Communications is a massive opportunity and category. I’ll be focusing on Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS), Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS), and will also touch on what’s really energizing everyone today, Artificial Intelligence integrations that bring tangible benefits to communications technology. AI is everywhere, it’s top of mind and it’s exciting, particularly in these solution areas. UCaaS and CPaaS are conversations that continue to expand and evolve, which is why even the most specialized Partners need to refresh their knowledge on the approaches and solutions available today. To become and remain comfortable in this space, you need to know what they do for your customers and get to know some of the suppliers who are doing really exciting things.
Quick Definition | UCaaS: UCaaS is Voice in the Cloud, communication solutions so people can work anywhere. It brings together apps and services like call, chat, video, and audio conferencing into one platform. UCaaS is primarily focused on providing pre-built, all-in-one communication and collaboration solutions.
Quick Definition | CPaaS: CPaaS is more targeted, being all about messaging and digital. It offers tools, SDKs (Software Development Kits), and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to embed real-time communications capabilities – from life-like chatbots to SMS to two-factor authentication. These are the pieces developers can use to build their own communication solutions that make websites, customer service, and other applications responsive, engaging, and hyper-personalized!
Key differences between UCaaS and CPaaS:
- UCaaS is primarily for internal communication and collaboration within organizations, while CPaaS elevates external communication with customers, clients, or users
- UCaaS is often plug & play, with no need for extensive programming or development skills, whereas developers use CPaaS to build custom communication features into their applications
- UCaaS offers a turnkey solution with fixed feature sets, CPaaS delivers greater flexibility for creating custom communication experiences
- UCaaS builds around team messaging, file sharing, and conferencing tools, while CPaaS provides APIs and tools for building communication functionality
GigTel offers a true end-to-end UCaaS solution, encompassing features that typically would require multiple vendors! You can offer customers complete communication and collaboration integrations across numerous devices – smartphones, desk phones, computers, etc. – with unlimited employee-based, no-cost support. Their ability to smoothly transition to their service, including porting phone numbers and ongoing upgrades and maintenance is a selling point in and of itself!
A strong example of a CPaaS Provider is Sinch, with great solutions as singular APIs or a full platform, to reach out to and hold conversations with customers. They let organizations connect with customers via SMS text communication, rich messaging, voice, email, and across social, e-commerce, and popular platforms (Adobe, Microsoft, Salesforce, etc.) for both interactive dialog and verification. This can even include full management and support for Contact Centers. Sinch offers strong extremely user-friendly support, from initial sales service through to meeting ongoing needs like help deploying their SDKs and APIs with extensive developer documentation and tutorials.
The ability to utilize AI for real-time summaries, transcripts, analytics/reporting, employee scripting, and support can impact everything from customer interactions to employee relations by taking over repetitive functions like getting login help or tracking orders. UCaaS, CCaaS, CX, and CPaaS are all benefiting from these integrations as stand-alone tools (APIs for example) right through to dramatically altering complete platforms. AI is being used today to give prompts to customer service representatives, create employee schedules, and provide 24/7/365 support across the many channels people want to communicate.
Offering your customers more is an important consideration. Needs and demands change. Growth can’t happen forever, by differentiating yourself with great discovery and finding adjacent solutions to meet the challenges and long-term goals of your customers you are creating opportunities for expanded revenue and longevity of your business and client relationships. You don’t need to know everything, like what every one of the 200+ Providers in the Sandler portfolio does, where you can stand out is knowing your customers – what solutions they already have (like Microsoft teams), what their goals are, what they need, and how they’re operating today.
As a Sandler Partner, you’re never alone, you can rely on your Channel Manager or a dedicated Sales Engineer like me to help you become more comfortable in these conversations. And yes, they are conversations, part of an ongoing story that relies so much on relationships to be successful. You will continue to learn, and at a minimum, this will create additional streams of revenue for your business. Leverage your complete Sandler support team who are listed on your Sandler Portal homepage dashboard. For more information on the comprehensive support offered by your Sales Engineering team, feel free to email me directly at [email protected] or visit the Sandler Partners’ Sales Engineering webpage to find the Sandler Partners Sales Engineer dedicated to your area. We’re excited to work with you and have you as part of our community! Not a Partner, we can take care of that as well, start the ball rolling by visiting Become a Partner now!