What’s on the horizon for the CPaaS market?

Organizations spread across every industry you can think of are adopting cloud-based Communication Platforms as a Service to build a more comprehensive, compelling experience for their customers, clients, and even patients.

Communication Platforms as a Service—more simply known as CPaaS—is a modular solution that provides the APIs, software development kits, integrated development environments, and sample code organizations need to seamlessly introduce new contact channels into their customer experience.

Cloud communication companies can offer flexibility and scalability, allowing organizations of any size to unify their customer experience, servicing customers in their preferred channels while balancing complex operational demands and supporting live agents. You can find out more about the benefits of CPaaS, and if you want to find about more about how it works read our What is CPaaS? article.

With all that to offer, it’s no surprise that the global CPaaS market is in an intense period of hyper-growth, as forward-thinking organizations embrace the opportunity to expand and futureproof their customer engagement strategy. The CPaaS market is growing rapidly, here are three major CPaaS trends to keep an eye on in the next few years.

1. The CPaaS market is only going to get bigger

Gartner reports that the CPaaS market grew by 40% in 2021 alone, and expects its compound annual growth rate to reach 30% through to 2025. Meanwhile, IDC placed the market’s value at $5.9 billion in 2020, and predicts a surge to $21.7 billion by 2025.

Several market factors are combining to drive this growth. The last few years have had a complex impact on digital transformation, accelerating some changes while bringing others to an abrupt halt.

With less pressure for face-to-face interactions and a large influx to digital service channels, CPaaS has benefitted from recent disruption.

And for many organizations that paused transformation plans, returning to business-as-usual means they have scope to invest in improvements for their customer experience to meet growing consumer demands. Crucially, the value of solutions that can adapt quickly is clearer than ever—so more will be turning to as-a-Service offerings such as CPaaS.

2. CPaaS offerings will continue to mature

CPaaS offerings are evolving all the time in line with technological advancements, organizational demands, and the needs of end users. This evolution will likely come in the form of new and improved channels for organizations to add to their mix.

Video is the perfect candidate, especially now so many customers are regularly using video conferencing tools in their everyday lives. Organizations will need to consider the use cases for video carefully, as consumers have strong opinions about which channels they think are suitable for different interactions.

But for contacts that benefit from high levels of personalization or a visual connection—such as remote health appointments, mortgage application discussions, or perhaps even troubleshooting advice from a washing machine manufacturer—video can provide that human touch remotely.

Rich communication services (RCS) are also on the rise, boosting interactivity far beyond the standard SMS. Plus, new messaging apps are joining the market all the time, and the existing roster is getting more advanced. Taking advantage of these new channels and capabilities will help CPaaS leaders deliver a more comprehensive offering.

3. CPaaS will deliver a secure, centralized approach to omnichannel

Many organizations struggle with keeping their channels linked together and secure, especially when they’re using legacy point solutions that can’t easily share the information agents need to deliver a joined-up customer experience. Customers want to drop in and out of different channels based on what’s most convenient for them, but they don’t want to put their personal or financial data at risk.

The simplicity and flexibility of CPaaS’s API-based approach will make building a unified experience far easier, and end-to-end encryption means organizations can build a complete omnichannel experience that protects data—whatever channel its being used in.

This will ensure every customer has a consistent experience however they choose to get in contact with an organization—even if they switch channels along their journey—and give them peace of mind that their information is secure.

The next five years will be instrumental for CPaaS

CPaaS’s popularity is set to soar, changing the way organizations interact with their customers across industries. This revolution is already well underway; companies are already benefitting from the simple management and significant customer experience improvements that only an enterprise-grade CPaaS solution, such as Webex Connect, can provide.

CPaaS is a surefire, futureproofed way to deliver the personalized, user-friendly omnichannel experiences your customers are looking for while balancing all the demands of your business operations.