Beyond CCaaS: From Customer Data Dips to Customer Data-Driven

While legacy Contact Center Software (CCaaS) solutions like Genesys, Five9 and Talkdesk focus on deflecting customer interactions to help companies lower their cost to serve – even at the expense of the customer experience and revenue – Regal helps B2C companies drive more revenue from every interaction by using personalization to treat millions of customers like one in a million. The underlying tech stack required to deliver on personalization is fundamentally different from traditional CCaaS infrastructure, starting with how the systems access, process, store, and activate customer data.

Over the last 10 years, we’ve watched as B2C companies made large investments in collecting customer behavior data – from CDPs like Segment to Data Warehouses like Snowflake – to personalize one-way digital marketing, including advertising, email and push, but they were not being used to modernize Contact Centers. 

Why? Because legacy CCaaS were not built for processing and storing large amounts of unstructured, customer behavior data. So they’re blissfully unaware of that form you filled out online, that email you opened or that transaction that errored out. There’s 2 Cs in CCaaS but neither stands for “Customer.” Instead, CCaaS were built simply to route inbound support calls based on a caller’s key press of 1, 2, or 3 in an IVR. (Not to mention 0000000 please lord give me a human). And for outbound sales use cases, they were built to let agents iterate through a static list of leads and dial out using a one-size-fits-all approach, such as “call all leads 3x/day 3 days straight.” 

As more businesses moved online and troves of customer data became available, personalization became the phrase du jour, and even CCaaS providers started to give lip service to the idea. But when they talk about using customer data to personalize the Contact Center experience, the functionality they are actually referring to is their CRM integrations with e.g., Salesforce using what are called “data dips.”

Data Dips – Flirting with the Idea of Customer Data

A “data dip” is a database lookup that is performed when an inbound call enters an IVR. CCaaS solutions use data dips to pull customer information associated with the phone number of the caller to provide a piece of information to the IVR to relay to the caller or determine how to route the call. Some use cases include: 

• Verifying your customer’s identity by looking to see if the number already exists in your CRM
• Providing delivery status for a recent order by dipping into your Order Management System 

‍

Talkdesk’s data dip functionality looks like this:

A data dip can also be used for outbound calls to pull in a list of leads from a CRM to dial out to. This is also known as polling or syncing – where periodically (e.g., every hour) one system queries another system for the current state of the data.

Data dips or periodic syncing are commonly used in State-Based Systems – where low latency is less important and the path someone took to get to where they are is not as important as where they are at the current point in time. They’re reactive instead of proactive and rely on pre-defined, structured data.

The problems with data dips are:

• They introduce more latency in the caller’s or agent’s experience as now multiple systems need to communicate and accomplish potentially process-intensive lookups – IVRs are already annoying enough without this added latency
• They are painful to configure – you have to predefine all variables so that the lookup is valid, you can only return a limited set of fields, and in most cases you have to write the raw SQL yourself
• They may give enough information to properly route a call, but they don’t solve the problem of the agent being armed with the right customer data and context to have an informed conversation. According to Forrester’s “Time to Make Things Personal” report, when an agent needs to access multiple applications to piece together the customer information, it leads to an average of 8 minutes lost per customer interaction.

‍

Effectively, data dips are – as the name implies – a very surface level way of integrating customer data into the contact center software, and they therefore don’t deliver any meaningful personalization.

The Alternative – Unified Customer Profiles and Event-Driven CCaaS

Regal was built with a different vision for the future and, therefore, a different underlying technology. Our vision is that in an increasingly digital world – where your competitors are just a click away – brands will need to differentiate on service to win customers and increase LTV. Delivering great customer service at internet scale, requires you to know each of your customers’ prior behaviors, conversations and preferences, and to have the tools in place for both your automated systems (including AI) and your agents to turn that data into uniquely personalized experiences for each customer.

