Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Cloud Technology Lets Companies Build the Call Centers of Their Dreams
While the progress of global contact centers moving to the cloud has been slow – a complete change in business software delivery model is not for the faint of heart – it has been steady. Though a majority of contact centers today are still using premise-based systems, a large majority of them – in excess of 70 percent – report they are planning to move to the cloud very soon. This should bode well for the cloud contact center solutions market, which by some estimates is expected to triple in the next few years. According to a study conducted by Markets and Markets in November, the global cloud-based contact center market is expected to grow from $4.68 billion in 2015 to $14.71 billion by 2020, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25.7 percent. Growth is expected to be particularly brisk in certain contact center functions, including call routing and queuing, data integration and recording, chat quality monitoring, real-time decision making and workforce optimization, according to the study.
Many companies are attracted to the lower upfront costs of cloud-based solutions, and while these are definitely an advantage, there are numerous other reasons for turning to the cloud, according to a recent blog post by Monet Software (News - Alert) CEO Chuck Ciarlo. One of them is the speed with which companies can be up and running with new solutions. (Remember the days when new software implementations took up to two years? Yeah, nobody else wants to remember those nightmares, either.)
“With a cloud model, set up can be completed in days, with secure access available to agents and managers in the call center and at remote locations,” wrote Ciarlo. “With a traditional hardware/software system, complete installation and configuration can take several weeks, if not months, which will add additional costs and inconvenience to the conversion process.”
The “secure access available to agents in remote locations” part is key. Essentially, embracing the cloud means companies can change up their entire contact center business model, allowing some agents to work from home, bringing on remote call center agents who work as independent contractors, or even basing the entire contact center from workers’ homes (imagine the cost savings in real estate, rent, utilities and equipment!) Even if you’re not prepared to manage a remote contact center, it’s pretty tempting to be able to bring part-time, home-based agents online during times of heavy call volume or unexpected call spikes. If your customer support system is having trouble with scheduling to ensure optimum resources in the right place at the right time, the cloud model can help, by making the right resources easier (and faster) to bring online to ensure you’re sticking to your schedule.
Increased functionality is another great reason to move to the cloud. Advanced call center capabilities like analytics, speech recognition, reporting, social media integration and more – typically functions available to only the largest premise-based contact center solutions – are now within reach of smaller contact centers. There’s also the matter of the reduced need for IT expertise with the cloud.
“When it’s time to upgrade the software, it can be delivered automatically with a cloud model at no additional cost,” wrote Ciarlo. “When a manual software upgrade is necessary, the cost can be prohibitive enough to be put off, which reduces a call center’s ability to operate at maximum efficiency.”
Whatever the reason you choose as your primary one – increased functionality, ease of set-up, cost savings, remote working and administration or scalability – chances are good that you’ll be able to build the call center of your dreams on a far smaller budget than you ever imagined.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi