How do you put your call center in the Cloud? One bite at a time.

Call centers have long been a huge burden on companies.  Companies often make a huge capital expense only to discover their shiny and new premise servers and software are incompatible with the latest technology within a matter of months. In addition, today’s technology offers an ever-changing array of tools to communicate with your customers and customers are desiring easier ways to interact.  In the recent book, “The Effortless Experience”, author Mathew Dixon shows that customers care more about ease of use than the wow factor.  They aren’t looking for you to jump over hurdles; they simply want you to deliver what you promised in the easiest possible way for them. 

 So that leads to the burning question;

“How easy is it for your customers to interact with your call center now?  How easy will it be in 5 years?”

 The fact is, technology is constantly changing. The way we communicate with each other and organizations has evolved. While five to ten years ago Call Centers mostly handled simple call traffic they now need to respond to texts, tweets, Facebook posts, and calls. So, how does this relate to having to put your call center in the Cloud?   Well, take a look at your call center. Does it have the tools to respond to the modern customer?  If not how much will it costs to make a social platform a reality?  Finally, how will the customer want to engage with your business in five years or ten years from now?  If you know the answer to the last question then please message me directly and let’s start talking to investors.

 To be truly effective the modern call center needs to be nimble and able to adapt to the ever-changing face of the customer as well as the needs of the business.  It is no longer effective to simply have people answer phones. You need to consider much more. 

 So how do you move your premise-based call center to the Cloud or deploy a Cloud call center in the first place?

 The answer to the question “How do I move my call center to the cloud?” is the same answer to the old joke “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” The beauty of Cloud call center applications is that you don’t have to ditch everything to begin using them.  Here are just a few applications that can be deployed in the Cloud to either move your call center or get started on a call center.

 Automatic Call Distribution – If you already have a Call Center then you are probably already using Automatic Call Distribution and queueing.  But, if you are considering a new call center, then this is a great first step, allowing calls to be deployed to employees or call center agents with specific skill sets and putting calls in a queue until the proper agent becomes available.  It can ensure customer calls are handled properly and improve the customer experience. In addition, if queue times are too long, the technology is available to allow callers to hang up and have an agent call them back when an agent becomes available.  This is pretty cool stuff for the convenience focused customer.

 Call Recording -  First off, if you have customers calling your office then you need call recording.  It simply allows you to keep your employees on point and makes it possible to manage their performance and train.  That being said, call recording is expensive and complicated to deploy and that is before you take into account the money associated with storage of the recordings.  On the other hand, Cloud-based call recording can be deployed easily and with little to no upfront costs.  Companies can get the service they need and not be tied to it because of an overly expensive and complicated deployment. 

 CRM Integration – Integration to your CRM platform allows agents to personalize their interaction with customers by using screen pops and more.  Through proper integration, call handling times are reduced and customer experience is improved. But, on-premise CRM integration is another example of a time consuming process and can be tricky to deploy due to multiple downloads of software.  However, when you use a software-based Cloud deployment then all that goes away.  Once integration to the CRM is established, it is simply a matter of log on. And go and with more CRM’s moving to the integration to the Cloud is a natural fit.

 At the end of the day it needs to be recognized that the Cloud is not just another fad that will go away as soon as the “next big thing” arrives.  It is an ever-expanding universe that allows companies flexibility to deploy new solutions that can dramatically improve their business.  Call center technology is yet another example of this.   So, it’s time to start looking at your business and work on strategies to improve the customer experience by using the Cloud.