Workforce Management Featured Article

Which Contact Center Applications Are Best Suited for the Cloud?

Today, many contact centers are facing choices regarding whether they should stick with premise-based contact center solutions or move to the cloud. Many of them – particularly smaller contact centers – have been sold on the benefits of cloud-based delivery. These installations require little to no upfront capital and are paid for out of operating costs. They can be used and administered remotely, and require no particular in-house IT resources. They can be updated regularly, and their maintenance and hosting become someone else’s problem.

Slowly, large enterprise contact centers have also been venturing into the cloud. Even though they generally have the resources for large on-site implementations, as their fears about data security have been eased, they are taking advantage of the cost benefits of the cloud as well as the flexibility it offers.

Increasingly, however, most contact centers are neither wholly cloud-based nor wholly premise-based. Even the companies that have traditionally been most resistant to cloud-based solutions dabble in having at least one application – often customer relationship management, or CRM – in the cloud. A number of companies are taking a hybrid approach, keeping some functions on the premises while reaching into the cloud for others.

According to a recent blog post by Monet Software CEO Chuck Ciarlo, many companies that maintain premise-based solutions are finding success with cloud-based automatic call distribution (ACD).

Using a hosted ACD or a cloud ACD system, these companies are taking better advantage of the skill-based routing of incoming calls. This is especially true for contact centers with some virtual operations who may have multiple contact centers or multiple offices, or those that employ home-based agents. These remote workers can be connected to the system from home or anywhere without additional hardware installation.

Ciarlo notes, however, that smart companies employing a cloud-based ACD system must begin with an overall cloud strategy, otherwise they may be missing out on the significant benefits and efficiencies that can be gained from a comprehensive cloud solution.

“Many traditional on-site WFM and WFO [workforce optimization] systems might not take full advantage of hosted or cloud ACD,” writes Ciarlo. “When all of these vital functions are planned and handled based on a complete cloud solution model, the result is a more simplified, streamlined operation, lower costs, improved reliability and scalability, and 24/7 security and management.”

Standalone cloud-based solutions, while they may offer some improvements, may not be taking full advantage of the synergy that can occur between multiple cloud-based contact center functions. For this reason, it’s critical to map out a cloud-based strategy that will best suit the company’s needs before you start shopping.