex will benefit from adding the ability to use video calls and screen sharing. The technology makes it easier for agents to see the issue and customers to explain, meaning company experts can get to the bottom of complex queries quickly without having to be physically situated at the location itself.
Apart from contact centres, how does Zoom technology drive value in improving customer experience?
Integrated technologies such as Zoom make it easier to collect customer feedback and analyse customer behaviour. We developed Zoom Revenue Accelerator to help sales teams gain meaningful and actionable insights from their customer interactions. With Zoom Revenue Accelerator, agents are provided with meeting summaries, chapter summaries, sentiment, engagement and intelligent automatic extraction of next steps and good questions.
Another way technologies such as Zoom can drive value in customer experience is to boost internal communications. Customers notice when different departments or business functions don’t talk to each other during their purchasing journey. Making it easier for colleagues to talk to each other translates directly to improved customer experience.
Using UCaaS also makes it easier to map customer journeys, helping organisations to guide new customers along the same successful path. This helps businesses to anticipate customer needs, innovate and adapt.
How does AI play a role in assisting customer service agents?
AI-powered tools are designed to support CX agents by streamlining tasks, helping them work more efficiently. When interacting with customers, AI can summarise conversations, auto-generate replies, and even offer live-call assistance to resolve issues faster.
Additionally, AI-powered chatbots are a hugely powerful tool in freeing up agents’ time to work on higher-value tasks and driving revenue for businesses. At Zoom, we launched Zoom Virtual Agent which uses natural language processing and machine learning to understand and instantly resolve issues for customers via a digital channel. It delivers fast, personalised customer experiences, reduces call volumes and increases containment rates for customer queries, and drives significant cost savings for organisations. Our statistics show that 93% of interactions involving our intelligent AI chatbot are resolved successfully without needing to involve a live agent, translating to a cost saving of over $13 million a month.