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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Top Reasons To Embrace Cloud Technology

Modern customer contact centers employ technologies that allow them to talk to a large number of customers from one center. Customer contact centers need to be innovative. In fact, call centers have been adopting innovative technologies for some time. Most centers already support call recording, automatic dialers, and sophisticated routing.

In most cases, the company owns both the software and the hardware and hence they have complete control over the technology they use. While several companies still prefer to own the technology, this approach has several drawbacks. First, purchasing equipment is costly. Second, proper maintenance will be difficult without expert guidance.

Many industry analysts feel that the need to own the technology is actually holding the industry back. But this should change when the cloud technology becomes more popular. Cloud services eliminate the need to own expensive hardware. Moreover, it allows customer centers to improve the quality of their services.

A recent report published by Gartner confirms that when call centers use cloud-based technology, their total operating cost reduces. Furthermore, most cloud solutions permit the integration of several channels.

Customers themselves have already embraced cloud technology. Apple customers enjoy the benefits of the cloud-based service iCloud. It allows them to store their data in the cloud and access it from any device they like. The popularity of cloud services will only increase in the coming years and then firms that do not possess the same capability will look outdated.

If cloud technologies are better why should businesses obsess with the idea of owning technology? This can be attributed to the natural conservatism present in the IT field. That also explains why IT departments are unwilling to adopt wholesale changes without assurance of the benefits.

There are some other reasons as well. IT professionals are responsible for ensuring that the technology will provide the desired results and that it will be constantly available. Consequently, they seek control over the technology they use.

Fortunately, cloud technology advanced so much during the last few years that service availability is no longer a cause for concern. In fact, several providers of cloud services now guarantee 99.99% service availability.

Moving your customer contact centers to the cloud has several benefit:

·         Cloud technology allows the consolidation of contact centers across different sites. This improves overall efficiency and reduces operating costs.

·         Cloud technology also provides the ability to utilize data from various sources. This helps frontline agents to serve their customers more efficiently.

·         Greater flexibility is another advantage. Cloud services allow you to scale your operations up or down. At any given time, you only pay for the services you use. When your requirements increase, you can upgrade to a higher plan. This flexibility helps save money.

·         You get access to expensive software and hardware without having to invest in them. Since the equipment is owned and operated by the service provider you do not have to worry about maintenance either.

 

·         When you use cloud services, you can upgrade to newer technologies as they arrive.

Hopefully, when a heavyweight analyst like Gartner confirms these benefits, and assures companies about the availability of impressive services, we will see many more organizations adopting cloud technology in the coming years.

Some Basics of Cloud Telephony

Many people have heard about cloud computing and cloud telephony, but very few people understand what they are.

Cloud computing is all about accessing your data via the internet. You will have to pay a pre-determined recurring fee to use the service. When you use cloud computing services, you do not have to invest in expensive hardware or software. This makes these services cost effective and convenient.

What is cloud telephony?

Cloud telephony is another cloud based service. It uses voice over IP technology to deliver telephone calls over an internet connection.  Since cloud telephony runs on hardware owned and maintained by the service provider, businesses using this service do not have to invest in expensive conventional telephone equipment like PABXs. Of course, they have to pay a monthly subscription fee for using the service.

Great call handling features

VoIP is no longer about making free internet calls. Most cloud telephony service providers offer great call handling features including auto receptionist, call forwarding, music on hold, dial-by-name, parking, and screening. As a result cloud telephony allows SMEs to enjoy call handling capabilities that were formerly only available to large organizations. These call handling features also allow organizations to unify their physically separated staff.

Stay connected no matter where you are

Since calls are made over the internet, the physical location of employees does not matter. They can attend the calls no matter where they are. All calls are sent to a single landline number and then get routed to different employees. As a result, the caller gets the impression that all employees are in one place.

Cloud telephony services can deliver calls to cellphones. You may be running your small business almost exclusively from your mobile phone. This can give your callers the impression that your business does not have an office. When you use cloud telephony, you will get a landline number. Your mobile phones will then act as extensions of your landline number.

Cloud telephony also allows your staff to communicate better. They can, for example, call one another by dialing extensions. If they are at their computer, they can use the click-to-call feature. Cloud telephony also allows your employees to set up free conference calls.

Ease of use

Cloud telephony services can be easily set up. By contrast, if you use a traditional telephone system, you will need someone with consider technical skills to install it. This system will also need regular maintenance. Since cloud telephony uses equipment owned by the service provider, you do not have to purchase any costly equipment. In other words, when you use a cloud based service, you can reduce operating costs.

There is yet another problem with traditional telephone systems. As telecommunication technology is developing at a fast pace, these systems become outdated in months. By contrast, cloud service providers keep their equipment and technology at state-of-the-art level.

Huge savings

Since delivering phone calls over an internet connection is much more cost effective than leasing traditional phone lines, service providers can pass the savings on to their customers. In fact, an average customer who moves to cloud telephony can save up to 60% on line rentals and call costs. Better still, there is no compromise in call quality.

When you use cloud telephony, you will be able to provide better service to your customers. It also makes your staff more productive. There are obvious cost advantages, too.