With nearly everything moving to the cloud, it’s no surprise that contact centers are migrating as well. However, what does a cloud-based contact center offer that traditional ones don’t?
Let’s find out in this post. But first…
What is a cloud contact center and
how does it work?
Traditional contact centers housed all their hardware and software on their premises.
A cloud-based contact center is a customer service and support platform that operates in the cloud on virtualized servers hosted in data centers and managed by third-party providers.
That means the contact center operator doesn’t need to purchase physical hardware or allocate any dedicated IT resources. It’s the provider that handles the infrastructure and its installation, maintenance, and security.
Cloud-based infrastructure can be accessed from anywhere with a stable high speed internet connection.
Harnesses VoIP technology
Contact center agents can access the contact center infrastructure using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). VoIP converts audio into data packets, which are able to be transmitted across data networks, without the requirement of utiizing traditional telephone lines.
Enables technology integration
Cloud Contact Centers are usually integrated with social media platforms, email services, and chat applications bringing multiple communications channels together enabling the users of the Cloud Contact Centers to communicate with their customers utilizing multiple different channels (Omni Channel).
This allows the contact center users to offer a unified omnichannel experience to their customers. It doesn’t matter whether they use voice calls, text messages, emails, social media, or webchat. Multiple forms of communication are accessible utilizing a Cloud Contact Center.
Since all communications are being sent to, and managed through, a common interface, omnichannel routing can be used to connect customers to the most suitable agent. Suitability can be determined by factors like agent skill, availability, and the type of request.
Supports automation
For example, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems answer calls and get preliminary information before they route the call to the appropriate agent or department.
Similarly, AI-powered chatbots can be programmed to handle customer queries and improve the efficiency of first-responses.
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How is an on-premise
contact center different
from a cloud-based one?
Find out the differences in our blog post.
Key features of a cloud-based contact center
Omnichannel customer service
Older Contact Centers were called “Call Centers” because they were only capable of handling inbound and outbound telephone calls (the single channel being voice). Modern Contact Centers are Omni Channel , i.e. able to offer multiple communication channels – (the channels being; Voice, Chat, Messaging, email, Text, Chatbot) to communicate with their customers.
Scalability
A Contact Center customer may not receive the same volume of communication throughout the year. Certain times, like the holidays, might be busier while other times are quieter. Alternatively, they may want to adjust their operations as their business grows and contracts.
With a traditional call center, customers would have to buy and install additional phone lines and hardware to scale up operations. However, with a cloud-based contact center customers can usually amend their subscriptions to add more or less agents, phone lines, or features as required.
Remote accessibility
As the Infrastructure of a Cloud-based Contact Centers is accessible from anywhere with an internet connection, agents and supervisors aren’t physically bound to a specific office space. They can operate from anywhere where they have access to a stable and secure internet connection.
Seamless integration
Contact Center Vendors have usually integrated their Cloud Contact Centers with multiple technology partners, enabling them to offer their customers access to multiple technologies and platforms far exceeding the basic capabilities of the contact center swiftly and cost effectively.
Opex vs Capex
Traditional call centers required owners to purchase assets and hardware with a significant upfront capital expenditure. With contact-center-as-a-service (CCaaS), users can pay to use the shared infrastructure owned by the Contact Center Vendors. Instead of purchasing hardware (Capital Expenditure), customers instead rent services (Operational Expenditure).
Pay-as-you-go pricing
Some Contact Center Vendors offer flexible subscription models, whereby customers can pay-as-you-go for the services they utilize, eliminating both the requirements for any capital expenditure or signing lengthy multi year subscription models.
Pay-as-you-go pricing
Some Contact Center Vendors offer flexible subscription models, whereby customers can pay-as-you-go for the services they utilize, eliminating both the requirements for any capital expenditure or signing lengthy multi year subscription models.
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Advantages of a cloud-based contact center for your business
Asset Purchase
Under a subscription-based Cloud Contact Center model, customers decide the plan based on the number of agents who’ll be using the platform. Customers don’t need to purchase their own contact center equipment, only the agent equipment needed to access the cloud contact center platform.
3rd Party Maintenance
The Cloud Contact Center is maintained by the Cloud Contact Center Vendor that provides the CCaaS. Since the cloud based infrastructure is owned by the CCaaS provider, they’re responsible for taking care of it.
It’s like buying a house vs renting; when it comes to maintenance, the landlord is responsible for identifying the items requiring repair and taking care of it.
Scaling up or down
Using a cloud-based contact center combined with a flexible subscription model enables customers to add or remove services to suit their requirements.
Extensive feature list
Most cloud-based contact center Vendors can offer you all the features of a traditional call center and more. They gather information to give you advanced analytics capabilities, which allow you to refine your operations in real time. You can integrate other technologies to streamline your operations and use automated workflows to manage agents and their workload remotely.
Migrating smoothly to a cloud-based contact center
Transitioning to the cloud doesn’t have to be challenging.
Choosing the right cloud service Vendor is key. Selecting a reputable and reliable CCaaS provider that utilizes Contact Center Testing Tools will ensure that they will be able to transition customers onto Cloud Contact Centers with ease.
System design and testing
Testing is a fundamental part of the transition to the cloud.
Functional testing will tell you if the features are working as intended.
Regression testing ensures that new features don’t break existing workflows.
Load Testing ensures platforms are capable of performing at the specified volumes and capacities.
Agent Testing ensures that the Agents environments are working effectively and that the IVR call paths are configured correctly and reach the relevant agents.
Additionally, usability testing with your agents will help you determine if the system works smoothly and intuitively.
Deployment
Remember, your main objective is to minimize disruption, so don’t migrate all systems at once. Start with the less important ones and build up on those.
It’s also important to keep testing systems. Automated testing tools will tell you if your components, like IVR systems and integrations, are working properly.
This is where testing services like Occam can help. The platform offers a range of testing services, including agent testing, IVR and IVA (intelligent virtual assistant) mapping, SMS delivery testing, and more, to ensure your operations run smoothly, and all your integrations correctly configured.
At this point, it’s also important to ensure that your supervisors and agents have been trained well on the new system’s workflows and features.
Post-deployment Optimization
Even if your migration goes smoothly, it’s important to constantly monitor and review the performance of your cloud contact center. Analytics and automated monitoring tools like Razor help you track metrics like wait times, call resolution times, and customer satisfaction.
Feedback from agents as well as customers is important as it will tell you what they’d like to see improved. This information will allow you to constantly optimize your workflows, routing logic, and tools.
