Pandemic Taking Contact Centers Over-the-Top

The cloud alphabet soup is shining during the pandemic, serving organizations of all shapes and sizes well. While many had seeds of change planted, but expected the next year-plus to see harvest season, and reap the reward of the digital era.

A recently released study from Nemertes Research highlighted the obstacles presented by the pandemic to contact centers still on-premises, and digital transformation.

The reality – pre-pandemic, at least – is the vast majority of large enterprises leveraged on-premises contact center technology, and of respondents, 50 percent noted maintaining control of security and technology as the top reason.

Time and cost play a key role in the contact enter staying on-prem, as 46 percent of those surveyed cited time to roll out new features as too long. Some 45 percents noted replacing current equipment too costly and a third said it was difficult to keep up with innovation in CX.

Here comes the cloud. As companies sought to deploy cloud capabilities, enabling WFH agents was a struggle for more than 40 percent, with 32 percent citing poor voice performance and quality, for example. Some 33 percent noted the ability to scale based on demand.

The popular solution to this transition is CPaaS, with over 85 percent of organizations noting a strategy of overlaying an OTT contact center solution. IntelePeer (News - Alert) commissioned the study, and is seeing customers experience a boost in customer experience, revenue and reduction in operational spending from the approach.

“The most compelling finding from this study is that the majority of CX leaders running on-premises contact centers want to keep them—and innovate over the top,” said Robin Gareiss, president of Nemertes Research and author of the study.

What’s in your contact center?

Edited by Maurice Nagle