How Does the Cloud Offer New Contact Center Capabilities?

Cloud compatibility has become a fairly ubiquitous model for businesses, and contact centers are no exception. By providing increased benefits for both the consumer and the agent, transitioning to a cloud contact center is a sensible choice for decision-makers in a wide variety of industries. With developments in cloud computing technology, call centers have been able to leverage numerous new capabilities to streamline business processes and enhance the overall call experience.

Benefits for executive engagement

Since cloud services aren’t tangible, there’s a certain stigma around migrating to a strictly digital call center model. However, while the cloud has a sometimes shaky reputation, it truly makes more sense for executives to adopt the technology. For one, executives can rest easier knowing that every user on the call center platform is on the most current software patch. Depending on the exact system, this could entail data configuration and user management functionality.

As far as finances are concerned, the cloud means that there’s no more risk of investing in potentially volatile hardware that begins depreciating the second its installed and is expensive to maintain and upgrade. Since cloud systems are able to integrate with most hardware choices, you’re also ensuring that you are not locked into any one piece of equipment. It provides more flexibility while simultaneously working to mitigate costs. As such, it’s one of the smarter options for decision-makers, and the cloud is only likely to continue expanding in the coming years.

A boon for agents

While most executives think of how call centers primarily benefit the consumer, it’s also important to consider the well-being and morale of your agents, especially if they’re primarily operating in a sales capacity. The easier you make life for your agents, the more likely you are to reap the benefits when it comes to successful sales, upsells, and contract extensions. This is where adopting a cloud contact center model really shines, as it not only helps speed up the calling process and reduce wait times between prospect outreach, but offers you the ability to restructure your entire business.

Since cloud software can operate on most hardware selections, you can leave it to your agents’ purview to work remotely on a system of their choosing. Especially in sales environments, the ability to work remotely is a major morale boost and, depending on your business model, might mean that you no longer need a physical location or an expensive lease. While this might not be possible for every business, it’s an added perk when it works out, which is likely to result in increased productivity from your staff.

Enhancing the customer experience

Enhancing the customer experience is one aspect of cloud contact software that has perhaps the most potential to be a game-changer. If you’ve ever called a business only to be placed on a lengthy hold, you know just how easily it can demoralize you and reduce your interest in proceeding with a purchase or signup. Cloud systems make it much easier to help eradicate the wait time and are even using artificial intelligence integrations to collect customer information and connect callers with the most appropriate agent available at the time.

Though artificial intelligence and voice recognition are experiencing a major boom as of late, these systems aren’t perfect yet. More and more systems are working to better understand natural language and colloquial speech to more easily serve consumers.

Ultimately, the cloud is nearly unavoidable, particularly if you hope to see any measure of success. It’s revolutionized almost every industry and it makes sense that call center technology would follow suit. While it has yet to saturate every aspect of modern life, it’s unlikely that cloud technology is going to fall by the wayside any time soon. If you’re investigating call center tech for your business, choosing a cloud-compatible option is the best decision.