The tech stack matters. In contrast to a State-Based System, Regal’s serverless, Event-Driven Architecture enables brands to stream real-time, unstructured customer behavior data into Regal as it happens, and build Unified Customer Profiles in Regal that merge the complete activity history of each customer across all their digital touch points (e.g., mobile, web, email) and human interactions (e.g., call and text conversation data, agent-inputted CRM data) into a single, identity-resolved profile.

As events come in, not only is that data available on customer profiles for agents to leverage in conversations, but admins can also build journeys (automated workflows) that trigger off of those events in real-time or reference the complete history of those events (including properties of the events) to determine the next best path or action for that particular customer. Remember Goosebumps – the interactive, choose your own adventure book series by R. L. Stine? It’s like that, and when done right, goosebumps are what your customers will feel when treated with this level of personalization and intimacy. Below is a simple example of how Regal’s Journey Builder allows you to achieve this.

Why It Matters – The Customer Benefits of Personalization

According to McKinsey, 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions and 76% say they get frustrated when this doesn’t happen. When asked to define personalization, consumers associate it with positive experiences of being made to feel special e.g., “Meeting me where I am”, “Knowing my interests”, “Offering something just for me”, and “Checking in with me.” 

To bring it to life, here are three Contact Center scenarios that demonstrate the difference in the customer experience you can now deliver with Regal.

Scenario 1: Prospect starts opening a savings account on your website, but abandons before funding the account

Traditional CCaaS:

• Prospect: (At 8am starts the Account Opening process on iPhone – submits name, phone, net worth, income, savings goals. Reaches “Link funding source” step. Decides to check out a couple other neo banks first and stops short of linking a funding source. Heads to work.)
• Dialer: (15 min later, dial through list of all the prospects from last 15 minutes)
• Prospect: (Missed call while on Subway. At work, revisits your site again on laptop and clicks on the “No Fees” Learn more link – spends 2 minutes reading the page. By now has 4 competitor bank tabs opened. Opens account with one of your competitors and funds the account online.)
• Dialer: (3 hours later, dials through same list of prospects that didn’t answer first call)
• Prospect: (Answers Call) Hello?
• Agent: Hi Audra - this is Jake with BankCo. Can I help you finish setting up your account?
• Prospect: No thanks, I decided to move forward with another bank. (Hangs up.)

‍

Beyond CCaaS (The Regal Way):

• Prospect: (At 8am starts the Account Opening process on iPhone – submits name, phone, net worth, income, savings goals. Reaches “Link funding source” step. Decides to check out a couple other neo banks first and stops short of linking a funding source. Heads to work.)
• Journey/Dialer: (Based on net worth and income threshold, triggers an outbound call immediately)
• Prospect: (On walk to subway, answers call) Hello?
• Agent: Hi Audra - this is Jake with BankCo. I saw you were interested in opening a savings account to start saving for a house. That’s such an exciting milestone. Can I answer any questions and help you finish setting up your account?
• Prospect: Yes, I was wondering about your minimums and fees. But I’m just about to hop on the subway. Can you follow up with me later today? 
• Agent: Of course. I’ll shoot you a text with some more information in the meantime.
• Prospect: (At work, receives your text and revisits your site again on iPhone by clicking on the “No Fees” Learn more link you sent – spends 2 minutes reading the page.)
• Journey/Dialer: (Based on prospect revisiting your site, triggers an outbound call immediately)
• Prospect: (Answers Call) Hi, thanks for following up.
• Agent: Hi Audra - was the info I sent you helpful?
• Prospect: Yes, just want to double check my understanding that there are no ATM fees and no transfer fees, but there are a limited number of transfers per month?
• Agent: Yes, that’s correct.
• Prospect: Ok, thanks. I’m ready to move forward.
• Agent: Great - I’ll stay on the line while you fund the account in case you have any questions in the process. And I can help you set up direct deposit as well.

‍

By triggering calls at the right moments based on their unique behaviors and intents, rather than on an arbitrary cadence, prospects are much more likely to answer your calls and convert before you lose them to the competition. 

