An overview of Amazon Connect
Amazon Connect is a Cloud Telephony Omnichannel solution.
Moreover, Amazon Connect solution is built on the same technology they use to power millions of customer conversations.
Furthermore, Amazon Connect users can also integrate other Amazon services such as intelligent artificial intelligence (Amazon Lex), cloud-based services, and analytics. AWS or CRM systems can also be integrated easily with the system, since it runs on the browser and requires no additional software.
With Amazon Connect, you’re not locked into a yearly contract if things don’t work out. Now that we have a brief overview of Amazon Connect, we will dive into the features and pricing methods in more detail.
Features & Benefits
The Amazon Connect platform is designed to be simple, but it’s still packed with features.
As a summary, the features are as follows:
- Contact flows that are dynamic and personal
- Routing based on skill
- Metrics in real-time and in the past
- Amazon Lex-powered natural language chatbots
- Speech analytics powered by artificial intelligence
- Calling from outside
- Audio of the highest quality
- Integrations
Businesses can set up a modern contact center with high-quality audio, outbound calling, smart routing and other features. Furthermore, businesses can get a glimpse of Amazon’s powerful AI systems, such as Amazon Lex.
There’s also the long-term safety factor, since Amazon is a top company in such technologies.
The integration of apps and analytics in Amazon Connects are already industry standard. Modern contact centers certainly need these key features, and Amazon Connect can provide them. It is the non-basic, special features, based on Amazon Connect’s previous technologies, that really capture our attention.
The price of Amazon Connect
There is no defined pricing plan for Amazon Connect, as it is a pay-as-you-go service. The additional telephony services are charged per minute. For inbound and outbound calls, Amazon Connects charges per-minute charges for DIDs and toll-free numbers.
You’ll find that these rates differ based on your location and the type of service you’re using.
Users of Amazon Connect are charged $0.018 per minute for using the service.
More than 20 countries worldwide are covered by Direct Inward Dialing and toll-free numbers, with specific rates, taxes, and fees for each. Each of these pricing tables is based on the specific AWS region (US East, US West, Asia Pacific Sydney / Tokyo, and the EU Frankfurt).
Pricing for Amazon Connect in the US East
The following are the telephony rates for the US East region:
Outbound Call Rates to all countries are available here. The cost of an outbound call to the US, for example, is $0.65 per minute.
Charges here are divided into three categories. We’ll take a customer who calls a toll-free number in US East for five minutes as an example:
- The service usage charge is $0.018 per minute multiplied by 5 minutes equals $0.090
- $0.06 per day for the toll-free number = $0.06 per day
- An inbound call costs $0.012 per minute for five minutes, which equals $0.060.
Taxes and fees are included in the total cost for this call of $0.21.
There is a higher cost for international calls, but if your company operates overseas, you can always work with the telephony pricing in that region.
The Bottom Line
Overall, Amazon Connect certainly offers some interesting features to your team, and it may be worth giving it a try. It sounds like the “pay as you go” pricing model makes sense, and the rates are decent as well.
There are two types of businesses that can benefit from Amazon Connect:
- Call Centers who have variable call Volume
- If you want to use AI to reduce Interaction time and Customer Experience
Your team may benefit greatly from Amazon Connect if it matches this description. Among the benefits of this service are the wide range of features, the relatively cheap per-minute rates, and the ability to stop using it at any time.
If you want to start on your cloud journey using Amazon Connect we can help you build the business case
