Get technology booster dose for CX

CPaaS players must add new capabilities, tools, and channels that can help businesses offer exceptional consumer experiences

In today’s digital-first economy, businesses are continuously evolving ways to engage with consumers. At the same time, consumers have changed the way they interact with brands, looking for faster and more satisfying digital experiences. They are expecting an end-to-end engagement from brands, at their convenience with knowledgeable support, interactivity, and friendly service.

Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) providers also have to deal with the same expectations from the businesses that they serve. In their endeavour to shine in this new landscape and embrace the opportunity, CPaaS players must be ready with new capabilities, tools, and channels to support and enable businesses to offer exceptional experiences for their consumers.

Let us explore how the industry can take on these challenges that are likely to shape the CPaaS business in the days to come.

Wider adoption of a digital-first strategy

The focus in the year ahead for CPaaS companies will be on the efficient and measurable delivery of services. Leveraging technologies, enterprises across industries will be able to enable digital outreach to consumers and address their needs in real time.

Spread of the 5G trend

The industry will witness an increase in the use cases supported by 5G while interactions will become more intertwined with the daily lives of people. The exchange of information across all the platforms will become faster with 5G. Of the 800 million smartphone users in the country currently, about 10% are already 5G-enabled. It is expected that by the end of 2023 about 80% of smartphones will be 5G enabled. For CPaaS providers this means a larger consumer base and a better opportunity to connect people with businesses.

CPaaS providers will be able to create better visual experiences by plugging their video capabilities into the Metaverse framework.

Security and authentication

These are times when the power of decision-making lies in the hands of consumers. This means digital engagement will assume a new meaning. However, with increased digital engagement there will be a need for better security, authorisation, and authentication since any breach could mean the loss of reputation for businesses and consumers moving to competitors.

AI and ML to the rescue

Artificial Intelligence will enable a better customer experience. While the technology has already penetrated the industry, the use cases are likely to increase in the year ahead. For instance, the pairing of live videos with emotion recognition technology will have excellent benefits for various industries, especially those that are customer-facing. Based on the emotional state of customers, contact centre agents will be able to respond to them in a better manner. The next few years will see growth in AI- and Machine Learning-enabled intelligent conversational messaging and commerce through popular messaging apps.

Metaverse to take off

As an alternate reality primarily driven by its visual component Metaverse will emerge a bigger opportunity for businesses to leverage virtual engagement. With CPaaS providers plugging their video capabilities into the Metaverse framework, they will be able to create better visual experiences.

Pairing live videos with emotion recognition technology will drive excellent benefits for various industries, especially those that are customer-facing.

Imagine employees participating in meetings and other collaborations in their digital avatars; in a virtual space that is as realistic as possible. There are CPaaS providers already working on these technologies that can seamlessly be embedded with programmable Video APIs.

Low-code, no-code add value

The addition of new CPaaS features can only add value for developers when communications solutions are developed and deployed quickly. This is where low-code solutions are gaining popularity now. With these, developers will be able to build and deploy communication solutions rapidly and also reduce the time to test and time to market.

Hybrid communication for CX

Hybrid communication has a huge role in the year ahead given how users can reach out to businesses through multiple channels. This kind of communication can provide personalised support through a cohesive and unified communication experience. In the year ahead, there will be more complex forms of hybrid communication solutions deployed using CPaaS, enabling engaging and realistic consumer experience (CX).

Hyper-personalisation rises

Personalisation being the buzzword of the day, customers increasingly expect a seamless, and engaging brand experience at every touchpoint. This is where data analytics has a major role to play in the next year. For instance, AI-powered contact centre agents will not just be able to handle simpler queries but even complex ones. Combining live video with emotional AI will make it possible for contact centre agents to intervene in case there is an issue and understand what solution to offer based on customer sentiments. And it will directly translate to better CX.

Omnichannel approach through communication cloud

This is the era of multiple communication channels. Brands today reach out to customers via SMS, WhatsApp, RCS, e-mail and social media channels. By creating a communications cloud, CPaaS providers can offer companies the benefit of integrating all these channels into one cloud, for seamless access and service delivery. This technology is likely to see an uptick in the times ahead.

E-mail as the preferred channel

There will always be a need for people to connect with others and businesses through digital communication channels. This is where the year ahead will see e-mail making a comeback as a strong channel for transactions, authorisation, authentication, and acquisition, supported by deliverability services.

By Nitin Singhal

Nitin is the Managing Director of Sinch India

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