Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Thinking About Getting Your Contact Center On The Cloud? Here’s What You Should Know

Cloud-based contact centers are emerging as the preferred solution over on-premise IT infrastructure. The reason is quite understandable since cloud-based business centers offer the dexterity of scalability along with minimal maintenance and manpower costs.
Most contact centers run on small-to-medium budgets. They don’t have the capacity to incorporate ever changing applications or technologies. With evolving market and consumer outlooks, businesses find it difficult to sustain on-premise models.
On the contrary, solutions on the cloud are rather easy to access, cost effective, and offer a large scope for personalization. This allows contact centers to scale-up and upgrade their user and operational requirements on-the-go. However, assuming that a single ROI model is applicable for all contact centers is a mistake. At the outset, most client packages offered by cloud-based IT solutions providers seem similar. However, these options are created with a much broader perspective. However, a generic model might not be suitable for every business. Cloud-based IT vendors might present a similar sales pitch, making it even more demanding to identify a bundle of services relevant for your business.
Here, we discuss how cloud-based contact centers help you extract a higher ROI and some basics about how to strategize your cloud driven operations:
Hardware Capital Expenses
On-premise IT models present the major hurdle of purchasing new systems, server space, and upgrading existing IT infrastructure. On the other hand, cloud tech deployment is rather effortless. The vendor is responsible for setting-up the hardware. Some tweaking might be required to the existing laptops or desktops, but this isn’t demanding.
Software Capital Expenses
Your existing network might not be capable of handling increased consumer volumes. When upgrading your customer responses, you might need to install expensive software packages. Usually, software solutions include a hefty licensing fee. Cloud-based functionalities are rather simple. Here, the vendor takes care of the registration and licensing, leaving you with the responsibility of merely using the installed programs. You can personalize the usage levels and demand extra software capabilities. This impacts your monthly rental.
In-house set-ups often require large-scale, annual upgrades and might suffer from cyclical defects. This can lead to significant expenses and downtime. Being on the cloud means your vendor is responsible for providing the required services, inclusive of maintenance, repairs, upgrades, or modifications.
Disaster Management Expenses
Disaster prevention and management might not look like a major expense, but its installation and efficient working can take a serious toll on your organizational budget. On-premise management can include off-site maintenance too. This can be an additional cost where applications, hardware, and data need to be duplicated for an off-site workplace. However, cloud-based vendors need minimal inputs to duplicate your existing data infrastructure at remote locations. Similarly, cloud-based vendors offer packages where data recovery and backup, along with contemporary security measures, are often a part of standard offerings.
Maintenance & Operational Expenditures
Cloud deployment doesn’t present any operational expenditure. There is no need to employ qualified professionals for daily usage or for maintaining the cloud-based infrastructure. With a monthly billed, usage model, you have the liberty to scale up/down the services in accordance with your budgetary restrictions.
Most cloud-based vendors incorporate gradual, smaller software tweaks rather than a time consuming, major upgrade. This prevents downtime due to software issues. Some vendors might even appoint a weekly visit where a qualified IT professional spends a few hours at the client’s office. The idea is to provide hands-on assistance with frequently-used applications and understand the kind of customization needed by the contact center. The installation period and learning curve for a cloud driven IT infrastructure is negligible. Vendor sourced cloud solutions usually offer 24x7, round-the-clock support through the Web and telecalling.
Choose Wisely
We hope that you are not misled by the promise of saving enormous amounts of money. Yes, cost reductions are at the core of cloud-based contact center solutions, but they shouldn’t be the only consideration. When evaluating different cloud solution vendors, pay attention to the kind of security features on offer. Explore the kind of liberty offered when opting for additional users and growing data requirements. The proposed procedure of cloud deployment should not pose a threat to the inherent systems employed at your workplace. It shouldn’t compromise employee privacy either. The deployment should be simple and deliver quantifiable outcomes.
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