Choosing the right CCaaS vendor for your enterprise business
As you choose a system for your Contact Center, do you focus only on the system or do you think about which vendor you choose? Do you want to buy a shelf item where things are as standardized or do you want a vendor who develops you? We are diving into these questions and shedding light on how we at LeadDesk differ from other vendors.
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As you choose a system for your Contact Center, do you focus only on the system or do you think about which vendor you choose? Do you want to buy a shelf item where things are as standardized or do you want a vendor who develops you? We are diving into these questions and shedding light on how we at LeadDesk differ from other vendors.
When you are investing in a CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service) platform, it should be a commitment of several years. This is to avoid reorienting agents and managers of a new software. Gartner addresses this statement in their article on "how to choose your best-fit vendor for Contact Center as a Service." LeadDesk has interviewed some of our customers on how their process looks when choosing a vendor.
How do you choose the right CCaaS vendor?
What is important to have in mind is how you want the relationship with your vendor to be like. If you want them to develop you and think of more news that you haven’t thought of, how involved you want to be with them, to have the vendor make more proactive development instead of ordering tailoring, etc.
In the process of acquiring a new Contact Center, customers choose not only a system, but also a vendor. Many of the RFPs (Request For Proposal) are very focused on the vendor checking all the standard boxes. Such as the environment, labor law, safety, and that you follow standards and work processes. But who exactly is the vendor? How can customers ensure that they get a vendor that offers the level of cooperation they want?
“Our most important advice is to let the strategy and direction of the Contact Center be the driving force for choosing a system, not let the system decide the strategy”
– Anita Østerbø, Director of Direktebank Sparebanken Vest
Evaluate shortlisted vendors’ customer, partner and developer communities
One recommendation from Gartner’s article says:
“Evaluate shortlisted vendors’ customer, partner and developer communities for their peer insights, their influence on products’ direction, and the value they add to solutions”
– Gartner
To inspect Gartner’s statement closer, we asked our customer Sparebanken Vest if this was something they thought of when they chose us as a vendor, and how we possibly cover this. Sparebanken Vest has a good customer-supplier relationship with LeadDesk, as Anita Østerbø Director of Direktebank Sparebanken Vest says herself.
“At Sparebanken Vest, we tend to say that we live off the traffic from our customers. This means that we must have good solutions for workforce management. This is crucial to be able to deliver efficient and profitable customer center operations. Reporting on traffic patterns and follow-up of employees must be intuitive and easily accessible. After using LeadDesk, we have gained exceptional insight into traffic, customer behavior and very good control of workforce management.”
– Anita Østerbø, Director of Direktebank Sparebanken Vest
How does LeadDesk differ from other vendors?
LeadDesk, as many other vendors, want to be close to our customers. What we see as a key factor to this question is that we are close to the European market, where all of our customers are located. Our company is in Europe with our local servers, local operators, we follow local legislation, no data leaking, etc.
Some of our customers view on choosing a CCaaS vendor
It’s our vision to be a trusted partner in the cases we are doing. We have talked to SpareBank1 SR-Bank and Sparebanken Vest about the process of selecting a vendor for CCaaS, and if our vision covers this.
“SpareBank1 SR-Bank focuses on finding a vendor that is reliable, maintains continuity according to an agreement, long-term thinking, that their systems are technically competent, and ability to develop tailoring and off-the-shelf products.”
– Alf Sveinung Lie, Bank manager PM Digital Traffic Center at SpareBank1 SR-Bank
Sparebanken Vest focus on many of the same things as SpareBank1 SR-Bank.
“When we choose a Contact Center vendor, it is important that we have a close and good relationship based on insight, trust and a common desire to succeed. A supplier who “plays us well” and who is a strategic sparring partner in relation to trends and development.”
