I am not going to lie. I was tempted to use OpenAI's ChatGPT to write this blog post. In fact, I went as far as asking ChatGPT why a company would choose Microsoft for their Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS) and the answer was awesome! But while it did a great job, it felt canned. Anyone who knew me would read this blog and know it wasn't written by me. In fact, even those who didn't know me would read this blog and feel zero human connection. They would just get information.
That brings me to my point: The value of human connection. When we started out building APIs in Azure Communication Services for adding video, voice, chat, text messaging, and email to applications, websites, and mobile platforms the remit was clear: make it easy, make it secure, make it scalable. We built Azure Communication Services from the very same platform that supports over 280 million users on Microsoft Teams. This advantage launched us into the market with the ability to keep employees in the comfort of their Teams environment for scheduling video calls while their customers and patients experienced zero hassles by simply clicking to join a fully customized video call.
Now, ease, security, and scale are still required, but they are not enough. While the automated communication side of our business ticks over to serve the billions of moments of alerts, updates, or notifications for our customers, those rarer by comparison video and voice moments deliver cherished engagements that can only come from humans interacting. And as more companies consider their contact center and customer engagement solutions, I challenge you to reconsider your human-to-automated equation to ensure that you offer your customers a choice. Not because they need human interaction for information that they can get from automation, but at times, they need human interaction for empathy or understanding they cannot get from automation. The challenge is delivering the right form of interaction at the right time, and with the right information to solve the customer’s need.
Image: Customer engagement often involves a seamless blending of both human (Live Chat, Video, Voice) and automated (Chat, SMS, Email) connection points.
How does a business transition from existing investments in their contact centers and customer engagement solutions to deliver a better human-to-automated experience for their customers? It might feel like a leap too big. The answer is simple. Start by adding Azure Communication Services and grow into it. If you are a Microsoft customer, you are at least a third of the way there with Azure and Microsoft Teams in your back pocket. With Azure Communication Services we can help bridge your internal corporate communications to the outside world through Video, VoIP, PSTN, Chat, SMS, and Email. The real advantage of Azure Communication Services is the analytics you can derive from across all your communications, both automated and human. That is where the real learning and improvement cycle begins.
Yet no business should take this leap on their own, and Microsoft is a partner-led company for good reason. That’s why I’m excited to share our first strategic collaboration out of the gate with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to bring the value of human connection to businesses with innovative solutions for building seamless interactions both automated and human, between a brand and their customers.
TCS is an IT services, consulting, and business solutions organization delivering results to global businesses, ensuring an extraordinary level of certainty. Their consulting-led, integrated portfolio of IT and IT-enabled infrastructure, engineering, and assurance services is an excellent match for the task of determining and implementing the blend of human and automated interactions. This work is delivered through a unique Global Network Delivery Model™ of more than 600,000 associates to which 50,000 are Microsoft certified, spanning 46 locations worldwide, and recognized as a benchmark of excellence in software development.
TCS is an esteemed partner being the 2022 Microsoft Partner of the Year for GSI Advisory Digital Transformation, Retail, and SAP on Azure.
“We are excited to collaborate with Microsoft and the Azure Communication Services team, both in terms of delivering the value of human connection and implementing the CPaaS to Contact Center difference through services across the Microsoft stack.” said Siva Ganesan, Head of Microsoft Business Unit, TCS.
Our focus with TCS is on adding the unique value of human interaction and automated communications to business scenarios across four core industries: financial services, retail, energy and resources, and healthcare.
Our efforts center around solving one specific problem: The fact that a brand loses a customer when the engagement should have been with a human, and a brand loses money when the engagement should have been automated.
Under this collaboration, we are addressing critical business outcomes ranging from the simple to the complex, including:
Customer Engagement Management (Messaging and Email):
Send automated communications to keep your customers safe, updated and informed.
Quick Serve Communication (Live Chat and Chatbots):
Deliver fast, relevant information to your customer’s where and when they need it.
Virtual Video Encounters (Video Calling):
Enable empathy and understanding with face-to-face engagement with your customers when it’s time to get real.
Contact Center Solutioning (Omnichannel):
Modernize your contact center with programmable cloud communications and interoperability into Microsoft Teams.
Reach out to your Microsoft representative to learn more about how Azure Communication Services and TCS can help create solutions that result in the best connections between your business and its customers.
Learn more about Azure Communication Services
Learn more about Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)