Among the many call center solutions made available today, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is rising as one of today’s most popular, especially for delivering premium customer service. In fact, according to a recent whitepaper released by Forrester Research, nearly 70 percent of organizations are either currently using SaaS solutions for “horizontal business processes,” such as customer relationship management (CRM), or are preparing to do so.
For those who may be new to the SaaS front, chief benefits include increased business agility; faster deployment rates; and sharper focus on mission critical business projects.
“Vendors are realizing this trend and are doubling down on efforts to offer comprehensive customer service SaaS solutions,” the company explains, citing the world’s largest CRM platform, Salesforce.com –which is a SaaS solution – in addition to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Oracle, SAP and Sage.
It’s indisputable that, as Forrester puts it, “a new crop of SaaS-based social customer service solutions has gained market attention.” It’s also clear that Software-as-a-Service is one of the huge technologies to impact customer service organizations, with Forrester pinning it to be one of its top 15 customer service trends that companies need to take into account to deliver customer service excellence in 2013 and beyond.
However, this newfound attention the technology has been garnering also calls for greater focus on such things as vendor selection, contracting, risk tolerance and organizational skill set requirements, the firm reasons.
If you haven’t yet evaluated how SaaS will impact your customer service strategy, now would be the time to do so. Forrester further predicts that the technology will push companies to mature and hone their skills to address emerging needs revolving around their cloud initiatives. This can include, for example, moving to an “agile project development methodology” or moving “toward vendor management processes that include negotiating new types of contracts, SLAs, and pricing models.”
How do you think SaaS will impact the contact center environment? Click here to access Forrester’s whitepaper, “Navigate the Future of Customer Service.”
