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Initially, there are multiple scenarios. To start, when the product was launched, we had an on-premise office and PBX system. Sometimes, we would have outages with AT&T.
We wanted to use Amazon Connect as a backup for when our systems are down. If we receive calls, they're routed to Amazon Connect, and we can accept messages while our systems are offline. So we built it as a kind of backup system for our internal telephony.
There are a lot of features with Amazon Connect. One is the pay-as-you-go model. I don't have to buy any infrastructure or servers, licenses, or contracts. From a financial point of view, there's no upfront capital expenditure (capex) cost. Everything is pay-as-you-go.
And then, in terms of features, the speed of setup is impressive. If someone goes through the basic documentation and tutorials on YouTube or the Amazon website, they could have a basic system running in two hours. So, the learning curve is very low to get this product up and running.
If you compare it to pre-packaged contact center solutions from companies like Genesys or Avaya, those have a more robust UI out of the box.
With Amazon Connect, it's an open platform. You can integrate it with whatever you want. So, the features might seem limited initially, but the capabilities are vast due to the open platform, APIs, etc.
For a company with technical resources, it's a great tool. But for someone who wants a pre-packaged solution where everything is ready to use with some customization, it's a little more challenging. Getting information about the system might require multiple steps for agent supervisors.
We first started using the product in 2019.
This application is deployed across multiple Availability Zones, and an Availability Zone is a group of data centers. So, the likelihood of it going down completely is low.
I've been using it for five years, and we've had two outages – not necessarily specific to the contact center itself, but related service outages.
After that, Amazon implemented a global resiliency feature. If you're an organization that needs a critical contact center without any possible downtime, you can set up your contact center across two regions for very high availability.
Compared to other services I've seen, where customers have issues and feature updates take a long time, Amazon Connect is a much superior product in terms of stability.
Scalability is great. For example, one customer had bought a few licenses to share between 10 and 15 users. They did this to save money, as they were working in shifts.
The problem was that they couldn't get good metrics or analytics. It was hard to see who was missing calls or how many calls each user made. Lots of manual effort was needed to reconcile the data.
With Amazon Connect, everyone has a named user, so they get those metrics without additional cost.
Also, if a company has seasonal work – like running campaigns or those TV infomercials where they give a number – you can easily add staff during holidays.
Take those calls, and then scale back down after the campaign ends. Nothing technical is needed on your end; Amazon Connect handles the extra call volume and then scales back down.
Our internal use is small, about ten users. But we deploy it for customers, too. One customer has about 100 agents using it. We deployed it for another with 50 agents and have one more project with about 20 agents.
The point is that it scales easily from a few users up to thousands. You let Amazon know your expected scale, and you don't have to worry about licensing for huge user counts. And you don't pay per user, only per usage.
I have connected with customer service and support multiple times for two reasons.
Normally, when you call a contact center, you have an automated message like "Thank you for calling. Please press one for English, two for Spanish, o presione dos para Español".
You can set the voice for this message with different options – male or female voice, different tones. You can create flows with variations. But if I set up a voice configured for English to pronounce a Spanish message, it still has an English tone mixed in. There's no way to combine a strictly Spanish tone with an English tone for a single message.
Amazon offered an alternative of recording and playing a message, which works, but it's not ideal. They don't have that feature built-in. Does it work? Yes.
But for a very picky customer, the Spanish sounds like a native English speaker, not a true Spanish speaker. Amazon said I could record, download both voices, combine them, and upload the result as a workaround. They also acknowledged that this is a common scenario and they'll consider adding it as a future feature in Connect.
With Amazon, it's recommended to have Business Support, especially if you're running production workloads.
The basic support plan offers chat and email support, which has an SLA [Service Level Agreement] of 24 hours. But with Business Support, which is either $100 per month or 10% of your monthly bill, you can talk to someone on the phone, chat, or email.
If you use chat, it takes a few minutes to get an agent. They'll try to find someone with the right skills and get you answers immediately. For complex issues, they'll reach out to the internal team and get back to you. It's much faster than traditional contact centers, where you might be on hold for a long time and get passed through multiple tiers of support.
We were already AWS [Amazon Web Services] users and an AWS partner. Cloud is the future, and cloud-based contact centers offer much more flexibility than traditional systems.
We used to have our on-premise PBX [Private Branch Exchange] system. Setting it up, including services, licenses, configuration, and VPN or MPLS [Multiprotocol Label Switching] setup between offices, cost us something like $70,000 - $80,000.
