As TechTarget describes, “UCaaS connects an organization’s employees to each other, while CCaaS connects customer service and sales representatives to the company’s customers.”
“Deploying one or both solutions depends on an organization’s communications goals,” Khan says. “The biggest challenge many public sector organizations face is ensuring consistency of service and that advanced features of both solutions are fully leveraged to improve the citizen experience.”
How Can CCaaS and UCaaS Solutions Work Together?
The two cloud communication solutions fill slightly different niches but complement each other. For example, frontline government employees could interact with the public through a contact center while simultaneously engaging with knowledge workers and SMEs throughout their organization for background information and additional details that they can relay to constituents.
Such a setup involves implementing a unified, single-vendor platform that contains both CCaaS and UCaaS. Doing so could help with such essential public services as emergency response. “During a crisis, such as a natural disaster or public health emergency, the seamless integration of UCaaS and CCaaS enables swift coordination between agencies, providing real-time information to citizens and managing high call volumes efficiently,” Bond says.
Khan offers another example from Cisco.
“If constituents consistently raise the same point of view or issue, agents can relay this information to the appropriate representative to enable data-driven public-policy decisions,” he says. “The city of Buffalo uses constituent feedback from its 311 call center, which uses Cisco’s Webex Contact Center technology, to inform investments in the city’s Operation Clean Sweep initiative, targeting issues such as potholes, broken streetlights and street cleaning.”
Khan contends that the customer experience and the employee experience are connected. “This is why 66 percent of decision-makers want a combined UCaaS and CCaaS solution, according to a Forrester study commissioned by Webex,” he says. “By using an integrated UCaaS and CCaaS solution, organizations can have a full view of every interaction with the public and share insights gained from inbound and outbound inquiries across departments.”
DIVE DEEPER: Better decisions improve outcomes for public safety.
What to Consider Before Implementing CCaaS and UCaaS?
The digital transformation process within state and local government agencies needs to be smooth and safe, providing employees with the right tools while also meeting the privacy and security needs of the public. Naturally, working with trusted partners and vendors is key, and security must be a major factor in implementing the right solution.
Ultimately, how an organization embraces cloud-based communication solutions should be based on need.
At the end of the day, Bond says, cloud-based solutions come with a number of benefits, including scalability, cost efficiency, flexibility, security and open interoperability. Cloud-based solutions are an ideal fit for today’s work environment, as they provide accessibility from anywhere, enabling agency employees to work remotely to ensure continuity of operations and bolster employee well-being. UCaaS and CCaaS solutions also generally provide full-time, dedicated IT operations staff who are responsible for complying with service-level agreements.
“Modern UCaaS and CCaaS solutions leverage open, industry-standard protocols and application programming interfaces, enabling communication and interoperability across borders — between various agencies, and between agencies and citizens,” she says. “By eliminating the need for extensive on-premises hardware and infrastructure, cloud-based solutions offer cost savings and ensure that the costs mirror the government’s business volumes and requirements, thus delivering value when and where it is needed. Using these services, governments can allocate budgets more effectively and invest in critical areas.”
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