Glossary
CCaaS
Contact Centre as a Service is cloud software for teams whose job is answering calls: queues that hold callers, routing that matches them to the right agent, and reporting that shows how the team performed.
CCaaS, or Contact Centre as a Service, is cloud-delivered software for teams that handle a high volume of customer calls. It provides call queues, skills-based routing, callbacks, wallboards, supervisor monitoring, call recording and reporting. Unlike a general phone system, it is built around agents, queues and service levels. Many businesses run CCaaS for their support or sales team and a standard phone system for everyone else.
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What it means
A phone system treats a call as something to deliver to a person. A contact centre treats it as work to be distributed, measured and reviewed. CCaaS provides the tools for that: queues that accept and hold calls, rules that match a caller's need to an agent's skill, supervisors who can watch queue depth on a wallboard and listen to calls, and reports on wait times, abandons and agent activity.
The 'as a Service' delivery means the same benefits as a cloud PBX: nothing on site, agents anywhere, capacity added per seat. The difference from UCaaS is the audience. UCaaS is for every employee; CCaaS is for the team whose main job is the phone.
How it is used in a business phone system
- A support team of eight agents handles calls from a queue with callback offered after a set wait.
- Skills routing sends French callers to bilingual agents and billing questions to agents trained on the billing system.
- A supervisor watches a wallboard, moves agents between queues at peak times, and reviews recordings afterwards.
- Daily reports show service level, average wait and abandon rate per queue.
How 3CTel uses it
3CTel's Contact Centre is the CCaaS layer of the platform. It provides skills routing, callbacks, wallboards, supervisor monitoring, recording and reporting for the teams that need them, while the rest of the business uses the standard phone system on the same platform and directory. A specialist designs the queues, skills and overflow rules with you, tests them, and quotes the agent and supervisor seats required.
Contact Centre
Queues, routing and supervision for teams that live on the phone.
Learn more: Contact CentreContact centre software
Queues, skills, callbacks, wallboards and reporting for teams of 5 to 50.
Learn more: Contact centre softwareHigh Call Volume Teams
Queues, callbacks and analytics for teams that are always busy.
Learn more: High Call Volume TeamsCommon questions about CCaaS
How small can a contact centre be?
Smaller than the name suggests. A team of three or four people answering a steady stream of calls benefits from queues, callbacks and reporting just as a large one does. The question is not headcount but whether calls arrive faster than they can be answered and whether someone needs to know how the team is doing. If both are true, contact centre features pay for themselves.
Do we need CCaaS if we already have a cloud phone system?
Only for the team that handles volume. A cloud phone system's ring groups and simple queues are enough for most departments. CCaaS adds skills routing, callbacks, wallboards, supervisor tools and detailed reporting for a support desk, a dispatch team or an inside sales group. On a platform that offers both, those seats are added for that team without changing anything for everyone else.
Related pages.
Contact Centre
Queues, routing and supervision for teams that live on the phone.
Learn more: Contact CentreCall Analytics
See what your phone traffic is actually doing — and staff for it.
Learn more: Call AnalyticsCustomer service
The phone workflow behind a support desk that answers, follows up and improves.
Learn more: Customer serviceDesign a contact centre around your queues.
Tell us how many agents you have, what callers ask for and how long they wait today. A specialist will design the queues, skills and overflow rules, test them and quote the seats.