There was a lot of effort involved, but a cloud-based solution just makes more sense.
If you just take the out-of-the-box setup and do it, it's easy. Also, when we started deploying this internally for our customers three or four years ago, some features weren't available.
We had to build custom integrations and applications to enhance the capabilities. But over the last four years, Amazon has launched many new features that are available out of the box. This helps customers adopt these features more easily.
There's still a lot more you can do, but the out-of-the-box capabilities are easy to set up and use if you want to use them as they are.
We were supporting a customer, and they asked for our help. Even though we're implementing a large contact center with about a hundred users, it took the team and me only a few days – less than a week – to learn the basic fundamentals.
We were able to set it up within a week. Amazon releases new features frequently, every week or two, so you need to keep up if you want to use those advancements. But that's true with any technology – you have to stay current to avoid becoming obsolete.
There's no one-size-fits-all answer. The first question is, what are you trying to do? What are your current pain points? Are you trying to solve a specific problem, or are you looking to upgrade an existing system?
We can assess your needs and see how Amazon Connect might address them. Think of it as going to a doctor – you wouldn't just say, "Prescribe me something."
If you're looking to set up a BPO [Business Process Outsourcing] offering or provide call center services to customers or your internal team, this could be a great product. You can get started quickly, make changes easily, and adapt to new features or business changes as needed.
Businesses are always evolving, and your technology needs to support that rapid change.
Overall, I would rate Amazon Connect an eight out of ten. There's a bit of history here – Amazon needed a product to support their own business operations. They wanted to "drink their own Kool-Aid," as they say. They explored other market options, but nothing met their needs. So, they started building a solution from the ground up, completely cloud-based.
Traditional systems from Avaya, Cisco, or Genesys took their on-premise systems and moved them to the cloud. Amazon built theirs on the cloud from the start, giving them much more robustness and flexibility. But starting from scratch means adding features takes time compared to a product with 25 years of development.
On the other hand, Amazon Connect is an open platform, so you can add features yourself if you have the programming skills to integrate with other systems. If you want to use it out-of-the-box, it didn't have the same feature set as competitors a few years ago – but they've added a lot since then. So, it's a work in progress.
We use the tool to build contact centers for the client.
The product is cloud-based and easy to operate. We have a broad integration capability, allowing for a multitude of integrations. This gives our customers a good understanding of our product, even if they aren't actively utilizing it. They can easily access and utilize all the features that Amazon's cloud services offer, making integrating with other cloud platforms simpler. It's not a standalone solution, which is advantageous for our customers.
There are two perspectives to consider: one from the development side and the other from the customer's side. From a development standpoint, there are various aspects that Amazon needs to address, such as providing tools or direct development scenarios in Amazon Connect for building contact flows. Some essential reporting features in Genesys are currently lacking in the product.
I have been using the product for three years.
The product is stable. Over the past three years, I've experienced no availability hiccups with it. It has consistently been operational 24/7 without any issues. Any challenges that arise are typically due to customer errors, vendor mistakes, or Amazon issues.
We've built numerous cards for clients, though I can't provide an exact count offhand. There's a significant shift towards transitioning from on-premise contact centers to cloud-based solutions, with Amazon Connect leading the charge in this direction.
The solution's support is very good at helping.
Positive
The tool's deployment is easy. It is the solution's best part.
I can't speak for the pricing of other contact center solutions, but in terms of Amazon Connect, compared to other AWS products, it's one of the more expensive options. However, the cost can be low if you have a smaller team of agents or receive fewer calls. Pricing is typically based on a per-user basis.
If you're using Amazon Connect for the first time, it's important to note that it's designed for companies rather than individual use. It provides a robust communication network connecting clients, agents, and employees. With Amazon Connect, there's no need for desk phones, no worries about managing physical phones, or no need to carry additional devices. All you need is a laptop.
Amazon Connect is easy to use if you're a customer looking to make calls and view reports. However, it can be more complex if you're a developer aiming to develop additional features or customize the platform.
I would rate Amazon around a nine out of ten if we're specifically considering contact center solutions. It falls somewhere between eight to nine out of ten because it's user-friendly, manageable, and relatively easier to develop than other contact center platforms. Additionally, being cloud-based provides significant advantages over alternatives like Cisco, Genesys, or Avaya.
