With the average consumer seeing as many as 10,000 ads per day, brands must prioritize engagement-driven marketing strategies to stand out from the competition in a saturated market. As such, more businesses are turning to Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) solutions to streamline communication processes and boost customer engagement. CPaaS allows organizations to integrate real-time communications capabilities, like SMS, voice, video, and chat, into their existing applications without building infrastructures from scratch. This ensures they can send prompt, personalized communications to customers at scale.
However, while implementing a CPaaS solution can provide immense value, tracking the right metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) is crucial to achieving the desired outcomes.
Here are four KPIs companies should track to measure the success of their CPaaS service.
1. Cost Savings
One of the top reasons brands adopt CPaaS is the potential for significant cost savings. Traditional communication infrastructure can be costly to build and maintain. CPaaS, on the other hand, offers scalable and pay-as-you-go models that reduce overhead, infrastructure costs, and the need for extensive IT support.
To fully capitalize on these benefits, businesses need to track several key metrics, including:
Communication Costs Per Interaction
Understanding how much each customer interaction costs is essential when evaluating the financial benefits of CPaaS. Businesses should measure the price of each SMS, voice call, or other communication channel used. The key is to track the cost per customer touchpoint across different channels. This will help determine whether you optimize your communication channels to reduce costs.
By monitoring cost-per-interaction, brands can optimize their use of CPaaS to drive more efficient customer communication strategies.
Infrastructure and Maintenance Savings
Implementing a CPaaS solution eliminates the need for heavy investments in physical infrastructure and the ongoing maintenance costs associated with traditional communication systems. You can easily calculate how much CPaaS saves your business by tracking your overall IT and infrastructure expenditures pre- and post-CPaaS implementation. This includes savings on hardware, server maintenance, software licenses, and IT staff resources dedicated to managing traditional communication systems.
Operational Efficiency Gains
CPaaS platforms simplify communication workflows, reducing the complexity and overhead of managing multiple communication tools. Metrics like the reduced time spent on manual communication tasks or the number of customer service representatives required to handle queries can help businesses understand how much they save on operational costs. Increased automation and integration between different communication channels can lead to substantial efficiency gains.
2. Customer Satisfaction Improvements
Another key benefit of CPaaS is its ability to improve customer satisfaction. In an era where customers expect seamless and immediate communication, CPaaS helps businesses meet these expectations by offering multiple communication channels and providing real-time, personalized interactions.
Brands should monitor the following metrics to glean a better understanding of the impact CPaaS has on customer satisfaction:
Customer Response Time
Customer response time is a vital metric to track when implementing CPaaS. The faster you can respond to customer inquiries, the more likely you will improve satisfaction and retention. With CPaaS, you can integrate channels like SMS, voice, and chat into a unified customer service platform, enabling businesses to quickly respond to inquiries across multiple channels. In fact, brands that take an omnichannel approach to customer service are twice as likely to respond to customers in real-time.
By monitoring how long it takes to respond to customer queries, you can identify opportunities for improvement. For example, integrating an automated messaging system with a chatbot can help reduce wait times and give customers instant answers to common questions.
First Contact Resolution (FCR) Rate
First contact resolution refers to the percentage of customer issues resolved during the first interaction. Higher FCR rates are strongly linked to better customer satisfaction and loyalty. CPaaS enables businesses to provide consistent and timely communication across channels, which can lead to higher FCR rates.
By tracking FCR, you can evaluate how well your CPaaS solution enables your customer service team to resolve issues on the first interaction. If the rate is low, it may indicate gaps in your communication or that you need better integration across your systems. Monitoring FCR uncovers how well your CPaaS solution enhances customer satisfaction.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Net promoter score is a widely used metric for customer loyalty and satisfaction. A higher NPS indicates customers are likelier to recommend your business to others. CPaaS directly improves NPS by enabling brands to provide smoother, more personalized, and swifter communication experiences. Customers will be more likely to rate their experiences positively as your customer interactions become more efficient and responsive.
