Summer Series: Cloud and the Contact Center [Part 3]

My colleague Darryl kicked off the blog series sharing how modern contact centers have gone through significant changes over the years. These changes have been driven primarily by customers who expect more efficient and effective customer service through the channel they prefer, whether it’s phone, web, chat, email, or video. Darryl also touched on the impact of “cloud” in his blog and I would like to share some more thoughts with you on this topic. 

“Cloud” continues to be one of the top buzzwords we hear in technology. Cloud computing, cloud-based solutions, cloud applications – it’s all about the cloud and the contact center is not immune. This is for good reason. Today’s cloud-based contact center solutions eliminate the expense of traditional on-premise contact centers. That means saying goodbye to large upfront investments, expensive maintenance, difficult upgrades, and managing multiple vendors. Most importantly, cloud solutions offer multi tenancy, scalability, and an agile delivery of features – providing customers and agents with the best possible experience. 

But if that didn’t sell you, here’s a few other benefits of a cloud contact center solution: 

• Agents Anywhere: The best agents for your contact center don’t have to be in a physical contact center, they can be anywhere in the world. A cloud-based solution means any agent with a connection, a browser, and a headset can securely work in your contact center. There’s no installing and no maintaining- just satisfied agents delivering a better customer experience from their home office or in the contact center.
   

• Optimal Security: Protecting customer data isn’t optional. It’s not just hackers or professional criminals posing a threat to sensitive customer data. It’s the occasional natural disaster preparing to flood your data center and fry your servers. Cloud contact centers offer more – and better – protection. How you might ask? A combination of economies of scale, specialized security staff, and a justifiably strong focus on physical security.
   

• Fast, Easy Integration and Customization: If you’re asking agents to jump around among multiple applications and data sources for information – while they’re serving customers – you’re asking for ineffective, unproductive agents. That’s why just about every contact center wants its CRM, WFO, CTI, and other solutions to work seamlessly in their contact center. Cloud-based solutions make this possible. 

Gone are the days when you ask the question “are we going to move to the cloud?” Now the question is, “when are we moving to the cloud?” This shift to the cloud is transforming the contact center and opening the door to the future of AI. Check back next week as we explore the future of the contact center.