How the Cloud is Changing the Call Center Industry

If you recall seeing “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” the iconic film heavily featured clouds and meatballs. However, it was more generally concerned with a resonant topic: change. A rainfall of meatballs meant adjustment for the characters and the environment.

Back in reality, the cloud might not pour down spaghetti and meatballs, but it is a harbinger of change. The cloud has already transformed many lines of business, and it could alter more.

One of those potential industries is the call center, where the cloud has already made inroads. More penetration will likely occur as businesses and organizations grow to understand how cloud-based call center solutions positively impact their communication efforts, debt collections, and customer satisfaction ratings. Here we’ll explore a several ways the cloud is providing solutions few forecasters could predict.

On-Demand

The cloud delivers flexible scheduling via on-demand software. With it, agents seamlessly transition from outbound to inbound calls, and vice versa. It can even employ skills-based routing, which ensures agents fill their hours productively and efficiently.

Such solutions also allow for remote work, a growing trend in the United States and around the world. Agents are no longer tethered to a desk, or the related overhead of an office. Give them a laptop, batten down an IP address (easy to do with the TCN call center solution), a top-of-the-line headset, and your agents are good to go and ready to deliver.

Infinite Scalability

Most enterprise-level and global businesses rely on external call centers or employ some sort of cloud-based call center solution. However, a growing interest in the technology arises from the small- and medium-sized business sector. Software Advice finds that 61 percent of call center purchasers bought for 10 or fewer users. Seventy-nine (79) percent report annual revenues of $25 million or less.

Cloud-based software fits both large and small business models because of its elasticity. It scales up, down, and up again. Some of the capability rests upon the underlying infrastructure; the rest of it, though, lies with the purchasing model. Business owners “subscribe” to a call center solution, which gives them the ability to affordably scale seats and costs.

Compliance

Compliance is a big deal, for companies large and small. Conducting calls outside the TCPA’s parameters or not following HIPAA regulations jeopardizes not only consumers’ data but also the company’s reputation and business longevity. Non-compliance gets expensive, quickly, with payouts ranging from $500 to millions.

Fortunately, businesses and organizations can stay in compliance, without undo effort, and keep up with shifting rules. Cloud-based call center solutions like TCN’s parse the legalese and build the platform with compliance in mind. As new rulings are added to the basic statute, the TCN platform incorporates them and rolls them out in a software update—all without inconveniencing or worrying the end user.

Analytics

Call center success rests upon a solid foundation of analytics and closed-loop reporting. Through metrics and measurement, agents improve average handle times and first call resolutions. Call center managers likewise see improved adherence to schedule and service levels.

Traditionally, such data points would be entered into an Excel spreadsheet or something similar. A manager would then perform pivot-table magic to make sense of the numbers. That isn’t the case anymore. Cloud-based call center solutions analyze scads of data — something a lone manager could never do — and produce comprehensible and actionable insights.

Customizable Feature Sets

Also according to the Software Advice report, small business owners seek call center solutions that provide computer-telephone integration (CTI) and call recording. They also expressed interest in other features, such as IVR and call routing.

Before the cloud, these owners would have had to cobble together different tools to get the desired results. The work would have been messy, complicated, and frustrating. Cloud-based call center solutions negate the “fuss and muss,” making it easy to add or delete features. Businesses subsequently receive an all-in-one solution that is “just right” for them and their customers.

Ready to see what a cloud-based call center solution can do for your business? Request a TCN demo today!