Are you looking for ways to add chat and video functionality to your apps? Unsure how to proceed? You don't want to build these features from scratch, nor do you want a complex IT infrastructure to care for.
Well, here's where CPaaS, aka Communications Platforms as a Service, comes in.
With CPaaS solutions, you can quickly add different communication channels - message, video, and voice to your customer support framework. The best part? Their cloud-based structure minimizes investments while providing scalability.
Businesses across all industries and of any size can benefit from this solution. In this post, we'll walk you through what CPaaS is, its benefits for your business, and how different industries are using this tech.
What is Communications Platforms as a Service (CPaaS)?
This cloud-based delivery framework enables you to incorporate communication functions into your applications without having to construct ground-up backend infrastructure. It's like a toolbox with a host of ready-to-use communication features that you can integrate with your apps.
These include APIs for voice and video services, WhatsApp and SMS messaging, two factor authentication methods, in app messaging features, and push notifications.
Wondering how exactly you can integrate these features in your app?
It's a straightforward three-step method:
- Pick your preferred communication channels.
- Download their API from CPaaS providers
- Plug them into your app to engage in real-time communication.
Here’s why you should take up this integration!
5 Benefits of Integrating CPaaS into Your Business
Using CPaaS for your business offers a blend of scalability, flexibility and cost-efficiency that traditional communication apps can't match.
Here's a clearer look into the benefits this tech brings to the table:
1. Easily Integrate with Existing Apps
The major benefit of this tech is that it is easy to deploy into whatever app you have without compromising the quality of the solution. Since it primarily uses APIs, CPaaS ensures that communication features are added in a way that doesn't interfere with or compromise your app's existing functionality. Pretty convenient, right?
2. Omnichannel Experiences
Today, customers reach out to a business through multiple touchpoints. With the best CPaaS provider, it empowers you to add various communication channels to your existing platforms to deliver an omnichannel experience.
3. Cost-Effective
You know, adding new communication channels used to be a huge headache - expensive hardware, endless development, and maintenance costs. Now, with CPaaS moving everything to the cloud, companies are saving big on capital expenses.
Its providers mostly offer a pay-as-you-go feature that helps you cut down expenses when creating your own communications infrastructure.
4. Customizable and Scalable Solution
Do you need a speech-to-text and text chat feature but don't want video conferencing? Or want a responsive multifactor authentication system but don't want any messaging abilities right now? CPaaS can make it possible.
It offers a level of customization that allows you to meet your needs without subscribing to a bunch of extra features you won't even use. You can also tweak any CPaaS APIs to customize the solution as per your business needs.
On the other side, if you decide later that you would want to add a feature to your already integrated communication channels, you can do so with no fuss.
5. Design a Better Customer Experience
Imagine being able to chat with a company representative in real time without the hassle of long phone calls. How, you ask? Through CPaaS! It enables real-time communication between clients and companies directly on their websites.
For businesses, it's a game-changer too. You can address issues promptly and gain valuable insights into your client's needs. By making communication easier and more immediate, CPaaS helps create a stronger connection between companies and their customers.
8 Practical Use Cases of CPaaS Integration in Different Industries
Countless industries benefit from CPaaS every day, from healthcare to finance to food services. It is even predicted that as many as 95% of global enterprises will invest in this tech by 2025.
So, let's take a closer look at how CPaaS solutions serve different industrial sectors.
1. Healthcare
When you get on a video call to consult a doctor without visiting the hospital or receive a push notification of the appointment, and then chat with a bot to reschedule - that's all CPaaS technology in healthcare.
As the force behind rising tele-health, it offers an easy way to communicate with users through your healthcare app. This helps improve patient care and engagement.
CPaaS integrates into your tele-health platform to offer video calling, letting you connect patients with doctors virtually. It even automates scheduled reminders via SMS or voice calls.
But here's the kicker - it's not just about convenience. CPaaS solution takes patient privacy seriously, setting up things like two-factor authentication to keep patient info protected.
2. Retail
If you run a retail business, you would know how important targeted and timely communication with customers is.
With CPaaS solutions, you can show order confirmations to your customers and offer delivery updates. You can also inform them about the ongoing deals across various communication platforms. This ensures greater transparency in the entire shopping and delivery process.
You can use CPaaS integration to collect feedback on customer experiences via polls and surveys. This information helps you to make customers feel more valued by offering personalized deals and building brand loyalty.
3. Finance
How do you think financial institutions benefit from CPaaS solution providers?
Loan consolidation notifications and updates can also be streamlined through CPaaS, enabling financial institutions to provide real-time alerts and reminders to customers throughout the consolidation process, ensuring clarity and transparency.
By using a two-set authentication feature, you can protect customer's financial information from fraud on your platforms.
4. Food Service
Most of us today use online mobile ordering apps and delivery services. CPaaS communication providers enable critical functions within these apps to improve customer experiences.
They support private and safe chats between drivers and customers and sends out automatic updates about deliveries to customers.
Not to mention, CPaaS-enabled chatbots eliminate the need to wait for a customer support officer. Customers can ask their questions through live chats and automatically receive the best response.
5. Marketing Campaigns
Your customers likely use different channels to interact with your business. With CPaaS technology in place you can connect with them through their chosen means ensuring a unified and smooth experience across all communication channels.
Even better, you can automate marketing workflows, such as sending follow-up messages or promotional offers based on customer behavior. Furthermore, you could set up communications that are triggered by events for instance sending out confirmation messages once an order is placed.
When using Communication Platforms as a Service (CPaaS), you can incorporate feedback tools like SMS surveys or phone calls, into your marketing strategies.
6. Insurance
CPaaS integrations create automated status updates about auto maintenance, prescription refills, and pending documents for quick claim processing. Insurance agents can also use it to send messages about claim notifications and policy updates.
By integrating CPaaS communication features like call, text, or chatbot on the insurance platforms, agents can allow customers to start and manage claims via website or app and get answers to their queries within seconds or minutes.
7. HR and Recruitment
The recruitment process takes a lot of time and effort on your HR part. With CPaaS integrations, use predefined triggers to simplify the whole process.
For instance, you can remind candidates of upcoming interview rounds, conduct virtual interviews, or request document uploads, all in real time. If you want to push a candidate to the next round, trigger an automated call informing the candidate about the same. You can also share an automated email asking them to select times they're available.
Another way HR staff can leverage CPaaS is through company-wide alerts and notifications via chat, email, or SMS - reminding employees about upcoming events, sharing company updates or sending salary confirmations.
8. Customer Service
Gone are the days when you need to have a full customer support team to handle inquiries. CPaaS technology enables organizations of any size to offer personalized and highly efficient customer service.
From intelligent call routing to self-service IVR solutions, it ensures no phone inquiries are missed, and no customers are lost.
CPaaS solution allows you to prioritize incoming calls based on customer segmentation and automate outbound voice calls. This paves the way for targeted communications while freeing up space to focus on other vital tasks.
Conclusion
With the CPaaS Platform for businesses, you can fully customize your communications stack. Instead of building solutions or investing in one with predefined features, you can add selected communication features to existing apps. They give you exceptional internal connectivity and opportunities to scale your business growth.
If you want to take your communication on the cloud and deliver quick customer service, CPaaS is the way forward!
