What’s the Advantage of Cloud Contact Center Solutions vs. On-Premise?
Every call center strives to offer excellent service. There are innumerable ways to get that done.
One way is by hiring great people. If a call center employs agents who are wonderful with customers, the customers’ experience is going to be superior – another path is through technology.
This is where many contact centers fall short.
The best agents in the world can’t overcome obsolete call center software and hardware such as on-premise technology.
A better solution?
Cloud contact centers.
An estimated 90% of enterprises will be incorporating cloud technology by 2021, and contact center businesses are no exception.
Read on to discover the surprising advantages of cloud contact centers vs. on-premise solutions.
Advantages of Cloud Contact Center Solutions
Scale Service Up or Down
One of the most important advantages of cloud contact center solutions over on-premise is the ability to scale service.
On-premise solutions can be costly to change.
Contact centers typically need to install new hardware, which then requires new configurations with current computers and other systems, on top of installing new software and integrating it with existing software programs. It can be quite the headache.
Compare that to cloud contact centers.
If a cloud contact center needs additional IT resources, more storage, new programs or functionality, then all they have to do is call up their provider and ask for it.
No new hardware, because it’s all hosted by the cloud provider.
Minimal installation or no new installation of software + No integration issues = Simple and easy. That’s a solution for painless scaling that doesn’t require a degree in mathematics.
Improve Service Reliability
Along with easily scaling service up or down, a call center’s service reliability is greatly improved with cloud contact center technology.
It’s very difficult for on-premise legacy systems to meet 99.999% SLA, which is what most cloud contact centers deliver without fail (especially TCN – we pride ourselves on putting customers first).
The beauty is that these systems run off of APIs that connect through carriers worldwide using geographically distributed data centers. Calls are optimized to provide the highest-quality experience.
Add to that the ingenuity and maturation of performance monitoring tools that deliver real-time views of active calls and costs as well as live performance monitoring of network and voice quality. Plain old telephone service can struggle for days before phsyical line issues are resolved.
Broad Access to Remote Agent Talent
Great talent is no longer limited by geographical restrictions thanks to the power of modern cloud contact center solutions.
On-premise solutions do limit call center hiring options, however.
Properly connecting agents to centralized contact center applications, along with using a high-quality VPN, and providing a secure intranet for employees to communicate and collaborate with each other is exceedingly difficult without the right technology.
Cloud contact centers can do all of this with ease.
Communication and collaboration tools are built into a cloud solution, along with a VPN, and makes connecting to a call center’s intranet hassle-free.
That means managers can hire the best talent from around the world.
Enhance Call Routing
The big problem with on-premise solutions vs. cloud contact centers is the old and outdated technology customers are forced to suffer through.
One example is intelligent call routing, a staple of high-tech inbound call centers.
What these call centers can do is integrate their IVR with Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) to improve their first call resolution rates.
Here’s how:
When a call comes through, the IVR immediately intercepts it and presents callers with various options.
Depending on what option is chosen, the caller will be routed to an agent best qualified to handle their unique needs.
For example, if the caller chose to hear the IVR menu options in Spanish, and then chose to be routed to the billing department, the ACD system would automatically route that caller to a Spanish-speaking agent in billing.
Provide Better Reporting and Analytics
Cloud contact centers are able to provide in-depth data about customers and agents that managers wouldn’t be able to track with on-premise solutions.
With tools like Workforce Optimization software, the modern cloud call center receives:
- Interaction recording – collects data from customer interactions (i.e., call, email, web chat, and back-office work)
- Quality monitoring – compiles data from agent’s phones and screens along with easy search tools for supervisors, enabling regular and fair agent performance evaluation.
- Analytics – dashboards and advanced speech analytics with performance management reporting.
- Coaching – routine, in-the-moment coaching delivered right to an agent’s desktop through their call management dashboard provides agents with positive reinforcement, as well as feedback for improvement.
- eLearning – an easy-to-use tool for contact centers to create a custom, targeted library of training clips that can be sent to agents’ desktops.
- Workforce management – provides forecasting and scheduling functions, adherence and cost tracking tools to assist contact centers in maintaining service level agreements while lowering costs.
Gathering this much data simply isn’t possible or is far too expensive and complicated with on-premise systems.
See a Proven Case Study: Improving Call Centers with Cloud Technology
In this case study, you’ll learn the main benefits of moving your contact center to the cloud and how one organization benefited by:
- Saving money on hardware, installation and maintenance fees.
- Performing on-the-fly adjustment capabilities for call trees and load fluctuations.
- Creating opportunities to improve agent KPIs in real-time.