What You Really Want When You Say "I Want SaaS"...

Businesses don't want SaaS, they want something else.

Over the last 5 years we have seen a massive transformational change in the way we deliver and consume software.

We've pivoted from perpetual private instances to evergreen, multi-tenanted, cloud subscription services, otherwise referred to as SaaS (Software as a Service).

Sounds great right?

You're telling me that I don't have to install anything, provide hardware, or maintain it. All I need to do is pay you a few quid a month and all of that is taken care of, and I can just use it.

In many cases this is true.

In many other cases, this is a dream, an ideology that just doesn't quite pan out the way anyone hoped.

One such case where SaaS alone isn't succeeding the way it should is telephony.

Let me explain.

Customer Wants

I've worked with enough customers now to understand a trend between them when it comes to telephony modernization.

Customers want the ease of use that SaaS can provide but with the controllability and deliverability they once had with their perpetual tools.

Why?

Because in the telephony world, every customer has their own bespoke ways of working and technical requirements.

Changing habitual use of your employees is one thing, but phones are used bidirectionally so it also involves a habitual change to their customers calling in too.

The cost of changing habitual use of your customers has far reaching consequences from mild intrigue, to full displeasure and loss of that customer if you get it wrong.

So they want the flexibility to treat phone calls in ways that help them achieve their goals with minimal disruption such as:

• Changing the Caller Display or the Calling Number
• Keeping the original caller identity when calls are transferred between systems
• Keeping the original called number so their CRM pops correctly
• Handle internal call transfers by extensions
• Adding custom SIP headers so integrated systems can trigger different workflows
• Prefix dialling to trigger in call apps like stop / start call recording or over the phone payment handling

To name but a few.

Why SaaS Struggles In Telephony

Whenever you're building SaaS applications you are building them predominately for the mass market. You want your product to appeal to as many customers as possible by providing access to the most used / needed features.

You can add in some degree of customisation through policy controls and APIs, but generally, customers are bound within the limitations of your feature set.

When it comes to the voice edge and routing, interoperability becomes crucial. Supporting a standard way of connectivity and routing is essential and isn't easily customised on a customer by customer basis.

As soon as the customer requirements exceed the customisable capabilities in your product it stops becoming the solution to their problems and starts becoming the next problem.

This is why generally speaking all SaaS based telephony platforms and connectivity enablers have fallen short of complete domination.

Examples Of This In The Market

Lets start with my own back yard, Microsoft Teams. Teams is great regardless of what competitors will say. It offers a lot of value to customers and in the telephony space, today, its a very good and robust offer for most enterprises.

But it is not without its problems, or rather limitations.

• Its not a contact center. It has a good multi-call handling, but its not a contact center replacement
• It doesn't do call recording
• It doesn't really have a viable operator / receptionist console
• Its not great with internal extension calls that aren't dial by name
• Its not great at interop with other phone systems or analog or other SIP devices. Yes there is SIP Gateway but in some cases I am paying twice for a license (once for the analog device and again for the Teams user account)

You may have been used to these being including in your old system, so these are new problems you must now solve.

This requires you to go to market to find solutions. Great.

However, as a wise plumber said to me once when asking him why he is spending lots of time bending pipework rather than cutting and soldering, "Every joint is a future leak".

The same is said here. Every added-on solution to solve a problem is a future headache.

Now let's get even closer to home and look at connectivity enablers.

The objective of connectivity enablers like Callroute, Nuwave, Sippio, PingCo, Call2Teams, and TeamMate is to provide a way for customers to connect their carriers to their phone system e.g. Teams without the complexity of owning your own SBC infrastructure.

However, even though they provide a good level of configurability, they all, including us at Callroute have limitations on the level they provide to customers.

So If Customers Want 100% Configurability They Must Abandon SaaS?

I suppose the answer is in all honesty, "it depends". Sure, if you want ultimate power of configurability because no SaaS provider can give you what you need and you are unable to compromise, then yes, SaaS isn't for you.

