Read on to learn how cloud migration can revolutionize your customer experience with the evolution of the cloud contact center.
Business communications are evolving. The rapid advancement of cloud technology has opened up new opportunities for compliant B2B sales and services. Contact centers no longer need to be tied to a physical location or a single point of contact.
The cloud integration of CRM systems means you can provide seamless customer service anywhere, on any channel. This is just one reason why businesses are moving operations to the cloud.
You might wonder what cloud migration is with all the buzz around it. How does it work? Why does it suit contact centers? And so on. This guide will help. We’ll explain cloud migration and how it could revolutionize your customer experience.
What is Cloud Migration?
When we talk about migrating to the cloud, we mean moving away from single physical locations. For a contact center, migrating to the cloud to aid with your business’s digital transformation means moving your customer records management and all customer interaction channels to a cloud-hosted location.
Practically, this means being able to access all the tools and information you need for your role from any computer. It makes remote and hybrid working much more viable options. Anyone with a computer and a headset can do a customer service agent’s role from anywhere.
Cloud-hosting can be done internally for larger businesses. Others choose to use CCaaS services. These managed platforms can save time and resources on testing in software development and deployment.
Image sourced from cloudwards.net
How Does a Cloud Contact Center Work?
Cloud-based solutions work by integrating different technologies into a single access point. This allows authorized access from any location, including centralized collection and data storage.
Contact centers allow agents to respond to customers on multiple channels. They can do so without the need for a physical office. By logging in to a secure application that encompasses all necessary business tools, they can communicate seamlessly with colleagues and customers.
For phone contacts, cloud contact centers use VoIP phone systems for businesses. Unlike standard PBX systems, this system hosts calls over an internet connection, and this makes phone-based operations easier to integrate with other contact channels.
Contact Center vs. Call Center
These two phrases are used interchangeably, but a contact center has a wider remit than a call center. Call centers handle one or two customer channels, usually phone and email, and a contact center provides service for omnichannel customer contacts.
When you host a system like this in the cloud, you can give agents access to all customer interactions at once. Your social media feeds, live chat, emails, and other channels are integrated.
What makes this more customer-focused than a standard call center? The customer contacts from these channels are all tied to a customer’s account. By integrating your CRM system with the cloud platform, you can use this data to provide a seamless customer experience.
How Cloud Migration Benefits Contact Center Operations
Cloud migration works so well for enterprise contact center businesses because of its flexibility. It’s easier to scale with your operations than standard PBX, has lower setup costs, and takes less time to implement.
The emergence of CCaaS (contact center as a service) platforms has made this even more accessible. Having an experienced third party to help with migration and manage your platform can save time, and resources.
Contact centers are moving to the cloud for many reasons. Here are the top six ways a customer service operation can benefit from cloud-based systems.
Enable Remote & Hybrid Working
According to recent studies, 74% of workers say that remote working options would make them less likely to leave a company. By 2028, up to 73% of all departments will incorporate remote or hybrid work. Those are statistics that you can’t ignore.
Cloud-based solutions are the best option for remote working contact centers. Workforce management, CRM, and call center scheduling software are all centrally accessible. That means that staff can be in constant contact with both management and customers from anywhere.
This doesn’t mean you need to dismantle your physical operations. If you’re reluctant to abandon the office entirely, cloud solutions can facilitate hybrid working similarly. This negates the need for costly on-site hardware and maintenance.
Cost Efficiency
You can make cost savings across your business from cloud migration. The need for less or no physical office space is an obvious one. Maintenance costs for on-site hardware are reduced, and contingency planning like replacement sites or backup power is no longer a factor.
Simply switching how you handle your calls or text messaging service can be a real cost saver. Operating a business landline can come with a considerable monthly cost, especially if you have a large workforce, and VoIP is up to 65% cheaper for ongoing monthly fees.
Depending on the scale of your operation, using a CCaaS platform can also save you money. Compared to operating a full-scale IT department responsible for software and hardware, you’re instead paying a fixed fee to a third party.
Benefits of Integration
Business is moving away from the age of siloed data and systems that can’t be interconnected. As the customer experience becomes more critical, so does the need for integration.
Research from Salesforce tells us that one reason customers give for a bad experience has to repeat themselves. Offering the same information multiple times is frustrating. You’ve probably had this experience yourself at least once.
When customers feel like departments don’t speak to each other, it leads to an inconsistent experience. Integrating your customer records management system into your cloud platform solves this problem.
Whether a customer has contacted you by email, Twitter, or live chat, all your agents have access to those interactions. They’re tied to a customer’s account, so if they have to speak to multiple agents, they get consistent service without repeating information.
Centralized Data Collection & Analytics
The key to creating this consistent customer experience is centralized data collection. Cloud technology allows for better data warehousing. This is where all the data from your business is collected, sorted, and stored in one cloud-based location.
This process makes use of AI-assisted technology to categorize information. It means that customer data can be stored from all interactions and accessed anywhere. It also analyzes business data much more straightforwardly.
Depending on your specific technology, these AI-assisted programs can analyze data and present it in reporting formats. This cuts down the workload of data analysts and makes identifying behavioral trends much faster.
Scalable Operations
Scalability is vital at every level of business. Whether you’re just starting out or a multinational, cloud migration has made scaling a department much more cost-effective.
You’re reducing hardware costs and the time to implement new accounts. This makes adding to your talent pool faster and more cost-effective. Recruitment can focus more on skill acquisition than expansion costs.
It is not just true for call centers, either. In the retail market, we’ve also seen companies moving away from more rigid systems to cloud technology.
ERP in retail was big business until recently. Now, more flexible ROS systems have taken over. These new cloud-based systems allow for the easy integration of new sales channels, and this has proven popular with the concurrent rise of omnichannel retail.
Customer Experience & CSAT
Customer experience is the primary differentiator for online businesses right now. Most studies agree that customers value a good experience and convenience more than the price of a product.
Image sourced from superoffice.com
Customers directly interact with businesses on more channels than in the past. A bad experience on just one of those channels could affect a customer’s perception of your whole business. This makes providing consistent service across all channels more critical than ever.
Cloud integration of your customer service operations makes this level of service possible. All your customer contacts can be viewed and dealt with by appropriate agents. Instant access to various systems also makes agents more agile in responding to problems.
It’s not just your frontline agents that benefit from this, either. The centralized data we discussed allows you to monitor CSAT scores and customer behavior in real-time. You’re no longer responding to customer trends after the fact; you can adjust for changes as you go.
More Than Just a Trend
Cloud technology enables business functions that go beyond what was previously possible. There’s no reversing the trend towards centralized data, and multi-channel service.
We probably won’t see all contact centers abandon the office entirely. Yet, the amount of businesses using the data advantages and integrations of cloud technology is only growing. New enterprises and large companies alike can benefit from these accessible services.