– Anita Østerbø, Director of Direktebank Sparebanken Vest
Anita also mentions that in concrete terms they want a vendor that has the necessary and sufficient insight about them as a customer. With insight like this the vendor can be proactive in relation to present new solutions and opportunities. In addition to actively using this insight for further product and service development that is valuable to them. As well as assisting them in getting the maximum effect out of the services provided.
How LeadDesk meets our customers’ needs as a vendor
As mentioned in Gartner’s article
“Investment in a CCaaS platform should be for years, in order to minimize the disruption arising from the need to reorient users and managers.”
– Gartner
SpareBank1 SR-Bank has been a customer of LeadDesk since 2002. The collaboration started with the delivery of phone banking, and from 2010 a multi-channel contact center as well. Over the last ten years, the scope of delivery has increased with several banks and agents, and new integrations, customization and WFM (Workforce Management) solutions have been delivered.
“LeadDesk has operated well for a long time. They have kept operation, tailoring and development well. Personally, we have a very neat and good relationship.”
– Alf Sveinung Lie, Bank manager PM Digital Traffic Center at SpareBank1 SR-Bank
Read more about the SpareBank1 SR-Bank case here SpareBank 1 renews the agreement with LeadDesk for four new years
Sparebanken Vest is also a long-time customer of LeadDesk. Therefore, we saw it fit to ask them as well on how we meet the needs they previously stated in this article.
“We have experienced that LeadDesk goes to great lengths to deliver tailor-made special services and functionalities that we want. Example related to segmentation of different customer groups. You know us very well as a customer after many years of cooperation, and we experience that you use the insight you have about us to deliver customized solutions where possible and in need.”
– Anita Østerbø, Director of Direktebank Sparebanken Vest
Conclusion to Gartner’s statement on investing in a CCaaS platform
In conclusion to Gartner’s statement, we see that not only is it important to choose the right vendor for your business for several years to avoid reorienting the agents and managers. But also because in that way, over several years of relationship building and working together, you become better known as a company and people. In that way, we end up helping each other develop and become better.
Here we would also like to praise SpareBank1 SR-Bank, which in 2019 as our customer won Kantar’s KS-Index award for best customer service. A grand prize for any businesses to win in Norway.
You can read more about the KS-index price and an exclusive insight on SpareBank1 SR-Bank’s victory here The recipe that led to victory for SpareBank 1 SR-Bank
Build better customer relationships and tailor-made solutions
To add to the previous conclusion, LeadDesk wanted to give the readers some tips on what vendors can do to get your customers more involved in your company. LeadDesk has organized both webinars and workshops for our customers to keep them updated on the trends in the market and the future developments on our products. This is a great way to build better customer relationships and tailor-made solutions. At the workshops, the customers themselves can ask questions to our development team on what they feel they lack in our solutions, what they think is good, and what they themselves wish we could focus more on.
In December 2020, we had such a webinar and workshop, which turned out very successful. Our product development team presented fresh changes to the product and asked customers what they thought.
As LeadDesk acquired Loxysoft at the beginning of 2021, we have become a larger company, with more skilled employees and more products and services to offer. Which so far seems promising.
“We are now at a crossroads in the form of significantly changed customer behavior and changed traffic patterns. We are therefore very excited to receive a closer presentation of the new integrated solution for LeadDesk. What we have seen so far seems promising.”
– Anita Østerbø, Director of Direktebank Sparebanken Vest
Procurement trends currently in the market
To get a better understanding and provide the readers with some tips and advice, we wanted to look at the procurement trends that are currently in the market. To get a broader view of this, we asked some of our customers and made a list of their answers.
- Simplify, automate and optimize the way to help
- Be a priority for the right call and avoid waiting time where the case can go wrong
- Smart solutions for IVR in combo with other channels and help for self-help
- Requirements for sustainability and climate for our vendors
If you want to read more about the trends and future development in the market, we advise you to read our blog post on What is the future of customer service and how can you become the best at it? In this article, you get a view from several winners of the KS-Index price and our CEO, Olli Nokso-Koivisto.
