Benefits of CPaaS: Take the complication out of communication

Russ Green, Chief Technology Officer at SAP Digital Interconnect

Johannesburg, 23 Mar 2020

In a white paper with the SAP Digital Interconnect group: “The Critical Role of CPaaS in Reaching Customers on their Channels of Choice”, Ovum referred to communications platform as a service (CPaaS) as a “quiet revolution” for customer experience professionals.

Revenues from CPaaS are projected to grow to $5.2 billion in 2023, and 67% of enterprises expect CPaaS to have an impact on their organisation within the next three to five years. But what exactly is CPaaS? And what are the benefits of CPaaS for your business?

What is CPaaS?

The term CPaaS refers to a cloud-based platform that makes it easier for developers to add API-driven communications and micro-services to their apps, without having to build the back-end infrastructure themselves. These capabilities can cover every channel – voice, SMS, e-mail and social – as well as automated communication mechanisms like chatbots.

A CPaaS offering will provide developers with APIs, sample code and software tools, as well as support to help them through the process of implementation. These tools can be configured by the developer to meet the needs of their particular app or service.

What are the benefits of CPaaS?

CPaaS makes it much simpler and feasible to integrate communications features into your app or service, connecting directly to end-users and consumers. Providers that can deliver multiple communications services – from enterprise messaging to social media and RCS – through a single API enable enterprises to reach a new level of agility by adding the channels they need, when they need them, without extensive development work and investment. It also handles other important considerations, like authentication, securely identifying that you are speaking to the right user, irrespective of whether you’re reaching out to them via SMS or they’re contacting you over WhatsApp.

Leading CPaaS platforms also offer intelligent messaging APIs that use failover rules, user preferences, response patterns and data connectivity to escalate and route messages automatically among push, SMS, social and other channels. This is vital in the modern Experience Economy, where connected customers expect to communicate with businesses in a contextual way that suits their needs.

How is CPaaS being used?

When Emmi Group, the largest dairy producer in Switzerland, began its digital transformation, the number one priority was creating a personalised customer experience in order to get closer to customers. By utilising an API from a CPaaS provider, Emmi easily integrated e-mail services into its existing digital marketing platform to help drive a 31% increase in customer traffic and a 3x increase in conversion rate.

Meanwhile, Swedish mobile network operator Netmore Group AB used APIs to simplify access to a global digital communications network and integrated interconnectivity services for its customer base of developers. In less than one day, secure and reliable engagement services were easily integrated into app projects and the average development cycles of new apps were reduced by more than four weeks using sample use cases and code, interactive documentation and analytics tools.

As the growth of CPaaS continues, we anticipate an ever-increasing variety of use cases, as developers continue to take advantage of the vastly simplified communications tools it puts at their fingertips.

Learn more about how CPaaS providers and APIs are helping developers successfully launch new digital engagement services and improve experiences:

Communications APIs: Mapping the Developer Lifecycle

The Critical Role of CPaaS in Reaching Customers on their Channels of Choice.

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Manpreet Kaur