Cloud PBX Vs Cloud Contact Center: Know The Important Differences

First, let us understand what cloud contact centers really are. A cloud contact center is a comprehensive suite of tools, applications and cloud-hosted services for contact centers or the customer support divisions of a company. A cloud contact center may include tools and applications for telephony, messaging that includes – chat, SMS, social media, bot etc. as well as email, CRM and Omni-channel.

There are several cloud contact center providers in the customer experience space today; offering solutions with varied deployments like hosted cloud and shared cloud but the real difference in service comes from their telephony offering.

A cloud telephony application streamlines the incoming and outgoing call flow of a business and comes with several productivity improvement and monitoring features. This telephony functionality can be provided in two ways, namely Cloud PBX and Cloud Contact Center. We will discuss the difference in features of these applications, but first let’s see what each application means.

Content:

 

PBX stands for Private Branch Exchange, which is a private telephone system that enables an organization to communicate internally as well as externally. The PBX is the “machine” that routes incoming calls, enables a business to transfer calls to other extensions, and houses all the specifications of how a business phone system should work. The PBX may use telephone hardware to execute the phone calls or use a computer integrated telephony or softphone system to execute the calls. A cloud PBX is a hosted communications solution that provides the same private branch exchange services as an on premise PBX solution without the added cost of infrastructure management. Cloud PBX Market is projected to reach USD 14.76 Billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 14.17%

1. Call routing with DID

DID stands for Direct Inward Dialling, it is a feature heavily sort after and appreciated by businesses, as it allows them to map several numbers to a trunk line. By doing this, the lines can be segregated to different departments for accurate call routing that in turn helps accurate customer service delivery and therefore improved customer experience. A DID mapping not just helps businesses for external call routing but also helps better the internal communication with in the team.

2. Click to call

A click-to-call is an important business feature that gives customers the opportunity to connect with a business in one-click. The click-to-call feature integrates on a business’s website and any number shared by a visitor gets dialled out automatically. This ensures a quicker response time for the business.

3. Find me, follow me

This is a productivity feature that allows an agent to map both their IP desk phones and mobile phones to a DID number. That way when they receive a call, both their desk phone and mobile phone rings and the agent has the choice to answer from any device. This feature supports enhanced agent productivity by enabling them take calls even when they are not on their desk.

4. Screen pop ups

This cloud PBX feature is particularly for agents managing calls from their softphones or IP desk phones. What screen pop up does is, it shows the details of the caller along with their interaction history to the agent as the call connects. This ensures that the agent is informed about the call and can take necessary actions to provide first call resolution to a customer.

5. Collaboration features

The cloud PBX provides multiple team collaboration solutions like screen sharing, call transfer, call conference for the agents to collaborate with their supervisor or another agent to serve the customer correctly. Some of these features like – call transfer or screen sharing can be done by agents without the customer on call knowing about it.

These are some of the top features of a cloud PBX solution. Let us now understand what a Cloud Contact Center Solution is and what are the top features it offers.

 

A cloud contact center as described above is a comprehensive suite of tools, applications and cloud-hosted services for contact centers or departments handling customer service and engagement in a company.  A cloud contact center is comprehensive suite that integrates multiple communications channels (including phone calls and messaging), and comes with sophisticated call routing, agent management and analytics features.

 

1. Multi-channel integration

A cloud contact center is capable of integrating multiple customer outreach channels like telephony, SMS, Email, social, chat, bot, CRM etc, to give a 360 degree understanding of a customer. The cloud contact center solution can also be integrated with Omni-channel for a unified timeline view of interactions with customers across channels.

2. Advanced telephony features

A cloud contact center provides for deeper customisations to improve agent productivity and first call resolutions. It comes with advanced routing mechanisms that can easily handle complex routing rules like sticky agent, or routing on the basis of skills, geographic location etc. It also provides some advanced agent support features like whisper coaching, knowledge base integration, advanced auto attendants and IVR so customers get to speak to the right agent at the first shot.

3. Detailed analytics

A cloud contact center solution comes with detailed analytics and logging tools like call logger or screen logger so that the supervisor of a customer service operation is informed about the contact center’s functioning. The supervisor not only gets important insights on call reports like call dropout rate, abandoned call rate etc, but also gets agent level information like the average handling time, shrinkage rate, first call resolution rate etc.

4. Advance dialers

A cloud contact center stands out because of the ability to provide advance dialers which can do progressive or predictive dialing. When the contact center manages high volume outbound calls, such dialers are critical to productivity as they save lot of agent time who otherwise would be manually dialling out and wait till the call gets connected. With auto dialers, the agent continues to be in call with prospects and immediately gets connected to the next prospect as soon as the previous call is disposed.

5. Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)

ACD is core to cloud based contact center. Unlike Cloud PBX, a cloud contact center can route calls to agents based on different criteria – skill based routing or VIP calls. Different queue can be managed for different campaigns. Sticky agent feature allows calls to be connected to specific agents with particular caller based on the caller preference.

6. Queue management features

An efficient cloud contact center solution comes with advanced call queue features like queue call back option, interactive IVR, custom music and on-hold messages, personalised greetings etc.

7. Use of AI

It is easier to use and integrate artificial intelligence and modern innovations with the stable cloud contact center solutions. A speech recognition solution or an AI and Natural Language Processing based chatbot can provide smoother transitions  and end-to-end integration with an exhaustive cloud contact center platform.

 

So with this clarity on Cloud PBX Solutions and Cloud Contact Center solution, the question now is:

The answer is:

- Choose Cloud PBX Solution If

- Choose Cloud Contact Center Solution If

 

Though both the Cloud PBX solution and the Cloud Contact Center Solution serve the purpose of streamlining customer interactions, Cloud Contact Center Solution is far ahead in enhancing customer experience with its advanced and scalable personalisation features.

Before procuring a cloud based telephony solution, it is imperative to understand the business needs and to make the right choice. After all the trade-off between the two makes a huge difference for ultimate business outcome. Write to us if you wish to get more insights into cloud based contact center solution.