The era of cloud consolidation is in full swing. Companies from every industry are combining their technology stacks, looking for ways to reduce costs, boost efficiency, and minimize complexity. But with so many UCaaS CCaaS providers to choose from, picking the right solution can be tough.
Comparing UCaaS and CCaaS vendors effectively is about more than just finding a provider who can offer all the features you need for the right price. You need to think about long-term priorities, evolving technologies, and your overall return on investment. Check out our Ultimate Guide to UCaas and CCaaS Integration.
Here’s your step-by-step guide to comparing UCaaS and CCaaS providers and ensuring your solution aligns perfectly with your company’s objectives and intended outcomes.
Step 1: Defining Outcomes and Objectives
It might sound obvious, but ensuring you prioritize UCaaS CCaaS providers that actually deliver tangible results for your business starts with understanding your objectives. This process starts with a little research. First, assess your current technology stack. What kind of solutions are you already using for unified communications and contact center processes?
Do you want to maintain some of your existing technology? For instance, are you looking for a way to add contact center functionality to an existing UCaaS platform like Microsoft Teams? Or are you ready to embrace a new ecosystem? How many tools do you need to integrate with your new UCaaS/CCaaS offering – such as CRM platforms or WFM apps?
Assess the current pain points and issues your teams experience working with disconnected tools (such as drops in productivity and data gaps or silos). Gather input from different departments and team members, and use those to help you define your overall objectives. For instance, you might be focused on improving customer satisfaction, increasing productivity, or reducing operational costs.
Step 2: Identifying Critical Features
Once you’ve identified your overall goals, and examined your existing technology stack, priorities, and pain points, the next stage is thinking about the features you need. Many UCaaS CCaaS providers will offer solutions with similar features, but there are differences between platforms. Important points to consider include:
- Collaboration features: Look at everything from unified presence information, messaging, video and audio calling tools, screen and file sharing applications, virtual whiteboards, and even task or project management capabilities.
- Contact center features: Consider all of the essentials, such as Automatic Call Distribution tools, IVR systems, and omnichannel communication tools. You can also look at call and screen recording tools, monitoring systems, CRM integrations, and custom AI agents.
- Advanced capabilities: Advanced features in a UCaaS CCaaS system could include everything from agentic AI systems, to analytical and reporting systems, quality assurance monitoring tools, and customer journey mapping tools.
Remember, when comparing UCaaS/CCaaS providers based on feature sets, don’t just look for a way to replace the features you already have in existing tools. Think about the future needs of your employees and customers, as well as evolving technology trends.
Step 3: Assess the Scalability of UCaaS/ CCaaS Providers
Scalability and flexibility are two of the most important things to focus on when comparing UCaaS / CCaaS providers. After all, you need your solution to adapt to your specific needs, and evolve with your organization as it grows. Some of the main points to pay attention to include:
- Deployment options: Based on your business needs, can your vendor or provider support fully cloud, or hybrid deployments? How easy is it to scale your ecosystem across multiple locations, and access different numbers or features for each team?
- Customization potential: Can your UCaaS/CCaaS system adapt to your specific requirements? Can you create custom dashboard experiences for each employee, design unique reports and workflows, and accommodate different user needs?
- APIs and integrations: How easy is it to connect your UCaaS/CCaaS platform with the tools you’re already using, such as your customer relationship management platform, workforce management tools, and archiving and security tools?
- Scalability: Does your UCaaS/CCaaS provider make it simple to scale your features and services up and down based on changing business demands, without unnecessary extra costs? How quickly can you access new capabilities and tools?
Step 4: Examine Reliability, Security, and Compliance
Next, it’s time to think about the reliability of your chosen UCaaS/CCaaS providers, as well as their approach to handling security and compliance. From a compliance perspective, your needs will vary depending on the industry you serve. If you’re in the healthcare space, for instance, you may need to ensure your provider supports HIPAA compliance.
In the finance sector, you’ll need to think about PCI-DSS compliance, and securing transactions. On a broad scale, it’s important to ensure you can collect and manage data from multiple channels within your UCaaS/CCaaS ecosystem, and monitor potential security risks. Look for vendors that offer extensive access controls (such as multi-factor authentication) and end-to-end encryption.
From a reliability perspective, check whether your vendor makes it easy to track the performance of your technology with insightful reports. Find out whether they offer an uptime guarantee (typically 99.9% or higher), for peace of mind. It’s also worth examining any disaster recovery or business continuity tools offered by your vendor, in case of system failures.
Step 5: Consider Customer Service and Support
Great customer support is another crucial consideration when comparing UCaaS/CCaaS providers. After all, even if you choose a system that’s highly intuitive and easy to use, you may still need to tackle technical issues and unexpected problems. You can usually get an insight into the level of support a company offers by reading user reviews and testimonials.
Pay attention to the level of support offered. For instance, does your provider offer assistance with onboarding and training? Do they have comprehensive customer success programs designed to help you get the most out of your new technology?
When it comes to accessing support, are professionals available to answer questions 24/7, or during specific times? Can you reach out over the phone, email, or instant messenger? Are there robust self-help tools and AI bots to help you handle common issues?
Step 6: Consider the Costs of UCaaS/CCaaS Providers
Finally, the cost of implementing your UCaaS/CCaaS solution, and leveraging the technology will always have an impact on your decision. The important thing to think about here is the “total cost of ownership” for your ecosystem. Look at each UCaaS/CCaaS provider’s pricing structure – for instance, do they charge per user/per month, or per feature?
Think about any hidden costs you’ll need to pay for initial setup and configuration, maintenance, training, upgrades, and extra support.
Compare the total cost of ownership for your platform to the potential ROI of your system. Remember to think about all the ways the solution will benefit your business. How will it influence customer satisfaction rates and retention, employee productivity and efficiency, or overall operational costs?
Don’t just choose the “cheapest” vendor, pick a provider that will give you the best value for your money by enhancing and improving team performance.
Choosing UCaaS CCaaS Providers The Right Way
As UCaaS and CCaaS convergence continues to accelerate in every industry, comparing and choosing the right provider is becoming increasingly complex. Following the steps above should ensure you choose the vendor that delivers the best benefits to your organization.
