Cloud Services Boost Call Center Innovation

Cloud telephony has fully emerged and remains to be quite a hot commodity. The basis for most companies switching from traditional telephony systems to cloud services is to cut costs. Although cloud telephony does help constrain costs for a call center, it does more than that— it can also help increase a business’ innovation.

A recent study, conducted by the London School of Economics and Political Science, suggests that lower costs, setup and reoccurring costs, are no longer the sole reason for converting to a cloud-operating call center. In fact, the study found that call centers using cloud telephony are presented with the opportunity to be more innovative and experimental within their call center environment. Being that a call center is complex and constantly evolving, they are often hard to sustain. When operating under traditional telephony hardware, it becomes difficult to keep up with the latest innovations. Bulky, expensive hardware hinders businesses from updating their equipment as frequently as upgrades or innovations are released into the market. With cloud services, however, the process of experimentation and prototyping with new telephony innovations is simpler and more cost effective. As one each component of telephony relies on another, the flexibility that cloud services provide to this integrated system are unparalleled.

Traditional IT models are more expensive to sustain, not to mention create a delay in the entire process. Cloud service s do not require half of the things traditional telephony does, rather any changes that need to be applied can be done more easily, rapidly, and cost-consciously, not to mention eliminate great risk.

Researchers also found that when introducing cloud telephony to your company’s call center, customer service representatives are able to think more creatively and customize solutions to tailor-fit the needs of their customers. Furthermore, agents can be more receptive to the industry changes, allowing them to bounce back without difficulty. Cloud services have contributed tremendously to call centers all over the world, changing how IT personnel, call center management, and call center representatives conduct business and manage relationships with prospective and existing customers.

Virtual Call Center Proves to Cut Costs

Virtual call center: a call center in which agents are/can be dispersed geographically, rather than all in a building operated by the organization; call center agents rely on the Internet to work from home or any other decentralized location.   

Virtual call centers are becoming increasingly popular in today’s world. With the economic crisis from a few years ago still present and fresh in everyone’s mind, contact centers are finding themselves in search of cost-saving telephony solutions; many are finding cloud based call center solutions to be the most suitable option. According to a study sponsored by Enghouse Interactive, switching to cloud based call center solutions provides many cost saving benefits. Additionally, virtual call centers are helping companies reach full potential by creating a forum on which contact centers can operate more efficiently and increase productivity.

The results of the conducted study, which surveyed more than 200 contact centers operational leaders, confirm that switching from a multi-site call center to one virtual call center helps decrease queue times and problems with call variability. In fact, 71% of those who switch to a virtual call center saw an improvement in those two areas.

Furthermore, cloud based call center solutions allow for call center agents to work from home while still being able to maintain and provide valuable customer service. This survey shows that 42% of respondents allow this behavior to take place, and that the number of agents working from home is dramatically increasing year after year. This luxury is only offered to a call center by incorporating cloud based call center solutions.

Creating a virtual call center environment in your company allows for a more powerful and flexible environment, granting agents flexibility yet providing structure. And to mention again, the costs one can save by switching to a cloud based call center are significant. Overall, the Enghouse Interactive study supports that a call center using “cloud” enabled software is well-substantiated, thus many companies, of all sizes, are turning to cloud based call center solutions.

Contact Center Solutions: Making Your Business Productive

A contact center serves as a platform for which customer relationships are built and managed. In order for such relationships to be carried out properly and effectively, suitable contact center solutions must be in place. In today’s world it is not enough to have any contact center solution employed; instead, a call center must be equipped with call center technology that not only enables it to carry out the necessary procedures capably, but also speedily, productively, and cost-efficiently.

Contact center solutions are a tightly integrated package in which each component heavily relies on the other. This package not only includes the obvious and necessary call center technology, but also business software applications which allow for the system to function intelligently apart from the knowledgeable provider. What does this mean? It means that without a superior, fit-for-your-business contact center solution in place, your call center may be lacking and operating at less than its full potential. And because your contact center’s success depends both on routine upgrades and evaluations, the responsibility of introducing and incorporating such technologies to your contact center would greatly depend on your contact center’s management team efforts.

As your managers approach the contact center evaluation process, one might suggest dividing this task into two separate phases: 1) assess the available call center technology and 2) determine the strengths of the contact center solutions provider.

The first step will help determine what is required from the contact center operationally. This in-depth assessment should touch on the contact center’s technology design, software solution potential, and customization capabilities. As a call center technology solution is decided and ready for implementation, managers move on to the second phase— an evaluation of contact center employees. This is a crucial part of the evaluation process. Why? It is a known fact that even if a contact center features the most advanced equipment and technology, failure to add value and intelligence to that technology solution from the contact center provider will ultimately influence the results negatively. Thus, although the first step is fundamental, the second phase is equally, if not more important to the success of a call center.

Upon completion of the evaluation process, both call center technology and customer service efforts will have been modified and improved. With refined and promising contact center solutions in position, productivity is certain to improve.