May/June 19 - ChannelVision Magazine

at your service: Xaas Create NewRevenue withAPIs One reason that so many compa- nies have been slow to make the move is that they see communications sys- tems simply as a way to make phone calls. If they’re still making calls on their TDM system, why spend the time and money transitioning to a VoIP solution? But modern communications are about so much more than phone calls. And with cloud-based unified communi- cations as a service (UCaaS), you get advanced features that help improve customer experiences, increase cost ef- ficiency and grow your business. That’s why the UCaaS market will grow to nearly $18 billion by 2022, according to Global Industry Analysts’ figures Of course, every UCaaS provider is going to offer you a similar base set of services – VoIP, presence information, instant messaging, mobility, videocon- ferencing, desktop sharing and more. But in a sense, said Phone.com CEO Ari Rabban, “UCaaS is all about breaking down barriers between channels and eliminating silos within your communica- tions stack. But without APIs, UCaaS can quickly become a silo itself.” Rather than investing in a siloed UCaaS solution that doesn’t integrate with business workflows, it’s best to find a vendor with an extensive library of open APIs that deliver: Programmatic Integration: With- out APIs, you’d need to enlist develop- ers to spend hours coding the specific integrations wanted from communica- tions tools. But telephony APIs can give business systems access to UC services without the need for extensive backend development. Easy PBX Access: Phone.com APIs help business users take con- trol of UC services by providing easy PBX access, said Rabban. This allows business users to add new phone numbers, configure new devices, establish call routing rules and more to improve workflows in their specific departments. By taking these functions out of the hands of IT, users can increase productivity across the organization. Smarter IVR Systems: Interactive voice response (IVR) systems are no- torious for providing sub-par customer experiences. That’s partially because you’re forced to set inflexible rules that fall behind customer expectations. APIs help configure smarter IVR systems by introducing configuration flexibility to address evolving business needs. Business System Integration: One key to unlocking more value from UCaaS is to integrate with your CRM. With Phone.com APIs, users can inte- grate with Salesforce, Zoho and other CRM systems to surface customer records during sales and support calls and help customer services agents create personalized experiences. Applications Integration: As you evaluate UCaaS providers, one way to differentiate services is to look for Za- pier integration, said Rabban. Phone. com, which offers Zapier integration, empowers customers with myriad pos- sibilities when customizing applications for specific workflows. Zapier integra- tion allows Phone.com customers to extend UCaaS features into thousands of cloud-based solutions, delivering automation and significantly increasing workforce productivity. These are just five examples of the value that APIs can provide within UCaaS solutions. And with the level of maturity in the growing UCaaS market, they should be expectations (not luxu- ries) when evaluating potential vendors. Once you’ve determined that a UCaaS provider offers this baseline API func- tionality, you have to look more closely at whether or not you can customize integrations for specific needs. “APIs allow your customers to ex- tend our platform, enabling developers to integrate communications services capabilities in their apps,” added Rab- ban. “By reducing the required lines of code by 10x, Phone.com APIs stream- line development; shortened code cuts both developer training time and costs. “By making it quick and easy to customize deployments, Phone.com helps businesses tailor UCaaS to match customers’ needs, reducing churn,” continued Rabban. Rabban noted that back in 2017, “we saw an explosion of API integra- tions in the UCaaS market. That’s why, when you’re looking to offer UCaaS, you can use API functionality as a baseline for vendors on your short list”. But if you’re going to demand more from communications solutions than simply making phone calls, you need to find a vendor that will support busi- ness agility and flexibility. Limited API functionality won’t be enough. Unlocking the value of UCaaS, said Rabban, is all about workflows. o I t’s been more than 20 years since businesses have had the opportunity to shift from legacy TDM systems to IP-based communications. And yet, just two years ago, 72% of companies were still using aging TDM infrastructure as opposed to modern, high-quality VoIP, according to Nemertes estimates. Unlocking the value of cloud-based UC 63 May - June, 2019 | Channel Vision