By tracking changes in your NPS before and after implementing CPaaS, you can assess the direct impact of the solution on customer satisfaction and loyalty.
3. Business Agility
In today’s cutthroat marketplace, business agility is essential. CPaaS enables companies to adapt quickly to changing customer needs, market conditions, and technological advancements.
The following KPIs can help you track the impact of CPaaS on your organization’s agility:
Time-to-Market for New Features
CPaaS solutions are uniquely designed to evolve with your business needs. Brands can rapidly deploy new communication features or integrations without significant infrastructure changes. This accelerates the time-to-market for new services or features, allowing your company to stay ahead of the competition. By tracking the time it takes to launch new communication capabilities, you can measure how much more agile your organization becomes after adopting CPaaS.
Scalability of Communication Resources
One of the top advantages of CPaaS is its scalability. Businesses can scale up or down based on communication needs without worrying about infrastructure limitations. Metrics like the ability to quickly adjust messaging volumes or handle spikes in SMS traffic will help you assess how well your business can adapt to changing demand.
For instance, if your business experiences a seasonal surge in customer inquiries, CPaaS makes it easy to quickly scale up resources, such as adding more automated bots, to meet demand. Monitoring scalability metrics can help you understand how effectively your CPaaS platform enables agile responses to business challenges.
Integration Flexibility
CPaaS solutions can integrate with other business systems, such as CRM platforms like HubSpot or Salesforce, marketing tools like Oracle Responsys, and customer service solutions. The ease and speed with which these integrations can be achieved directly impact your organization’s ability to adapt to new opportunities. By tracking integration success rates and the time it takes to connect new tools or data sources, businesses can assess how CPaaS supports their overall digital transformation strategy.
4. Service Quality and Reliability
The dependability and quality of message delivery indicate a CPaaS platform’s effectiveness and ensure all intended recipients receive your communications. Dropped and delayed messages can impact customer satisfaction and experience. If you’re using a CPaaS platform to send one-time password (OTP) messages, unreliable deliveries can keep users locked out of their accounts and even put their private information at risk.
Three metrics to monitor to determine the reliability and quality of your CPaaS provider include:
Delivery Rate
This metric tracks the percentage of messages that are successfully delivered to recipients. A high delivery rate means your communications reach their intended audience without issue. A low delivery rate can signal issues like network failures or poor routing, directly harming customer trust and satisfaction.
Service Downtime
Service downtime refers to periods when the CPaaS platform is unavailable due to technical issues or outages. Even brief periods of downtime can have significant negative consequences, especially in industries where timely communication is crucial. The more uptime your CPaaS provider delivers, the more reliable your communication infrastructure becomes, which supports better customer experiences and higher operational efficiency. Tracking downtime and comparing it to the overall performance of the platform allows you to gauge how much added-cost downtime is generating.
Error Rates
Error rates monitor the frequency of message delivery failures or communication breakdowns. High error rates can indicate problems with the platform’s capabilities, such as inaccurate routing, network congestion, or data integrity issues. These errors affect immediate communication and can negatively impact customer satisfaction and brand reputation. Businesses should factor in how error rates affect the overall user experience. Frequent delivery failures or miscommunication can lead to frustration, lost opportunities, and customer churn.
Mitto’s CPaaS Solutions Deliver Powerful ROI
Implementing a CPaaS solution offers numerous business advantages, from reducing communication costs to improving customer satisfaction and increasing operational agility. However, tracking the right metrics and KPIs is essential to ensure you’re getting the most out of your investment.
Mitto’s communication tools can save your brand time and money while supercharging profits. Our proprietary AI-routing platform also ensures the fastest SMS delivery routes at the lowest prices possible. And our integration capabilities make it easy to add SMS, Viber, or WhatsApp to your existing tech stack.
Want to learn more about how we can optimize ROI? Let’s talk.