Zoom Lands a 2,000-Seat Contact Center Deal

The win is a significant coup, with its CCaaS solution less than a year old

4
Zoom Lands a 2,000-Seat Contact Center Deal
Contact CentreLatest News

Published: February 28, 2023

Charlie Mitchell

Zoom will deploy its CCaaS solution across a 2,000-seat service operation in its “largest” contact center deal to date.

Ordinarily, deals of this size fall into the remit of specialist CCaaS vendors, such as NICE, Genesys, and Talkdesk, instead of UCaaS providers that stretch into the space, like Zoom.

However, Eric Yuan, Founder and CEO of Zoom, credits the expanding “features, functionality, and integrations” of the Zoom Contact Center as central to the win.

During an earnings call, he stated:

We’re adding more and more features very quickly, and I think we are doing very well. I have huge confidence in our product team.

Yuan also stated the deal demonstrates “the rapid progress we have made toward becoming a full-fledged contact center solution.”

While he didn’t share more details about the customer, Yuan noted that the solution is gaining particular traction with technical support desks – one year after its launch.

Perhaps this is no surprise, given Zoom’s reputation for high customer retention in its enterprise offerings. Yet, its close partnership with ServiceNow – another prominent CX player renowned for client loyalty – likely bolsters the stream of interest from this customer segment.

Through the partnership, strengthened in November, businesses may access the Zoom Contact Center within ServiceNow.

Moreover, the ServiceNow Employee Center sits inside the Zoom Contact Center desktop for improved agent experiences.

Meanwhile, teams can collaborate on ServiceNow tickets within Zoom Team Chat – enabling swarming capabilities.

By marrying together their extensive portfolios, both vendors sense the opportunity to move further into the CCaaS space. And their combined might is perhaps a factor in the Zoom Contact Center doubling its growth from Q3 to Q4.

Nonetheless, the ServiceNow collaboration is far from its only draw, with Yuan also referencing its Solvvy acquisition and other partnerships – including those with Verint, Zendesk, and CallMiner – as significant wins.

The Contact Center Becomes a Bigger Focus for Zoom

Despite its growth, the Zoom Contact Center only accounts for a small percentage of its revenue.

Yet, by 2025, Kelly Steckelberg, Chief Financial Officer at Zoom, expects this to change. She stated:

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.

Of course, such a ramp-up takes significant effort to achieve, as there is lots of complexity involved in large-scale CCaaS deployments – especially regarding voice architectures.

Moreover, the expertise of the people deploying large-scale contact center solutions is typically very different from those implementing Zoom for UCaaS.

Meanwhile, Zoom still has foundational elements to add to its platform, including digital channels, such as messaging apps and social media.

As such, the videoconferencing pioneer has lots to consider as it delves deeper into the contact center market and before it places CCaaS at the forefront of its go-to-market strategy.

Yet, Zoom is already planning ahead, aiming to grow its revenues by cross-selling to its UC base – with a more substantial land and expand strategy seemingly in the works.

Hinting at this, Yuan said:

[Expect a] change in our go-to-market model for contact center because the product works so well. So, that’s a part of [where] we need to focus on this year.

“To all those traditional customers… we should let them know, Zoom has a very scalable contact center solution,” he concludes.

A Lift In Zoom’s Revenues Is Likely In 2023

In Q4, Zoom’s enterprise business continued to thrive, with its revenues rising by 24 percent year-over-year (YoY) – up from 20 percent in Q3.

However, the decline in its consumer business offset this, with overall revenues only increasing by four percent.

Unfortunately, this slow growth resulted in Zoom posting its first net loss since 2018, with Steckelberg noting increased stock-based compensation as another cause.

Yet, such news is unsurprising given the economic slowdown, which resulted in Zoom laying off 15 percent of its workforce earlier this month.

Moreover, the drop off in its consumer business was always on the cards, as people return to their pre-pandemic routines and spend less time on video calls.

Zoom will likely post higher overall revenues when this decline starts to level out later in the year, and the enterprise takes up a more considerable percentage of its earnings.

Adding to this probability, Yuan revealed a 27 percent growth in customers contributing more than $100,000 in trailing-12-months revenue.

Also, if its contact center customer base continues to double in size every quarter, Zoom may set itself up for a brighter close to 2023 after a tricky start with its job cuts.

Just before the earnings call, Zoom promised new AI innovations. Discover more by reading the following UC Today article: Zoom Teases Future AI-Powered Products

 

 

CCaaShybrid workUCaaS

Brands mentioned in this article.

Featured

Share This Post