Go and buy an SBC from AudioCodes, Ribbon, Oracle and go and buy 3CX and install it in your datacenter and build your empire.

However, the vast majority of customers would benefit from a blended approach between pure SaaS multi-tenant and a level of customisability bolted on.

At Callroute we pride ourselves on being different and being willing to go the extra mile for our customers.

One of the things we offer is the ability to deploy customer bespoke configuration as a bolt-on to our SaaS platform.

This means our customers can benefit from turnkey access to voice connectivity and routing and also deploy private add-ons that give them the configurability and adaptability to cater for their bespoke needs.

Some of the things we've helped customers with

• Interop between Teams and standalone contact centers with internal dialling and transfers
• SIP header manipulation to help with CRM pops
• Custom SIP headers for integration with other multi-tenant platforms
• Interoperability with SIP devices like intercoms
• Bespoke media treatment based on who is calling and where from
• Bespoke media codec treatment
• Connectivity to carriers that aren't on Operator Connect or have complicated interop requirements

We may offer a SaaS based platform that makes it easy for you to consume your voice connectivity no matter what phone system you use, but we also help solve your most complicated of voice requirements.

But Customers Want More

Sure having your SaaS-on-steroids offer to the market is compelling and we continue to add value to customers by giving them access to tooling that helps modernize their user daily changes and reporting.

But customers want more.

You see, having the raw ingredients to make a meal is one thing. Having a chef skilled enough to make a meal from them is another.

If you have the skills in house to deliver technical voice projects, handle different vendors, own the design, implementation, and support, then having access to SaaS tooling alone might be enough for you.

However, if you're resource or skill challenged, you need help.

What are your options?

Microsoft / Ecosystem Partner? Specialist partners have been created to help customers just like you. They exist to accumulate the best talent in the industry and combine that with a service package that you can take advantage of.

They will help you understand your current as-is and discuss with you your to-be and then help you achieve your goals.

However this consultancy and enablement comes at a cost. A cost on top of your SaaS solutions and often a cost in which you have to spend before you even begin to realise the benefits of your chosen SaaS telephony solution.

This can stop projects from ever happening in the first place and you suffer technically and ultimately commercially.

The other option is carefully selecting your chosen SaaS provider. One like Callroute perhaps where you get access to the SaaS solution you crave and also the expertise to help you realise the benefits the solution brings quickly without massive upfront cost.

For a monthly fee added on to your SaaS subscription Callroute can provide you with the professional services to help you move your telephony to your chosen platform.

We provide the ingredient, the chef, and we cook it for you. All you need to do is sit down and eat it.

So what can we offer you if you need help getting your voice project off the ground but cannot afford the upfront professional services cost.

• We can offer you the SaaS based platform to connect your favourite carriers to your favourite UCaaS, CCaaS, and premises based telephone systems
• We can offer you bespoke call treatment and manipulation that goes beyond standardised SaaS product offerings
• We can offer you a day 2 management tool that will help you with your new normal that makes it easy for your service desk to manage your daily MACDs
• We can offer you reporting and insight into how your phones are being used
• We can provide you with an assessment of your current setup and understand your desired state.
• We can produce your high level and low level designs and your migration and interop path
• We can help interface with your carriers and other vendors to integrate Callroute into your ecosystem
• We can work with your stakeholders to understand their working needs and dependencies
• We can help manage any porting requirements
• We can setup and configure your Teams phone system to meet your business goals
• We can perform the migration for you to Teams
• We can provide end user online training on how to use their new Teams Phone system
• We can supply you with Teams certified headsets and handsets
• We can even support and manage your Teams Phone environment as a managed service

All for a simple per user per month fee.

Summary

Businesses do want SaaS but SaaS is only part of the solution. Without an effective value support offer, SaaS providers in complicated and diverse industries like telephony will fail to achieve their market domination expectations.

Don't you agree?