Organizations worldwide are adopting a cloud communications approach, also known as Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS). CPaaS adoption helps to accelerate growth and enhance the customer experience. A better customer experience is all about having the flexibility to communicate with your customers across multiple channels based on the preferences that individual customers want. CPaaS presents an effective way to deliver this new, flexible kind of customer experience. With embedded solutions like Click-to-Call /WebRTC, customers can connect with contact center agents, by simply clicking on the ‘Click-to-Call’ call tab while using an app or website. Organizations that have yet to adopt CPaaS are likely to be struggling to provide such rich customer experiences, often forcing customers to leave an app or website to make a phone call to connect with a contact center.

With CPaaS, a business can integrate a true omni-channel communication strategy without the need for extra infrastructure investment or resources. That makes it an easy and cost-effective solution to implement, using a cloud-based communications platform that integrates all the fragmented communications channels into one. Think of it as bringing together voice calls, chat apps, Email, RCS, and SMS into one single service. At present organizations may have to juggle dozens of different service providers for each communication channel. With CPaaS, everything can be managed through a single provider. A CPaaS cloud communications platform, enables omni-channel communications features to be integrated into enterprise applications, using well understood and standardised application programming interfaces (APIs) to accomplish this task. The process of building complex communication strategies has been democratized as a result.

While SMS is a cheap and simple communications channel for most interactions, customers might prefer to use voice interaction to escalate issues requiring an immediate solution to a problem. Patients can instantly connect with hospital support staff or doctors for immediate assistance or account holders can connect with banks for reporting any theft, fraud, or loss of credentials. it is important for businesses to support customer and provide voice interaction when necessary.

CPaaS offers tremendous opportunity for a customise contact centre to address specific customer needs. CPaaS programmable voice communication plays an important role in managing a seamless customer experience flow via the contact centre. CPaaS offers a variety of options to fully customize your communication stack and you can integrate selected communication channels with the enterprise software you already use. CPaaS offers a service layer facilitating the management of communication flows on different channels: Inbound and outbound calling, Virtual Number management, Click-to-Call or WebRTC, making it possible to integrate communication functions into any customer facing application or business process.

According to industry analyst Juniper Research , the adoption of programmable voice communication is likely to be higher in some regions including Africa and the Middle East due to the low penetration of smartphones in many countries in these regions. In these markets , there is a reduced requirement for services such as RCS, OTT business messaging and push notification services over CPaaS platforms. Voice services include several different options to maximise the appeal and value of voice services for brands and enterprises operating within these regions.

How enterprises can use CPaaS programable voice solutions?

Outbound & Inbound voice calls: Organizations can take advantage of voice APIs when they need to adapt quickly to a changing environment, via embedded outgoing & Incoming calling to their contact centre.

With the world still suffering from the impact of Covid -19, availability of certain goods in online or offline stores presents a challenge due to frequent lockdowns & high demand. Organizations can delight their customers by enabling CPaaS programmable voice solutions in their overall communications stack. It greatly delights customers if they can receive communications across text or automated outbound voice calls, with updates about shipment delivery, or with information about the specific product a customer has been looking for. Using inbound call routing capabilities, an organization can enable the option for customers to talk live to a contact center agent for any further queries about a product or service.

Organizations can generate automated outbound voice calls to customers using Text-2-Speech or pre-recorded voice files to automate order confirmation, taking service feedback, setting up reminder calls for payments, or setting up appointments using an automated Voice Call API.

Virtual Calling Number (VCN) service or Number Masking: Organizations are increasingly taking utmost care to secure the personal details of their customers, Virtual Calling Number (VCN) ensures customers and businesses can make phone calls and send messages without exposing personal phone number details.

There have been several instances of widely publicised customer data breach across the globe, exposing the personal information of customers due to activity by hackers or organizations not making enough efforts to secure interactions between their customers and agents within an app. Virtual Calling Number (VCN) is provided to mitigate against these issues, by masking the full phone number details of a customer, in the interest of both organizations and customers.

Ride share companies or food delivery companies can now let drivers and customers exchange calls without sharing their full personal phone numbers. Online dating apps can opt for number masking solution to offer secure interactions for their users without exposing personal information and breaching data privacy regulations.

Click-to-Call: Click to Call is a perfect solution for organizations engaging with customers online, to provide prompt customer service. Click-to call APIs are used to integrate with an organizations’ communication stack, to provide seamless experience for customers without incurring any usage charges. This enables effortless interaction between organizations and their customers. Organizations can also provide instant web support to customers using Web RTC services, without the need to request customer phone numbers.

Multi-Factor Authentication: This is widely used by organizations to add an additional layer of security to an application for secure online transactions, account sign-ins, mobile apps, websites, and more. It provides one-time passwords, that can be delivered across voice, email or SMS channels.

How Tata communications CPaaS programmable voice communication solves business problems

• Simple to Integrate: REST based APIs can be accessed from any web-based or mobile application within a matter of minutes. Use a single resource (contexts), to create and manage masking sessions. Access is secured through Tata Communications’ API gateway using a unique identifier.

• Carrier Grade Experience: In-built protection against fraudulent usage with existing Tata Communications fraud controls; global regulatory compliance; end-to-end service management from a trusted carrier partner.

• Single Service with Global Reach: Leverage Tata Communications’ global voice and messaging footprint and termination agreements with over 2,000 communications service providers, through a single service. No onboarding for separate calling services is required.

• Streamline Operations, Lower Overall TCO: Leverage existing Tata Communications carrier relationship, by directly integrating a service you are already using and delivering traffic directly to Tata Communications’ global voice and messaging networks.