Read that graphic today: “The VoIP market is crowded”. UCaaS too. CCaaS, also. And Agentic AI and Voice AI. All Red Ocean Markets.
One reason that UCaaS is slowing down: the other 2 layers of the cloud communications stack have blown up. CPaaS is booming. It is the profitable part of both 8×8 and Vonage. It’s why Ericsson is trying to sell off the UC+CC part of the company.
CPaaS is blossoming into the Agentic AI space and especially the Voice AI space. Why not? You don’t need a softswitch to host an Agent. Just a DID and a SIP trunk. Maybe an API call. But that is all in the CPaaS infrastructure.
The CCaaS function is now CX. It is filled with Agentic AI.
So who wants to talk about the Hosted PBX? No one.
In fact, UCaaS became a junk yard term for a host of functions that came close to being communications and collaboration. The Hosted PBX, then other messaging including chat. Then audio and video conferencing, video calls and chat. Then file storage for collaboration. Webex was good at having a workspace for each project that contained chats, history, files, etc.
But like Webex adding so many features in 2021, no sales team outside of Cisco could tell you want was added. It is very hard to sell UC+CC+AI because there are too many edges. Where do you start? What do you start with?
We aren’t replacing a smoking PBX. We aren’t replacing a key system. We are selling functions that aren’t replacing anything. So the sales questions and approach have to be different.
Accenture and the other Big Consulting are taking a beating now as they shift to outcome based pricing in place of hourly billing. We are now selling Outcomes instead of Consulting. Very Different.
While voice is still significant, if the users aren’t interacting with out functions of the UCaaS system, they will turf. The value is in the business leveraging as much functionality as it can. But providers don’t have a system in place to ensure that kind of success at the client. That is where the value is.
AI is too generic for most SMB to know what they are getting. The UCaaS providers have to get more concrete on what they are providing because saying chatbot or Agent doesn’t mean anything to an SMB Buyer without specifics.
Another press release today about some VoIP Provider Adds AI Receptionist to Business VoIP Phone Plans! How easy it is to setup. The big 3: around-the-clock call coverage, intelligent call routing, and lead capture. None of that works without integration and processes.
And is it a good press release if I can swap out the company name and the press release doesn’t change? The only change is the name of the executive who is quoted in the PR saying how awesome it is. Like in every other PR.
And how does a Buyer know how good your AI is? Now everyone has it and again the Buyer is looking at the pain reliever aisle at Walgreens or the potato chip aisle at Publix. Either way, overwhelming and too many choices.
Case studies, Great Discovery Questions, Vertical Domain knowledge — these are the things needed to win deals.
Being generic isn’t going to work much longer. The best outcomes come from vertical domain knowledge. That’s where the gold is.