Cloud contact centers- why are cloud-based systems necessary?

What is a Cloud Contact Center?

A Cloud Contact Center is a comprehensive suite of tools, applications, and cloud-hosted services for contact centers that require multiple communications channels, sophisticated call routing, agent management, and analytics. Many call centers are running their operations on old technology that cannot keep up with the way modern businesses now operate. A cloud-based contact center is a desirable alternative compared to an on-premise call center as it uses the latest communication technology and is also cost-effective.

Cloud-based call centers offer many benefits to businesses and help them continuously exceed the expectations of their customers. It is not easy for on-premise call centers to add new channels quickly or easily update their phone menu.

Efficient communications APIs have helped cloud contact centers evolve as building a cloud-based contact center using readily available APIs is now easier and faster than before.

Benefits of cloud contact centers

There are many benefits of shifting from on-premise to cloud contact centers. These advantages are the reason why many call centers have either shifted to the cloud or are thinking about it. We have discussed the major benefits of shifting from on-premise to cloud contact centers below.

Improved customer experience

The cloud contact center solution helps the call center to improve the customer experience significantly. This is the most critical metric for any business, all the more for a call center as its whole business depends on whether it can provide a good customer experience.

When modern-day customers reach out to a call center via any channel, they expect tech support. If the customers get stuck in a never-ending IVR menu, they will surely stop doing business with the brand. According to a survey, after a poor communication experience with the call center, 4 out of 10 customers will switch to a competitor or stop doing business with the organization. Furthermore, 2 out of 3 customers would recommend their friends not to do business with the company.

No call center would like to create a bad experience for its customers on purpose. The thing is that old on-premise call centers are unable to change swiftly according to the customers’ needs. On the other hand, cloud-based contact centers can help a call center provide top-notch customer service as it anticipates the needs of the customers in advance and changes accordingly.

A cloud contact center can gather data about the customers from multiple sources and provide a tailored and personalized experience to every customer every time.

Easy to achieve scalability

In the fast-paced technological world, naturally, a business needs to change drastically over time. With an on-premise call center, this is very difficult as the call center would have to re-invest in procuring better hardware that can handle the customers’ increased needs.

A cloud-based contact center can help achieve easy scalability as it allows the call center to scale up or down depending on its needs. Using a cloud contact center, a call center can easily cater to the changing demands of the customers like in-app chat or video calling.

Furthermore, a cloud-based contact center provides greater control over the customer experience and helps the call center surge ahead of its competition. With a cloud contact center application, the call center does not need to worry about capacity and hardware addition as a cloud contact center handles these things in real-time.

Add communications channels easily

When call centers first burst into the IT sector, it was common for people to imagine a call center agent solving the customer’s problems over the phone whenever they heard the term call center. With the onset of cheaper and better communication channels like text messaging, customers’ interaction with call center executives has now changed.

A survey pointed out that 90% of customers would prefer to chat with the customer care executives rather than calling them. Adding new communication channels like text messaging can prove to be a big hassle for on-premise call centers as they have to change their call center software to achieve this.

However, the going is not so tough for a cloud contact center as it can easily add new channels like text messaging and even video calling as the cloud contact center just needs to integrate new APIs into the system. Thus, expanding to multichannel customers is easy.

Better analytic

Every thriving call center has to cater to the changing needs of its customers continuously. Gathering customer feedback is an essential component of delivering a superior customer experience.

Successful call centers always look at the essential metrics of the company and constantly look for avenues where they can improve. It can often take months of work for on-premise contact centers to make significant changes in the system. This is where cloud contact center solutions can help. A modern cloud contact center solution provider can easily measure customer analytic and make the necessary changes as and when required.

Application of cloud contact center allows the call centers to gather information like –

• Who is calling, and what are their issues?
• Are the customers not happy with some glitch in the system?
• Is the current marketing campaign working?

Using the data analytics systems of cloud contact centers, the call center can know whether the marketing strategy is working or not, measure the agent performance and identify system bugs. The call center can provide the analytics report to its agents and help them improve their performance. The analytics help the call center to improve its offering constantly.

Global reach

The cloud contact centers have global carrier connectivity and have contracts with all the global carriers. Cloud contact centers provide a global reach to the call centers as the call center does not need to negotiate with carriers in every country.

