Formation Tech specialise in the mid-market UCaaS and CCaaS space. As providers of both, they have a niche in the mixed technology play. I spoke to Co-Founders Dan Cholerton and Mark Tyers to learn their first-hand experience of businesses requiring customer experience enhancing functionality within their UCaaS platform.
Customer experience
Dan said "The nature of consumers - and what they expect - crosses over to business life. Every business must consider not just an IVR, but the opportunities they provide their customers on the terms that want to communicate on. That could be social media, online or a good old-fashioned call. The market is pretty buoyant on our offering right now".
As a millennial with a customer service machine in my pocket, I suggested that I would always expect the experience to be perfect if I had to make a call. I walked through examples of holding on web chat and sending a few tweets - and still needing to make a call.
Mark said
"People are used to using all sorts of media channels and they expect them all to be really good. By the time someone needs to call you, it needs to be as efficient as possible. At this point, they have a specific need and have exhausted all other channels possible".
Contact centre principles in UCaaS
"As a result of that, we're seeing organisations interested in the principles of contact centre and workforce management capabilities but without changing the organisational structure. The bottom line is getting through to the right person, by providing intelligent routing and omni-channel, but without changing the shape of the business.
I asked whether there was a naivety in the CCaaS market towards businesses not requiring a full-fat contact centre. There is a tendency for CCaaS providers to go all in on their omni-channel offering and over provide functionality.
