Today’s high focus on customer experience is prompting many businesses to modernize their contact centers. As companies shift their communications to the cloud, it creates several challenges that did not exist when the contact center platform was on-premises. Smaller businesses are likely to purchase the telecom services directly from a contact center as a service (CCaaS) provider, but that’s not typically an option for large businesses.
Enterprise class companies have different requirements, are concerned with regulatory issues, and often have separate relationships with telecom providers. The cloud is the fastest path to contact center modernization, yet it does entail some risks. There are integration issues, security concerns and much more.
Also see: Top Cloud Service Providers & Companies
Duet for Genesys Simplifies Enterprise Cloud Contact Center Migration
Recently, Bandwidth and Genesys have partnered and announced a global bring-your-own-carrier (BYOC) solution, called Duet for Genesys, to help accelerate the enterprise contact center move to the cloud.
Bandwidth is a communications platform as a service (CPaaS) and network provider in 65 countries and an underlying carrier for some of the largest cloud platforms like Google, Webex, RingCentral and Microsoft Teams.
The company also provides services for voice, messaging, and 911 access. Every component of Bandwidth’s network is software-based with application programming interface (API) access, which means companies can utilize all the telecom features via API calls. Now Bandwidth is using its cloud platform relationships as a springboard to bring CPaaS services to the enterprise.
In my latest ZKast video, I interviewed Paul Dryden, vice president of business and development at Bandwidth, to discuss the partnership with Genesys and why enterprise contact centers are shifting to the cloud. Highlights of the ZKast interview, done in conjunction with eWEEK eSPEAKS, are below.
Also see: Tangoe Report: Pandemic Caused Major Shifts in IT Spending
- The enterprise contact center has been static for years, as most of the technology stack was managed on-premises. Businesses weren’t interested in Bandwidth replacing their existing carriers. That fundamentally changed with the move from on-prem to the cloud and the adoption of contact center as a service (CCaaS).
- Enterprises initially adopting CCaaS were small and medium-sized businesses. Once COVID-19 hit, larger enterprises flocked to CCaaS at extraordinary speeds. Today, every enterprise has either made the move to CCaaS or is in the process of moving.
- However, there are some challenges. The on-prem environment of a complex contact center involves dozens of different vendors. When making the move from on-prem to the cloud, service must be provided to customers without interruption. That’s a massive expectation from contact centers.
- Bandwidth has partnered with cloud customer experience orchestration provider Genesys to extend its Duet solutions—which allow businesses to unbundle complex telephony from their communications—to the Genesys Cloud CX platform.
- The early adopters of CCaaS and UCaaS wanted the option of purchasing everything from a single vendor. But rather than buying bundled telecom from a cloud provider, some wanted to bring their own carrier into the mix. Contact centers using Genesys Cloud CX can buy and manage telecom themselves.
- Bandwidth has partnered with a select group of cloud platforms to provide the BYOC service for Genesys. Bandwidth already offers BYOC across three other multi-vendor platform stacks: ZoomPhone, Duet for Microsoft Teams, and Duet for RingCentral.
- Bandwidth has been working with Genesys for more than seven years and is a key part of what Genesys provides in the background for its own telecom offering. The shared capabilities ensure that Bandwidth can pass call information to third party systems, which are integrated into Genesys Cloud CX.
- Going forward, Bandwidth plans to invest in enabling third-party tools that large enterprises are running on-prem. Not only can Bandwidth offer one-off integrations, but they can also equip enterprises with a universal telecom platform and CPaaS expertise as they move to the cloud.