The cloud contact centers provide on-demand phone numbers to the call centers from a single platform. This ability of the cloud contact centers to seamlessly connect the call centers with a global infrastructure provides a local experience to the call centers anywhere in the world.

Cloud contact centers allow the call centers to add new country coverage within a few seconds without time-consuming carrier negotiations and codebase changes. Using various APIs, the cloud-based contact centers also allow the call center to send messages in the local language; this helps boost engagement levels of customers with the call center.

High reliability

Cloud-based contact centers are highly reliable. Many on-premise contact centers have reported less than 1 hour of downtime per year. The modern cloud contact centers connect calls through global carriers using geographically distributed data centers around the world. There is an optimal routing of calls which reduces latency and provides the highest quality experience. The on-premise call centers do not provide such a high level of reliability.

Cost control

Many people have the wrong notion that a cloud contact center with so many benefits must be expensive. On the contrary, with a small investment, the call centers can build a multichannel cloud contact center. The APIs integrate easily with the call center’s current system.

Many cloud APIs have a large community of cloud computing experts who constantly build their own solutions and share the code with other users. This constant knowledge sharing enables the cloud platform to grow consistently.

Intelligent routing

For a call center to be thriving, it must connect the customers with the correct customer service agents as quickly as possible. An intelligent cloud contact center helps the call center to connect with suitable agents faster by using intelligent routing. The natural language processing used by the cloud contact centers helps transform the conversations with the customers into structured data, improving the routing process.

The cloud contact centers use attribute-based routing to determine the call center executive with the correct skillset after it assesses the customer’s needs. The cloud contact center has intelligent routing for calls as well as other communication channels like SMS messages or email messages.

With intelligent routing, the call center can ensure that the customers’ needs are met in a fast manner, improving the customer experience. Intelligent routing is not just beneficial for the customers, but it also increases agent productivity. This is because intelligent routing allows the agents to work on the correct tasks at the correct time.

How to choose the best cloud contact center for your business?

Moving from an on-premise to a cloud contact center is a major shift for many companies. The choice of the right cloud contact center plays a vital role in ensuring the success of this move. Here are a few things that can help a call center to select an appropriate partner in business.

Uptime

No call center can afford downtime, even for a few hours. This is why uptime is a critical factor to look for while selecting the best cloud contact center for your business. Call centers should ensure a 99.95% SLA (Service-level agreement) before they finalize their cloud contact center.

Interactive voice response (IVR)

The cloud contact center should have an easy-to-customize IVR. The experienced cloud computing programmers should be able to A/B test and edit their IVR according to the customers’ changing needs.

Web interface

The web interface of the cloud contact center should be such that it allows the call center agents to make or receive calls directly from the CRM or browser. This feature will aid the call center in adding agents in new regions without incurring an additional capital expense.

Distributed software layer

While selecting the cloud contact center, the call centers should choose an option that provides them a distributed software layer. The call centers should do so to ensure that they do not have to negotiate with carriers, build algorithms for routing, or set up networking interconnections.

Mobile app

Customers love to connect with a call center over a mobile app as it provides a higher level of convenience. The call center should ascertain whether the cloud contact service providers provide them with a mobile app. If not, the call center should approach mobile app developers to build a mobile app.

Chat and Video calling

The call center can improve its customer engagement by providing its users with the option to chat or video call with the customer service agents via call center application. While selecting the cloud contact center, the call center should ensure that it supports video calling and chat.

Intelligent routing

The call center should choose a cloud contact center solution that can route tasks from all communication channels to the most qualified available agents based on the attributes defined. The intelligent routing feature will save costs, time and aid in improving customer engagement.

Conclusion

Cloud contact platforms allow the call center to gain much better control over their operations. The cost-effectiveness, ability to scale up or down according to their needs and features like intelligent routing has tilted the scale in favor of cloud contact centers against on-premise contact centers. While on-premise call centers have a one size fits all approach, the cloud contact centers can be customized according to the needs of the call center.

By moving the communications from legacy, on-premise systems to a cloud-based call center, the call center can experience greater reliability, global carrier connectivity, and multi-function numbers.

Mitesh Gosai

He loves challenges and adept at finding tech-solutions that complement business ideas. Working in the capacity of Project Manager at Prismetric he strives to leave no chance for glitches in his implementation. He incorporates his extensive experience in his writings about new gadgets, tech stories, updates and innovations in technology, management tips, and inspiring app technology related information.