The CCI market covers solutions that include the equipment, software and services that enable customer service organizations to manage multichannel customer interactions holistically (using self-service and assisted service) from a customer experience and an employee engagement perspective. Central to the definition of CCI is that the solutions are dedicated to supporting a single customer or tenant on each instance of the system, even if that customer or tenant supports multiple contact center operations on that dedicated instance. CCI solutions are used by customer service and telemarketing centers, employee service and support centers, help desk service centers, and other types of structured communications operations.
Gartner defines contact center as a service (CCaaS) as solutions offering SaaS-based applications that enable customer service departments to manage multichannel customer interactions holistically from both a customer-experience and employee-experience perspective. CCaaS is a key technology platform used to support the customer service experience, whether it be self-service or assisted by customer service representatives. All organizations need to offer customer assistance. The preference is for remote support via voice and digital channels over physical presence in offices and stores, though it is common for organizations to offer multiple options.