These days, it is an accepted fact that a cloud-based infrastructure is one of the rapidly growing areas as far as the contact center industry is concerned. In fact, it is estimated that this figure has almost doubled between 2013 and 2015. Now, that would tantamount the percentage of call centers reaching to about 18% as opposed to only 2.2% in 2008.
Even those contact centers who have not yet made up their minds on their migration to the cloud are weighing the merits and demerits. When a survey was conducted for about 500 call center senior managers and directors, it was found that 41% of them had either already selected a cloud service provider for them, or are presently in the stage of either deploying the pilot, or have been exploring options.
Another 36% of the respondents said that they are taking positive directions towards learning more about cloud computing.
An increasing number of businesses have started appreciating the impressive merits of shifting infra to cloud contact center, since they are looking for competitive edges in customer retention and customer satisfaction, and at the same time want to ensure that their overall costs are controlled. The cloud helps in streamlining the procedure of offering up-to-date and modernized services to customers, providing merits like increased flexibility, reliability & cost, and ensuring that the customers get personalized services for meeting their demands and preferences.
No wonder that a cloud cloud center has garnered so much interest!
According to a research conducted by II, the most popular reason cited by call centers for moving towards the cloud is reduced capital expenditure (45%). The second most common reason cited was a belief that their company will witness growth after deploying a cloud-based system (37%). The third top reason cited was the computing ability of the cloud for bringing more rapid deployment in the call centers (28%).
So, what is Cloud?
It is a delivery model of contemporary information technologies that is based on certain Internet protocols. It offers easy access to remote computers along with other features such as enhanced reliability, scalability and security. Today, a cloud-connected model has become maturer, enabling the contact centers to provision, as well as scale shared and virtualized resources in a dynamic manner.
The technology used in a cloud contact center should be flexible enough for supporting the security for organizations, with platform and process needs.
Companies that are seriously contemplating about modernizing and expanding the capabilities of their call centers usually have 3 primary architectural alternatives to consider. They are hybrid, on-premises, or a cloud deployment.
Features of a good technical solution for a cloud contact center
A good technology solution for a cloud contact center provides security, agility and scalability. You need to choose a solution that is capable of improving the journey of your customers by enlarging personalization and by making sure that connected and consistent client experiences across different touch points are delivered.
A technology solution such as Genesys endeavors to meet certain channel preferences of your customers such as social media, SMS and mobile. Selecting a competent cloud solution for your contact center can be a great support for your organization to attain those goals, while entering the market more rapidly and with increased flexibility.
Technologies should be able to deliver the complete range of cloud contact center and call center software. Some of them are applications and provisioning for agent optimization, IVR system and ACD routing and ensuring secure storage of the business data and software on servers that are usually located at remote data centers.
In majority of the scenarios, cloud services can be seamlessly integrated with legacy applications, within a hybrid model so that maximum customer flexibility and easy transition can be provided.
The decision of an organization to migrate to the cloud, irrespective of being a hosted or pure call center solution can result in lower TCO and drastic cost savings.
Moreover, a cloud model is capable of accelerating changes in the business and improving customer experiences. These are strong motivators in the international marketplace where the call centers play a key role that can serve as a competitive edge, irrespective of the industry or size.
