Last February, Zoom launched its CCaaS platform: The Zoom Contact Center.
Since, it has made acquisitions, developed many partnerships, and expanded beyond North America – sweeping into EMEA and APAC.
Most importantly, its platform has evolved at a rate of knots, with Zoom adding conversational analytics, a workforce engagement tools, and virtual agents.
Heck, it even has something called the Zoom Contact Center Kiosk.
Still, there are some basic building blocks that Zoom must fill in. Email and social channels are notable gaps the vendor promises to plug soon.
Nevertheless, industry spectators have been taken aback by the fierce pace of innovation – and its winning Zoom more customers.
350 CCaaS Customers After One Year
Around 350 businesses turned to the Zoom Contact Center in its first twelve months alone – according to Scott Brown, Head of Zoom Customer Experience Sales & GTM for Zoom.
These are not only SMBs either, with 51 percent of Zoom’s revenues coming from enterprise and mid-market customers.
Of course, much of this business stems from its existing install base. Nonetheless, the CCaaS offering is also allowing Zoom to attract new clients.
“Our strategy was: we have a loyal, captive install base, let’s start there,” stated Brown during a recent episode of ZKast.
“90 percent of our year-one engagements were upselling into our existing base. Ten percent were net new customers to Zoom.
Something I didn’t envision, however, was that the ten percent of customers comprised – in our last quarter – over 40 percent of our revenue.
As such, Zoom’s encouraging customer wins are not only a result of its high customer loyalty. Instead, some companies are choosing the vendor over conventional CCaaS stalwarts – and not just smaller businesses.
Another testament to that is a 2,000-seat megadeal Zoom confirmed in April. CEO Eric Yuan credited the win to the CCaaS platform’s “features, functionality, and integrations.”
Zoom’s agent experience innovation with CX high-flyer ServiceNow, new hybrid work framework, and expanding ecosystem are perhaps also attributable to such significant deals.
Nonetheless, Brown believes its early success stems partly from service leaders connecting with its divergent approach to the market.
Zoom’s Divergent Approach to CCaaS
“Customer experience is getting board-level visibility and investment as customers try to differentiate themselves,” Brown said. “That’s where we can come in, work with our customers, and help them free their minds.
It’s about creating new experiences and not being bound to the 713 discrete functions and features they have at their disposal today. We’ll have that conversation, but that is not where we start.
“Free your mind, consider what we can do together, what we can create, and how we can deliver more meaningful, beneficial, and productive end-user experiences.”
Such a strategy – alongside its countless year-one moves as a CCaaS vendor – highlight how the contact center means much more to Zoom than many first assumed.
Indeed, it’s not merely an exercise to stretch its UCaaS platform. The contact center represents an integral part of Zoom’s future.
The Future of Zoom In Contact Centers
During a recent earnings call, Kelly Steckelberg Chief Financial Officer at Zoom, doubled down on the growing strategic importance of CCaaS for Zoom. She said:
We expect [the Zoom Contact Center] to continue to contribute through all of this year but then really start to accelerate from a contribution perspective in FY ’25.
That acceleration will likely run alongside the international expansion of Zoom’s CCaaS platform, with the rollout expected to continue over the coming months in Europe. Moves into Africa and the Middle East are also on the horizon.
Moreover, increased growth will likely coincide with the planned additions of new digital engagement channels, agent-assist solutions, and generative AI innovations.
Those additions will likely come during the upcoming release waves for the Zoom Contact Center.
The latest included the launch of new voice of the customer (VoC) capabilities, real-time transcriptions, and an API for its much-heralded video channel – amongst other product enhancements.
That speed may have surprised some, but not Zeus Kerravala, Founder and Principal Analyst at ZK Research.
“I’m excited to have Zoom in the contact center industry,” he stated.
“When they first jumped into Meetings, people thought: Why? There’s no room for innovation left! Low and behold, Zoom founds lots of room for innovation.
Even in the contact center, there was this feeling that the market had run its course and not much innovation was coming.
“Yet, with the explosion of digital and – of course – AI, there is the biggest change engine for this industry maybe ever.”
Will that change engine prove significant enough for Zoom to seize a substantial chunk of the CCaaS market in the coming years? That is impossible to answer.
Nevertheless, the intent, speed of innovation, and investment are there, as the vendor aspires to earn $10BN in annual revenue and become a CX juggernaut.
