Adopting contact center as a service (CCaaS) can help businesses elevate employee and customer experience, trim service costs, and identify new sources of revenue. But deriving the full value of CCaaS requires both technical acuity and knowledge of how new value drivers can be found. We asked Ivan Dopplé, Kyndryl Senior Vice President, Global Practice Leader, Digital Workplace Services, to explain the value that implementation partners bring to the equation and offer his advice on how to choose a partner that is attuned to your specific needs.

Q. What do you see as the most significant benefits of moving to the CCaaS model?

The first is moving from CapEx to OpEx spending. There aren’t a lot of capital expenditures required. The second is to elevate your disaster recovery/business continuity profile.

You’re also able to do advanced integrations with applications that improve not only client experience but agent experience as well. You can connect to customer relationship management (CRM) and historical databases about customers to make calls smarter and shorter.

Finally, agents can work anywhere at any time. That means the contact center can quickly pivot if there’s a challenge that keeps people out of the workplace.

Q. How is the shift to the cloud impacting customer and employee experiences?

The experience is improved for both parties when your agents are fully informed before the customer speaks to them. An informed agent saves the customer from having to repeat themselves, knows about the customer’s history, and can predict what they’re likely to be calling about.

Cloud platforms improve the employee experience in ways like introducing the opportunity for gamification, which makes the job fun and interesting. Managers can also see what the employee and customer are experiencing, so they can help proactively in ways they haven’t been able to do before.

Contact center training has always been a challenge. Before the arrival of CCaaS, agents had to be taken off the floor. Now online training can be done on the go and delivered at the right time. And you can do this anywhere.

Q. Why should a company partner with a third party instead of implementing a CCaaS on its own?

Running a contact center is not an easy job. Not many organizations have the skills needed to create and manage the process of moving important revenue-generating operations from on-premises to cloud-based operations. An advisory firm can mitigate those risks before going into production.

A services company like Kyndryl brings experts who have implemented CCaaS time and time again and can advise by listening to customers, understanding their needs, and giving them options during the design process they perhaps didn’t think of.

Experience is useful in both migration and operations. For example, if a customer needs around-the-clock training, we can bring in the right partner to deliver on that need.

Q. Should a customer make it a goal to transition to full self-sufficiency in CCaaS operations?

It depends on what's important to the customer. Do they want to focus on what they do best or devote resources to keeping a contact center accountable and responsive? If their goal is to make great candy, then having a partner like Kyndryl manage the contact center is a better option than doing it themselves. A partner will also help you continually optimize and personalize as well as keep up with contact center market trends.

Q. What are some key factors to look for in selecting a partner?

They have to be confident in what they do and be there for you to lean on. Look for someone who's looking to solve your business needs and has your best interests at heart. They should ask the right questions and fit in like another person on your staff, someone who's as committed to success as you are.

Q. How important is it that the partner has experience with multiple CCaaS vendors?

It’s very important, because that’s how they help the customer determine which features map to their business problems. Experience enables them to tell the customer which platforms best fit their goals. For example, in the public sector, you want platforms that have worked in government settings and have the right certifications and credentials.

To learn more about Kyndryl’s CCaaS solutions and services, visit Kyndryl here.