Universal Telecom
Contact

Glossary · Customer service

CCaaS

In one sentence

CCaaS (contact centre as a service) is cloud-hosted contact centre software. It receives calls, emails and messages, routes them to agents, manages queues and gives supervisors live dashboards and reports, on a per-agent subscription.

Also known as : CCaaS · contact centre as a service · contact center as a service · cloud contact centre · cloud contact center

What is CCaaS?

A contact centre needs things an office phone system does not: splitting hundreds of calls across agents, watching wait times live, handling email and chat alongside calls, running outbound campaigns, measuring each agent’s work. That used to mean on-premises software and servers that were costly to maintain. CCaaS, contact centre as a service, delivers the same functions from the cloud on a per-agent subscription. Well-known examples include Genesys Cloud, NICE CXone and Five9.

How it works

A CCaaS platform combines several building blocks:

  • routing: an ACD assigns each contact by rules such as skill, language or availability;
  • multichannel queues: calls, emails, web chat and WhatsApp in one queue or separate ones;
  • the agent desktop in a browser, with the customer record brought up by CTI;
  • supervision: live wallboards, listen-in and coaching, call recording;
  • outbound: preview or predictive dialling for campaigns, which in the UK must respect Ofcom’s rules on abandoned and silent calls.

Telephony comes either from the CCaaS vendor or from your own carrier through BYOC. Many vendors also sell AI features such as automatic transcription or front-line voicebots; those are AI layers on top of the telephony, not part of it.

Example

A housing association in Glasgow has 45 advisers handling repair requests and rent queries, half of them working from home. Its old on-site system only handled calls. It moves to CCaaS: tenants are routed by the reason for their call, emails and web chats land in the same queues, and supervisors see waiting times for office and home-based advisers on one screen. Existing numbers stay in place through a SIP connection to the association’s carrier.

The association did not replace its office phone system: housing officers and the finance team stay on the cloud PBX, and calls that need a specialist are transferred between the two with the tenant’s details attached. Monthly reports now show which repair categories generate repeat calls, which helps the maintenance team plan its work.

CCaaS at Universal Telecom

For many small and mid-sized teams, the Universal Telecom virtual PBX already covers the essentials: IVR, call queues, statistics and recording. If you run or are choosing contact centre software, our SIP trunk can supply it with your numbers and calls.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between CCaaS and UCaaS?

UCaaS serves the whole company: phone system, video and chat for every employee. CCaaS serves the customer-facing team: multichannel routing, queues, live supervision, outbound campaigns and agent reporting. Many businesses run both, linked together.

How many agents do you need for CCaaS?

There is no minimum that applies everywhere. A team of five handling calls, email and chat may benefit. A team that mainly answers inbound calls is often well served by the queues in a cloud PBX.

Can CCaaS use my existing phone numbers?

Usually yes, either by porting them to the CCaaS provider or through BYOC, where the software connects over a SIP trunk to the carrier that keeps your numbers.

Related terms

  • Contact centre

    A contact centre is the team, processes and software that handle customer conversations across several channels, such as phone, email, chat and messaging, using shared queues, agents and reporting.

  • ACD (automatic call distribution)

    ACD (automatic call distribution) is the phone system feature that hands calls waiting in a queue to available agents according to a rule you choose, such as round robin, longest idle or skills-based routing.

  • Call queue

    A call queue holds incoming callers when every agent is busy and connects them in order of arrival as soon as someone is free, playing music and announcements while they wait.

  • UCaaS

    UCaaS (unified communications as a service) brings business telephony, video meetings, instant messaging and often file sharing together in one cloud service, billed per user and used from desk phones, computers or mobiles.

  • CTI (computer telephony integration)

    CTI (computer telephony integration) connects the phone system to business software, so the caller's record appears when the phone rings and you can dial a number with one click.

  • CRM integration

    CRM integration connects a business phone system to customer relationship management software, so the caller's record opens when they ring, staff dial with one click and every call is logged automatically.

Updated on

← Back to the glossary