A big lesson learned from 2020 is the value cloud-based platforms offer for quickly adapting to disruptive changes. When the pandemic hit, organizations with cloud contact centers were able to adopt flexible work policies practically overnight and continue delivering exceptional customer service without interruption. As we make the permanent transition to a reshaped workplace, Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) is proving its worth as a secure, efficient, and cost-effective approach for enabling agents to work from anywhere on any device to engage customers effectively across multiple communication channels.
Faced with the new realities of supporting employees working from home, on the road, and at the office, many organizations are accelerating the adoption of cloud technology. Contact center vendors have responded by ramping up development efforts on their cloud offerings. As a result, the reliability, security, and productivity features of modern cloud-based platforms rival on-premises contract centers. The additional emphasis on cloud development also means those vendors will continue to add compelling new features and integrate emerging technologies into their CCaaS platforms.
Agility Benefits of CCaaS
CCaaS cloud-based platforms offer numerous features for enhancing organizational agility:
- Fast, Easy Deployment: Get your contact center up and running in a fraction of the time required for an on-premises solution. Streamlined deployment and onboarding ensures your agents can quickly hit the ground running.
- Automatic Upgrades: Stay current with the latest technology. System updates are automatically rolled out by the service provider as they are released. Frequent updates with smaller, incremental changes reduce the learning curve for new releases.
- Predictable Pricing: Trade the ongoing capital expenditures for maintaining and upgrading your on-premises hardware with a predictable, cost-effective monthly subscription. Remove the risks and expense of housing and maintaining costly equipment with pay-as-you-go pricing.
- Reduced Complexity: Remotely manage contact flows, queues, agent skills, and more from a single management console. Leverage automation and orchestration tools to simplify control of IT and business processes.
- Reliability and Availability: Deliver seamless customer journeys anytime from anywhere with minimal interruptions and downtime. Colocated cloud resources are optimized to build in redundancies and facilitate disaster recovery.
- Scalability: Adapt to changing demands with a contact center that grows at the pace of your organization. Add agents and new services as needed, with no loss of quality or interruptions to customer service.
- Seamless Integrations: Put customer history and context at your agent’s fingertips with secure, out-of-the-box integration with CRM and other productivity applications.
- Enhanced Analytics: Get actionable, real-time insights from integrated cloud services that collect and analyze data in real-time. AI-powered speech recording, scoring, and analytics provide you with a better understanding of your customers’ needs and make more informed decisions.
Achieving Agility with CCaaS
Your contact center plays a crucial role in keeping you connected to your customers. Ensuring your contact center is equipped to respond effectively to a rapidly changing business environment is an essential component of an overall agility strategy. Don’t wait for the next crisis to hit. CCaaS has proven its value for maintaining agent productivity, boosting operational efficiency, and delivering exceptional customer experiences without interruption. With flexible, scalable, pay-as-you-go features and advanced analytics that enable organizations to prepare for an uncertain future confidently, CCaaS platforms are key to achieving organizational agility.
Are you Ready for CCaaS?
While CCaaS can offer tangible benefits for cutting operational costs, improving customer satisfaction, and increasing efficiency, adopting a fully hosted solution may not be the best option for your organization. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Security concerns, tolerance to downtime, and CapEx vs. OpEx payment models are just some of the factors to consider when selecting a contact center solution. From on-premises solutions that offer enhanced control and heightened compliance to hybrid options for accelerating your cloud journey to subscription-based cloud contact centers, the right contact center solution is the one that meets your unique business needs and your industry requirements for the right price.
Cerium Networks experts can help you assess the current state of your contact center operations and how effective your technology platform is for driving cross-channel customer journeys that deliver better outcomes. We evaluate your current needs and future objectives to help you develop a road map to a more efficient and cost-effective contact center that delivers meaningful customer experiences.
