From CPaaS to Digital Engagement

Amit Bathla

June 13, 2018

An explanation and an introduction to the verticals using it

If you are competing in the sharing economy, get ready for competitors who have lower costs and are spending big money to reach customers. Your job is to grow your business in this environment.

So, to help our customers adapt to this environment, we sponsored independent market research firm, Wainhouse Research to develop an eBook entitled "Using the Cloud to Attract, Engage & Retain Your Customers: From ‘Communications Platform as a Service’ to Digital Engagement." The eBook explores the concept of the sharing economy, today’s customer preferences and how enterprises are leveraging digital engagement.

We introduced this concept in our previous blog post on how enterprises are exploring digital engagement, or using new digital tools and apps, as a new way to meet customer expectations.

Digital engagement 1.0 is happening in the form of email or social media or live chats, etc. This level of digital engagement is key to satisfying today’s customers as they expect access to a wide variety of communication channels and preferences for each one can change from day-to-day.

But how are enterprises taking digital engagement tools to the next level? Enter CPaaS.

What is CPaaS?
Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS), as defined by the Wainhouse Research eBook, is “a set of cloud-based communications services provided through API’s, enabling developers to integrate these services into websites, mobile applications and other solutions like business process applications.”

CPaaS can deliver real-time IP voice, text, and video and can reduce the cost of communication because these tools are integrated with sales and business processes and in-house and third-party apps.

For example, the ALE “relationship machine,” Alcatel-Lucent Rainbow™ Connected Platform, acts as a CPaaS, allowing enterprises to integrate its powerful collaboration tools, such as instant messaging with presence and screen sharing, into existing in-house applications and business processes. Indonesian payments company PayTren is using the cloud-based platform to engage with its 1.7 million customers and make it easier to connect to the company and to use its platform.

Digital engagement enabled by the cloud
Customers are not the only ones changing, the cloud is evolving as well, with new speed and flexibility needed to deliver new services key to digital engagement. These new services may include digital communications through cloud-based video, messaging or collaboration, APIs, artificial intelligence, bots and analytics for added richness before, during and after customer engagement.

Digital engagement among verticals
You may be asking, what organizations are leveraging CPaaS for digital engagement? The answer is many, but for the purposes of the eBook, Wainhouse Research looked at use cases in government, higher education, transportation and healthcare and how the cloud is enabling these enterprises to gain an advantage today using the new services mentioned above. Each vertical examined has developed or is in the process of developing its own digital engagement services, each with unique challenges.

What is your enterprise doing to integrate digital engagement?
Has your enterprise begun integrating digital engagement initiatives? What has been your experience using CPaaS? Let us know in the comments below. And if you’re just beginning to research this topic, look for our next blog post on each of the verticals mentioned about and use case examples for how each vertical was able to use the cloud to enhance its customer engagement.