Scenario 2: Newly enrolled member of a healthcare program calls into your phone line

Traditional CCaaS:

• IVR: Hi this is HealthCo - to help route your call please let us know your reason for calling. Press 1 for questions about my care plan, Press 2 for billing issue, Press 3 for...
• Customer: 1
• IVR: Please verify your birthday. Enter Month, Day, and Full Year – 8 digits in total.‍
• Customer: 1211985‍
• IVR: I’m sorry, we did not receive your response. Please verify your birthday. Enter Monday, Day, and Full Year – 8 digits in total.‍
• Customer: Ugh. 01219185‍
• IVR: Do you know the name of the party you are calling? Press 1 for No, Press 2 to hear a directory‍
• Customer: 😡 0000000000#####000000 

‍

Beyond CCaaS (The Regal Way):

• IVR: Hi Mandi – thanks for recently becoming a member of HealthCo. Your main care coordinator Jamie is currently unavailable. Press 1 if you just want a call back from her, otherwise stay on the line to be connected to another member of our Care team. They’ll be up to speed on your case. 
• Customer: 🙂 👑 (Presses 1)
• (Automated) Text message: Mandi - this is Jamie. Sorry I’m not at my desk currently. I’ll give you a call back later, but feel free to text me in the meantime. 

‍

With a Unified Customer Profile as part of the CCaaS, anonymous callers desperately pressing 0s and #s on their phones are transformed into welcomed guests. A single, continuous conversation can be carried out between inbound and outbound interactions, and across multiple channels.

Scenario 3: Agent calls out to a lapsed customer as part of a winback campaign

Traditional CCaaS:

• Agent: Hi - this is Maria with Food Co. - I see you canceled your subscription with us and I wanted to offer you a coupon for $50 off your next order if you sign up for a new weekly subscription.
• Lapsed Customer: Did you fix the issues I was having?
• Agent: Oh, I’m not sure what issues you were having, you’re just on my list of customers who canceled their subscription in the last 12 months. But if you’ll let me know I’m happy to help address those.
• Lapsed Customer: (Hangs up. Blocks number) 📵

‍

Beyond CCaaS (The Regal Way):

• Agent: Hi - this is Maria with Food Co. - I see you canceled your subscription with us back in August because of 3 delayed deliveries in a row, and I wanted to let you know we started working with a new delivery partner in your zipcode who has a 99.8% on time delivery score. So I wanted to reach back out to see if you were open to signing up for a new weekly subscription. 
• Customer: Wow, thanks for letting me know. I’m definitely open to trying it again.
• Agent: Great – I’ve just reactivated your subscription and texted you a link to access your account to pick your first meal and delivery date. 
• Customer: 😋 🍲

‍

Armed with a history of the customer’s activity in one place – when they canceled, the delivery data, and the customer cancelation reason – the agent was able to reach out to a customer with a relevant solution and reason to resubscribe. They even avoided having to give a coupon, further increasing the LTV.

Why It Matters – The ROI of Personalization

According to McKinsey’s research, personalization that relies on first-party data (e.g., clicks on your emails, form-fills on your website, agent interactions) can drive 25% more revenue and reduce customer acquisition costs by as much as 50%. 

The mechanisms for why are simple:

• Higher answer rates – because you’re reaching out at the right moment for the customer
• Better on-call conversion – because your agents are armed with the right context for a better conversation
• Lower cost per customer interaction – because your agents don’t have to waste the customer’s time on the call checking data across many disparate systems 
• Higher retention and referral rates – because customers reward brands who deliver positive experiences

‍

Yet just 5% of Contact Center and Sales leaders in a Forrester survey say they believe their organization’s teams can provide high levels of personalization across all stages of their customers’ purchase journeys.

It’s time for these leaders to move beyond CCaaS. A new revenue playbook is needed that puts the customer first and relies on a modern event-driven tech stack that can turn large amounts of real-time customer data into more personalized experiences across your entire customer journey including sales, retention and support interactions. 

If you’re ready to move #BeyondCCaaS and start treating millions of customers like one in a million contact us.