This content is part of the Essential Guide: How unified communications is getting down to business

How are contact center vendors using APIs?

APIs are gaining relevance, as contact centers move to a more omnichannel experience. API expert Tsahi Levent-Levi explains how contact centers work with CPaaS providers.

Many of the cloud-first contact center vendors today rely on communications APIs offered by third-party communications platform as a service, or CPaaS, providers, or are starting to offer communications APIs of their own.

If you look at the market of communications API and CPaaS providers out there and check their customer base, you will find that many of the providers focused on voice calls are used predominantly by contact center vendors. These providers may also build specialized contact center and customer relationship management (CRM) applications. Deploying communications APIs enables contact center vendors to focus on capabilities other than communication infrastructure, such as user experience for the contact center agent, tighter integration with CRM services and analytics.

As contact centers move toward omnichannel experiences, so are communications API vendors, meaning communications API and CPaaS providers don't play a role in the pure voice calling domain of contact centers. Instead, contact centers are using communications APIs to support voice calling in social messaging and other channel interactions.

The other side of the equation is contact center vendors are beginning to provide their own communications APIs that serve their partners and third-party integrations. These APIs enable the creation of application marketplaces by contact center vendors and enrich the capabilities they can offer their customer base.

Do you have a question for Tsahi Levent-Levi or any other experts? Ask your enterprise-specific questions today! (All questions are treated anonymously.)

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