Consumers in this digital age want fast and smooth conversation. Tailor-made to their needs and personalized to make them feel good and connected. They don’t forgive hiccups in their experience. In such a scenario, your communication must be the USP (along with the primary offerings) to stand out and beat your rivals.
With the rise in cloud platforms, this demand has given birth to CPaaS—an enabler to a holistic conversation with users along all the possible yet their preferred channels. By 2024, the CPaaS market value will cross $17 billion, UC Today quoted IDC.
Let’s first understand what CPaaS is.
What is CPaaS?
CPaaS or communication platform as a service is a cloud-based solution that helps companies add various communication channels to their tech stack using APIs. For instance, you can integrate SMS marketing software with your CRM and start communicating with your users with SMS under regulatory policies. But this is just one instance of comms as a cloud solution.
If you opt for a holistic solution, you can:
- Text message your users using SMS,
- Connect over WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and other social media messengers,
- Enable MMS and RCS texting with rich content like video, audio, GIFs, and infographics,
- Use web-based telephony,
- Follow security guidelines inherently incorporated,
- Deploy authentication and data security seamlessly.
Business Benefits of CPaaS
- Scale
Cloud-backed tools are known to have a lot of flexibility with your changing infrastructural needs and employee strength. And CPaaS system is much more than just software or a tool. Other than integration with your existing tech stack like a CRM solution, the configuration is also simplified. You can add or delete capabilities based on your requirements.
Added a new big-ticket client to your B2B clientele list? Following hundred new leads this month for your gym membership? Acquired a small product-based company? Scale up with CPaaS without a single glitch.
- Increase Efficiency
You can connect with your customers over various channels in real-time (of course, after seeking users’ permissions) and save many of your busy minutes. Dataflow from one channel to another for the same users or segments can help understand their needs and pain points.
When embedded with an enterprise-level system, you lend the power of easy user communication to your employees. Information now sits right at their fingertips. But this doesn’t need to compromise the data security or norms of the telecom or marketing industry.
- Pay What You Use
Stringent licensing with an application eats away at your money. You keep bearing the cost of the unusable licenses for months in case of scaling down a successful project. Similarly, every time you add someone to your marketing team, you can’t procure a new license without the hassles of several emails and delays.
That’s not how CPaaS behaves, though.
Cloud applications are usually pay-as-you-go. You only pay for how much and what you use. If you don’t use one of the capabilities of your CPaaS system, it will not be billed. Several cloud application vendors charge based on hours or days of their resource consumption, saving your bank account from a huge dent.
As we have mentioned, you can scale in a flash. And that also takes care of your investment part
- Speedy Go-to-Market
Imagine having WhatsApp integrated into your CRM with a few tweaks and drag-and-drop customization. Now imagine doing the same with multiple communication channels easily using CPaaS. Communication simplified, isn’t it?
Your CPaaS partner can bear almost all the integration load with a low code development environment in case of large setups and enterprise-wide CPaaS system. With artificial intelligence and NLP capabilities, smooth database linking, and communication rules, minimal development is needed
These features enable a fast go-to-market strategy.
- Better Customer Experience
At the core of your marketing is CX. And CPaaS renders a great CX when you have all the engagement channels in your basket. With real-time chat and call support, your customer care improves. Chatbot-enabled self-service on WhatsApp removes friction and time lag in communication. Automated reminders using SMS for drip marketing helps you get closer to your audience.
And ultimately, you increase your customer experience with CPaaS.
A CPaaS solution also automatically pushes a country’s or industry’s rules and regulations. You don’t need to worry about breaching GDPR or user privacy. So apart from reducing your go-to-market time, it improves your CX too.
Wrapping Up…
According to the industry experts like IDC and Cisco, the IT world in corporate sectors is fast adopting cloud and low-code applications. So, CPaaS holds great potential for businesses looking forward to engaging their users in real-time, two-way communication, and fruitful marketing. Stay tuned to the Textmunication blog page for more informational topics on CPaaS.
Meanwhile, if you are struggling with text marketing, you can read our 6-step getting started guide