1. Financial Flexibility
The number one reason for 90% of the survey respondents is financial flexibility. Specifically, this refers to converting fixed costs that are associated with on-premises technology with variable (and more predicable) costs that are associated with cloud technology. Costs are more predicable for cloud technology users. Unlike an on-premises model, where the technology investment is a sunk cost that the company incurs regardless of how often it is used, companies pay cloud contact center service providers based on how much they utilize their services. As such, when customer traffic decreases, companies can scale down and reduce costs. They can also scale up at times of increasing traffic — helping avoid unnecessary infrastructure costs.
2. Increase Uptime Through a More Redundant Carrier Integration
This refers to contact centers ensuring business continuity in serving customer needs. If a contact center experiences excessive downtime in service, it means that it can’t address buyer needs on time. This will inevitably frustrate customers and push them to look for other businesses that are more likely to cater to their needs without delays in service delivery. Research shows that 73% of contact centers cite increasing uptime through redundant carrier integration available through cloud contact center providers as the second top reason driving their investment in cloud technology.
3. Provide Agents with Access to Better Applications That They Can’t Afford In-House
The ability to provide agents with access to applications that would have otherwise been very costly to access through an on-premises model is cited by 72% of the respondents as a reason for preferring cloud technology. For example, a mid-sized contact center might want to add speech analytics to its activities to ensure compliance and improve customer experiences. With an on-premises model, they would need to invest in related hardware, hire employees with related expertise, or allocate existing resources with relevant knowledge to manage the application. This often requires expending significant resources that might burden a mid-sized contact center.
A cloud-based delivery model allows the firm to use speech analytics as needed. This, in turn, helps avoid any unnecessary costs as well as eliminate the internal resource requirements that would be needed to manage speech analytics. Agents can also benefit from a technology that can analyze voice interactions to prompt them about customer sentiment and help them better manage each conversation. This is true not just for speech analytics, but all customer care applications.
4. Enhance Security and Compliance
Traditionally companies have cited security and compliance as reasons why they prefer an on-premises deployment model. Seventy Percent (70%) of cloud contact center users cite security and compliance as a reason to invest in cloud technology, showing that companies have largely overcome their concerns in this area, and that they’re becoming more proficient in controlling data in a cloud-based infrastructure. The ability to use a cloud contact center while ensuring the security of data and remaining compliant with relevant regulations is especially important for companies in heavily regulated industries such as financial services and healthcare, as well as those that do business in Europe and are impacted by GDPR regulations.
5. Reduce Contact Center Reliance on IT and Free IT to Focus on More Strategic Initiatives
Since an on-premises deployment model requires in-house IT resources to manage the setup, maintenance, and updates of the contact center hardware, companies aim to reduce those IT expenses by moving to a model where a third-party provider manages the infrastructure for the business. Research findings show that companies recognize the benefits of relieving IT from managing contact center applications. Sixty-two percent (62%) cite reducing reliance on IT helps the IT team focus more on strategic activities — such as building a single view of customer insights — that are needed to deliver omni-channel customer interactions.
If you struggle achieving desired results in any of the above areas, the team at Cloudlinx recommend that you consider how cloud technology may help your business. However, it’s important to remember that investing in any technology – including cloud – for the sake of doing it will likely result in sub-par performance results if you and your team do not consult with an agnostic and experienced advisor.
Hence, as you evaluate how cloud technology may help address your challenges in the above areas, we also recommend that you establish Best-in-Class building blocks to maximize your success.