CCaaS Lite: Combining UCaaS and CCaaS for a smarter approach
The Rise of CCaaS Lite
Contact Centre technology has long presented businesses with a stark choice: invest in a fully-featured Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) platform, or rely on a more basic Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) system.
The Cost Conundrum
For many organisations, these two options present an uncomfortable reality: forced to choose between comprehensive CCaaS solutions, packed with features that many employees may never use, or settling for inadequate customer service tools.
If your team isn’t fully leveraging a CCaaS platform, it can start to feel like an unnecessary expense, especially when CCaaS typically costs 7–10 times more per seat than UCaaS. While CCaaS undoubtedly offers powerful customer engagement capabilities, not every business needs the full suite, nor do all employees require advanced features.
Take, for example, a mid-sized company with 50 employees, where only 10 handle customer interactions. Paying premium CCaaS rates for those 10 users, while the remaining 40 use standard UCaaS, results in a cost structure that is hard to justify.
Fortunately, a more flexible and cost-effective middle ground is emerging – CCaaS Lite. This approach bridges the gap between UCaaS and full-featured CCaaS by allowing companies to selectively add key customer engagement tools to their existing UCaaS solution.
Emergence of CCaaS Lite
Instead of an all-or-nothing investment, more businesses are taking a smarter route, building their own CCaaS Lite solutions by integrating targeted contact centre features into their current UCaaS platforms. This “pick and mix” strategy empowers organisations to create bespoke customer service capabilities without incurring the costs of a full CCaaS deployment.
Popular CCaaS Lite Add-ons Include:
Dynamic Reporting: Real-time dashboards and customisable reports provide managers with the insights needed to optimise performance and enhance customer satisfaction.
Wallboards and Visibility Tools: Visual displays show queue status, key performance indicators, and metrics, keeping teams aligned and responsive.
Enhanced Analytics Suite: Advanced data analysis helps identify trends, measure success, and inform decisions around resource allocation and operational improvements.
Multi-Channel Communication: Support for WhatsApp, live chat, and social messaging channels, meeting customers where they are with omnichannel customer engagement
AI-Powered Tools: Smart automation, including chatbots, sentiment analysis, and automated responses, boosts efficiency while retaining the human touch that customers value.
Why it works
This smart, tailored approach delivers several key benefits:
Cost Efficiency: Pay only for the features your team needs, reducing per-seat costs while getting the functionality that drives results.
Scalability: Add features as your business grows or evolves, perfect for adapting to seasonal demand or expanding operations.
Faster Implementation: Integrating new features into an existing UCaaS system typically involves less disruption and quicker deployment than full CCaaS rollouts.
The Strategic Sweet Spot:
For many organisations, especially in the mid-market, CCaaS Lite hits the strategic sweet spot. It recognises that not every business requires enterprise-level contact centre capabilities, while also acknowledging that basic UCaaS features may fall short for today’s customer service expectations.
This approach is particularly valuable for businesses navigating growth, shifting service needs, or fluctuating demand. Instead of locking themselves into costly, oversized solutions, companies can build their customer engagement toolkit incrementally and sensibly.
Breaking down the crossover
The right choice for you
More businesses are realising that they don’t have to choose between high-end CCaaS and budget-friendly UCaaS. Instead, they’re crafting the right blend of features to match their needs and resources.
If you’re reviewing your customer communication strategy, the real question isn’t “UCaaS or CCaaS?” It’s how to combine the right features to serve your customers effectively without breaking the bank.
We’d love to help, as here at Evoke Telecom, we’ll work with you to design a solution that fits your needs and your budget. After all, the best communication solution isn’t the one with the most features, it’s the one that gets used and delivers measurable results for your business.
