Good customer service is an essential part of any business. A single experience can make or break your relationship with a customer or lead. That’s why it’s so important to choose a contact center solution that will support your efforts in providing excellent service and reducing friction.
And today, the best companies use contact centers hosted in the cloud. If you haven’t already migrated your contact center to the cloud, you should. Cloud contact centers offer a host of benefits, including the following:
- Easy deployment / fast implementation
One of the best things about cloud contact centers is that you can have them up and running in no time. Since you don’t have to set up onsite equipment or even install software, deployment is much faster.
This means that once you migrate to a cloud contact center, you’ll have access to everything you need, including support from the cloud contact center provider if you have any questions.
- Low cost
Another benefit of cloud contact centers is their low cost. Again, you don’t need to invest in hardware (which has upfront costs and ongoing maintenance, repair, and upgrade costs). You also don’t have the administrative burden of managing onsite hardware and software.
Instead, cloud contact center solutions typically operate on a subscription payment model. That means you can enjoy flexible pay-as-you-go billing and not worry about making a big upfront investment. If you end up not liking the cloud contact center, just cancel your subscription. It’s that easy.
- Reduced burden on IT
With a legacy contact center, you must rely on your internal IT team to fix any software or hardware issues that come up. But with a cloud contact center, that responsibility shifts to the vendor providing the service.
That means you can get help when you need it instead of waiting on your IT department, which may be busy and need to focus on other tasks.
- Less downtime
Cloud contact centers are far less likely to experience downtime. Why? Because the software data is always backed up in different locations for multiple layers of redundancy.
So even if the cloud application fails on one server, there’s another one to keep it running without skipping a beat.
This is a huge advantage for you and your customers. It means you don’t have to worry about equipment failure or leaving your customers hanging. You can truly be there for them 24/7.
- Scalability
It’s easy to scale a cloud contact center solution up or down based on your needs.
For example, you could ramp up the service level for the holidays or if you have a sudden uptick in inbound call volume. Likewise, you can scale down your service level if you experience a slump in business.
With a cloud contact center, you can adjust the number of agent licenses (or “seats”) with just a few clicks.
- Flexibility
Flexibility is another big plus of cloud contact center solutions. Agents don’t have to be in the office to work. They can log in to the cloud contact center from different devices and different locations.
For example, agents can work from home. This is especially useful during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic when going to work isn’t possible. But it’s also useful for hiring the best agents no matter where they live. Working from home gives you access to a greater talent pool, not to mention saving you money on office space and utilities.
You can also easily integrate cloud contact center solutions with your existing customer relationship management (CRM) software so agents can have everything they need in one place.
- Increased security
Since all your data is stored in the cloud with a cloud contact center, you benefit from increased security. You’ll never lose another email, chat, or phone recording as they are always immediately backed up to the cloud for safekeeping.
Plus, cloud contact center providers help you keep national and global security standards. So you can rest assured your data is safe and compliant.
- More data visibility
With all your customer data backed up to the cloud, you’ll have more data visibility. This means you will have insights about customer interactions and customer journeys at your fingertips at any time.
This way, agents have a better picture of each customer so they can better serve them, which brings us to our next point.
- Better customer experience
As we said at the beginning, positive customer experiences are crucial for any business. With a cloud contact center, it’s easier to provide those positive experiences because it gives customers multiple ways to contact you: through email, phone, chat, social media—you name it.
This is called omnichannel communication, and it’s an important component of any cloud contact center.
On top of that, cloud contact centers often provide detailed analytics, which will help you gain insights about customers to improve your service and their experience as a result.
- Improved agent experience
Lastly, cloud contact center solutions improve the agent experience, too. They allow agents to work from anywhere, enjoy flexible work schedules, and be more productive. For example, agents can access online databases with customer interaction histories to resolve customer queries faster.
Improving agent experience in these ways also benefits your business by reducing turnover, giving you access to a wider talent pool, and improving productivity overall—things every company looks for.
Adding it all up
At the end of the day, cloud contact centers have many benefits. The sooner you adopt one, the sooner you can reap the rewards.
It’s only a matter of time before all customers will expect the speed, efficiency, and reliability that come with a cloud contact center solution. So you might as well migrate now. Cloud-based contact center solutions are the future.
