In 2019, cloud technology is an enterprise mainstay, deployed in hundreds of different contexts. Recent research shows that 96 percent of organisations are using cloud computing in some form or fashion.
For contact centres, cloud is being deployed to not only address the increasing customer expectations, but also to achieve greater business agility, in turn empowering the entire landscape from IT to the agents. Moving from on-premises to cloud contact centre technology provides greater flexibility, scalability and efficiency.
For example, research from Forrester found that moving to a cloud contact centre solution helped one customer to:
- Achieve 10 percent reduction in average handling time (AHT)
- Improve first-call resolution (FCR) from 40 percent to 70 percent
- Boost customer satisfaction scores from 59 percent to 85 percent
Despite the statistics, some businesses remain hesitant to make the shift. For those on the fence, here are three of the most compelling reasons to transition from an on-premises to cloud contact centre solution:
1 - Seamlessly deliver omni-channel experiences
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Paul Jarman[/caption]
Customers rely on agents to be prescriptive and proactive, and to understand their needs based on the thread of their omni-channel journey. This level of consistency across channels is only available with the move to cloud. Organisations with all of their contact centre technology in the cloud report superior customer experience outcomes. Companies using cloud contact centre technology report 18 percent higher CSAT as well as 36 percent higher likelihood to recommend their company from customers based on service experience, compared to companies with on-premises contact centre technology.
Cloud contact centre solutions that include a fully-integrated suite of capabilities can provide companies with a full picture of an individual’s customer journey. Customers expect the omni-channel experience, it is no longer an anomaly. Having to restate information, get disconnected, or not having choices for interactions is not something customer have patience for any longer.
For contact centres, the integrated functionalities allow seamless views into workforce optimisation (WFO) for agents and interaction analytics in real-time. And cloud provides the scalability during peak seasons to accommodate increases or decreases in agent counts. The agent experience is also enhanced with connections to CRM systems, and other enterprise solutions, agents can enjoy a comprehensive view of their customers across channels, and even between agents. This allows them to deliver a fully-integrated, omni-channel experience that’s contextual, timely and relevant to customer expectations.
Best-in-class cloud contact centre technology will be agile enough to provide all the customisation an organisation could want or need to attend to its customers’ journeys.
2 - Improved security
As the cloud market continues to mature, cloud solutions can offer security standards that match or surpass on-premises systems. In a significant shift from the position of scepticism held by many IT leaders, recent research from McAfee found that 69 percent of organisations now trust that their data is secure in the cloud.
Cloud excels in two critical security areas: information resiliency and privacy.