Professional Services

CTIntegrations Uses Avaya CPaaS for Proactive SMS During COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown customer support teams into the unknown. Studies emerging from the crisis show that the percentage of service calls scored as “difficult” more than doubled in a few weeks, with hold times and call transfers skyrocketing. CTIntegrations, integrated Avaya CPaaS into its flagship product, CT Suite, to enable proactive SMS messaging to mobile callers. This allows customers to embed rich and collaborative capabilities in an agile way to help manage change and continue creating experiences that matter.

Challenge

Clients needed solutions for overburdened agents handling incoming increased voice calls.
Company required to move agents to work from home on a secure network to serve customers.
Customer frustration with inability to reach a live agent.

Value Created

Avaya Contact Center skills-based routing, enables a blended agent strategy.
Enabled proactive SMS messaging to mobile callers to offer them news ways of communicating with centers.
Two-way communications helps customers get resolution to their inquiries reducing the need to speak to a live agent.

CTIntegrations USES THESE SOLUTIONS

Avaya OneCloud CPaaS

Avaya OneCloud CCaaS

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown customer support teams into the unknown. Studies emerging from the crisis show that the percentage of service calls scored as “difficult” have more than doubled over the last few weeks, with hold times and call transfers skyrocketing. Many service reps are working from home for the first time ever, stressed and operating at peak capacity, with little to no preparation for the transition to remote work. This overload is especially difficult for contact centers providing essential services. Customers are dropping calls or calling back multiple times per day only to face the same issue, making the problem worse.

To solve these daunting challenges, CTIntegrations, a software development and system integration company, integrated Avaya CPaaS into its flagship product, CT Suite, to enable proactive SMS messaging to mobile callers. CT Suite is an innovative, user-friendly agent desktop and multimodal contact center and secure messaging solution that delivers out-of-the-box functionality, modular scalability, and effortless customer interaction.

Avaya CPaaS is a natural fit for CT Suite enablement because of our close alliance with Avaya and tight integration to the Avaya Elite platform. The current API capabilities are robust and we are excited for what the future brings with the CPaaS portfolio.

With research showing that 70% of customers call into the contact center using a mobile device, and nearly one-third have sent a text message to a company requesting assistance, proactive SMS messaging has the potential to transform the value that CTIntegrations provides and the experiences that its clients deliver--not just during times of crisis but as part of a long-term customer engagement strategy. For CTIntegrations, many of the APIs available in the CPaaS portfolio are not services that they would want to develop in-house. Having them available from Avaya as easily consumable services accelerates their innovation and ability to enhance customer experiences.

“The ability to use text messaging is like opening up a whole new set of lanes on the highway, unclogging the way forward for mobile callers and easing the burden on voice callers,” explained Paula Morton, Managing Director at CTIntegrations, LLC. “Many customers are already using their mobile devices for all their calls, making this a convenient option. SMS is an application which is used constantly in our everyday lives. Many age demographics prefer to communicate over SMS compared to other means such as voice or email.”

The solution works by detecting whether a caller is using a phone capable of SMS text or a voice-only device. If capable, the solution will offer SMS as an alternative way for mobile callers to communicate versus waiting in the queue. The solution can engage in seamless two-way communication, providing important information to callers (i.e. links to Web pages or document repository), information forms to be completed while in queue, callback options and more.

The solution can also be bot driven with handoff to a live agent when necessary. Interactions can be seamlessly escalated to voice or video, along with contextual information for agents to streamline conversations. In many cases, a call can be successfully completed without the need for a live agent to the satisfaction of the caller. Customers can go about their day, agents can be kept available to handle more complex or urgent issues, and organizations can reduce more expensive voice calls (SMS can be used as a lower cost method of supporting interactions and is often viewed by customers as a service enhancement).

The ability to use text messaging is like opening up a whole new set of lanes on the highway, unclogging the way forward for mobile callers and easing the burden on voice callers.

The company can also use CT Suite and Avaya CPaaS to route SMS interactions through Avaya Contact Center skills-based routing, enabling a blended agent strategy and a unified agent interface supporting all customer interaction channels. SMS interactions can be routed based on variables like the last agent a customer spoke to, area code for creating more local and authentic connections, or key words and phrases. The company can also drill down reporting by queue, SMS number, agent or disposition.

COVID-19 has given brands no choice but to move at an unprecedented speed to maintain service levels and employee wellbeing. Avaya CPaaS enabled CTIntegrations to embed rich and collaborative capabilities in an agile way to help its customers manage change and continue creating experiences that matter.

“Avaya CPaaS is a natural fit for CT Suite enablement because of our close alliance with Avaya and tight integration to the Avaya Contact Center platform. The current API capabilities are robust and we are excited for what the future brings with the CPaaS portfolio,” said Ronny Flaatten, CEO at CTIntegrations, LLC.

For CTIntegrations, many of the APIs available in the CPaaS portfolio are not services that they would want to develop in-house. Having them available from Avaya as easily consumable services accelerates their innovation and ability to enhance customer experiences.

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About CTIntegrations

Based in the technology hub of Austin, TX, we are a contact center product and development company through and through. CTIntegrations is your number one source for contact center integrations and development. We have been providing innovative solutions since 2007. We’ve provided our business partners and end customers with a wide range of services, actively listening to their needs and customizing our work to their unique circumstances. Our passion is creating innovative, functional, and cost-effective solutions that work and look great on every device and platform.