Market Perspectives

Contact center technology is moving to the cloud at a slow but consistent pace. That has allowed the Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) segment to grow steadily, opening the door to many different approaches for managing the infrastructure needed to serve customers. Some vendors try to include everything under the sun in their offerings to appeal to the widest possible market. Others, like 3CLogic, are taking a more surgical approach, focusing on specific aspects of the call-handling process that reflect each vendor’s expertise.

Organizations have many choices in how they deploy their technology, and it can be a challenge to fit modern contact center tools into an environment that contains a mix of new and old. 3CLogic’s approach is to focus on providing traditional voice and SMS channels and integrating them smoothly into a tech stack that includes digital channels handled by other systems.

3CLogic, founded in 2005, provides cloud contact center routing tools for voice, IVR and text messages. Its portfolio includes core ACD routing, voice-enabled self-service, some features for call and screen recording, speech analytics (via Observe.ai), and outbound dialing (including a predictive dialer). On top of that, 3CLogic integrates with key CRM and service-management tools including Salesforce, Zendesk, ServiceNow and Microsoft, among others. There are also pre-built connectors to other systems to supply some of the features necessary for contact center operations. For example, workforce optimization and agent management are available through connection to Verint, and screen-pop for CRM systems is available through connection to Infusionsoft.

The aim is to create an application with a minimal but adequate feature set for buyers looking to gradually transition their operations to the cloud, leaving in place legacy systems as they migrate. Given the size of the contact center market, and the fact that more than half of centers are still on-premises-based, this approach makes sense for a lot of small and midsize organizations. In recent months, for example, the company signed InEight, a construction industry software company looking to streamline its support and sales teams, and restaurant chain Denny’s, which was looking to transition to the cloud from on-premises tools.

In both cases, the close ties between 3CLogic and ServiceNow were important elements in the deployments. Denny’s was already using ServiceNow to handle digital channels and needed to add voice capabilities. Integrations available with ServiceNow include IT Service Management and its Healthcare and Life Sciences applications. 3CLogic also integrates with Microsoft (Dynamics and Teams), SugarCRM and SAP.

The company also targets sales and marketing teams that can potentially benefit from centralizing their communications and customer-data functions into a single application. Sales reps, for example, can use their CRM system as the cockpit for sales calls with the voice connections handled by the contact center software. 3CLogic also positions its speech analytics and sentiment analysis for this market segment, something that smaller buyers may want but cannot find in other SMB-focused offerings. Ventana Research asserts that by 2025, one-third of SMBs will have adopted cloud-based integrated suites for multiple service, sales and marketing functions, making it easier to orchestrate more complex and satisfying customer experiences.

The buyers that are most likely to be successful with 3CLogic’s platform are those that already have teams in place to handle customer support and whose existing technology is fit for purpose but is missing some of the elements needed to move to more efficient and mature operations. It is likely to fit well with organizations that have fairly standard or uncomplicated service issues and where teams with different roles (i.e., sales or service) are using the same tech tools to manage a combination of inbound and outbound communications. It is also useful in internal help desk or employee service environments, where it adds value by way of its ability to connect to tools like ServiceNow.

3CLogic’s offering is well-connected but not especially feature rich. It does not take advantage of some of the latest innovations in contact center technology, like artificial intelligence (AI) or workflow automation. For most of its targeted users, this should not matter. 3CLogic fits well as an additional or transitional application, allowing buyers to move forward incrementally, without wholesale technology or process disruption.

The company has several avenues available to move to the next level. One approach would be to beef up the feature set in areas it has strength: potential candidates include agent-performance management or knowledge management. Another option would be to go deeper into its integrations, especially with ServiceNow, by building out capabilities related to field service or dispatch tracking. It could move in the direction of perfecting its data-handling capabilities, or it could lean heavily into its voice-centricity by offering its voice channel to customer experience (CX) firms that do not have strong voice-channel coverage.

For buyers, the bottom line is likely to come down to price, integrations and ease of deployment in a legacy environment. Organizations using existing service-based tools, especially ServiceNow customers, should feel comfortable incorporating 3CLogic into their tech stacks.