The Zoom Contact Center is ready to set sail into EMEA, with the UK & Ireland its first port of call.
From there, Zoom will soon launch its CCaaS solution in many other countries across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
The expansion follows the Zoom Contact Center’s success in North America, where it has achieved sales results Zoom’s executives had not expected “for another 18 to 24 months.”
Noting this, Ben Neo, Head of Enterprise Sales EMEA at Zoom Phone, told CX Today:
It has been a huge success over in America, and we (Zoom’s EMEA team) have been chomping at the bit to be part of that.
Neo delved deeper into the news in a video interview with CX Today ahead of the announcement. Check out what he had to say below.
EMEA Users Will Access All Zoom’s Latest CCaaS Features
EMEA users of the Zoom Contact Center will gain access to all its newly announced features in 2023, including those showcased at the recent Zoomtopia event.
Perhaps most notable is its new no-code virtual agent solution, which aims to make conversational AI much more accessible to mid-market businesses.
Unfortunately, deployment complexity and a disjointed vendor landscape have deterred the application of bots. Yet, Zoom hopes to increase the technology’s accessibility, making it a core part of its CCaaS platform.
As Neo stated in the above interview:
The virtual agent solution is no-code, easy to deploy, with super rich analytics (wrapped) around it.
Many of the other exciting announcements stemmed from Zoom’s partnership with ServiceNow.
Consider the new Ticket Collaboration with Zoom Team Chat solution, which ties its CCaaS and UCaaS solutions closer together. Through Zoom Team Chat, it allows agents to collaborate with subject matter experts (SMEs) across the enterprise to solve problems.
In doing so, the solution captures details of the customer’s query in a ServiceNow ticket, which the agent can share with the SME.
Another exciting feature is the ServiceNow Employee Center for Zoom, which pulls ServiceNow’s agent engagement solution into Zoom’s desktop client.
Elsewhere, the new Zoom Kiosk will also connect to the CCaaS platform.
However, alongside these additions, many will consider the Zoom Contact Center as it enables businesses to converge their UCaaS and CCaaS solutions and simplify the technology stack.
Moreover, those looking to leverage video to further the human element in CX may consider the CCaaS platform, as that is Zoom’s bread and butter.
Yet, the platform will most likely attract existing Zoom enterprise users across EMEA, with Zoom fast establishing high brand loyalty in the hybrid working world.
The Roadmap for Zoom in CCaaS
Further global expansion, with support for more languages, is top of mind for the Zoom Contact Center team.
Yet, it also teased investments in additional channels, supplementary CRM and WFM integrations, alongside new agent-assist features.
By adding agent-assist capabilities and further AI innovation, Zoom can – over time – grow its average seat price and raise revenues in a way that UC does not allow.
Indeed, AI is front of mind for Zoom, as it is for many other CCaaS vendors.
Now the vendor is further strengthening its natural language processing and machine learning capabilities, which will allow it to attack the broader contact center stack.
In addition, these AI enhancements will enable Zoom to enhance its current offerings, including its virtual agent.
Yet, Neo highlights that much of its future innovation will stem from customer input. He stated:
We will ask customers: what do you want? We are keen to be driven and guided in that way because this is an industry led by customer experience. That is what Zoom is really good at.
Such internal R&D will likely fuel the development of its core capabilities as Zoom strives to close the gap with stalwart CCaaS players.
Yet, customers can perhaps expect Zoom to make acquisitions and add to its differentiated CCaaS features – as it did by acquiring Solvvy in May 2022.
Such an approach seems to be paying off, with the CCaaS solution playing a part in the 27 percent growth (YoY) of Zoom’s enterprise business, as noted in its latest earnings call.
Now, as the Zoom Contact Center becomes available in EMEA, Zoom will hope to push this percentage even higher in 2023.
