It's a great opportunity to re-evaluate how you work
The cloud-based contact center and CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service) are growing exceptionally.
According to Grandview Research, the market for CCaaS will reach a value of $10.8 billion by 2028. Not only does the cloud provide companies with the flexibility required to scale how and when they choose, but it also ensures companies can be ready for anything with a workforce capable of operating from practically any location.
Suppose you’re planning on making the transition to the cloud contact center environment soon, like most companies. In that case, this could be the perfect opportunity for your company to re-evaluate how you work. Now more than ever, the contact center is at the heart of your customer service strategy, setting you apart from other companies in your field. Making a few changes to your CCaaS strategy during your transition to the cloud could be the perfect way for you to outshine the competition.
Steps for Re-Evaluating your Business in the Shift to Cloud
Countless studies confirm the importance of sensational customer experiences in preserving business success. Yet around 87% of customers still believe companies need to put more effort into delivering a seamless user experience. The transition to the cloud is an opportunity for companies to make their customer service strategy faster, more efficient, more affordable, and scalable. It’s also a chance to reconsider the tools you might need for better quality customer service.
Here are a few steps to follow to help you re-evaluate your needs on your journey to the cloud.
1. Examine Existing Features and Functionality
Just because your current contact center gets the job done doesn’t mean it’s delivering genuine value to your business. Today’s customers expect more than ever from the companies they work with. Updating your feature stack to suit the needs of your changing audience could be an excellent way to set yourself apart from the crowd.
Ask yourself what kind of contact center features you most need to focus on, specifically with customer experience in mind. For instance:
- Omnichannel tools: How many channels are you currently serving your customers on? Today’s clients expect to be able to interact with their preferred brands through everything from video conferencing to social media. This is the perfect time to assess the channels your customers currently use and look for ways to add them to your strategy. A CCaaS provider will help you to keep all your channels connected and aligned for better consistency.
- Self-service functionality: Self-service is rapidly emerging as the future of customer service in an environment where digitally savvy customers prefer to address issues independently. Self-service tools like chat bots, FAQ pages and other solutions can make a huge difference to how your customers feel about your CX strategy. Embracing self-service also takes some of the pressure off your contact center team, handling repetitive questions and concerns so human beings can focus on the issues that matter most.
- Reporting and analytics features: Reporting and analytics tools give you a behind-the-scenes look at the customer journey, so you can make more meaningful decisions about which strategies to implement next. Some of the most effective analytics and reporting tools can give you insights into customer trends using AI assessments and sentiment analysis.
Whenever you’re thinking of adding new features to your existing tech stack, make sure everything will continue to work together seamlessly. Building your new CCaaS environment on a flexible and open platform with access to APIs and integrations will help you to avoid business silos.
2. Consider the Employee Experience
For most companies, the main focus when updating contact center technology is finding opportunities to improve customer experience. However, the experiences your clients have will depend heavily on how empowered your agents are. In today’s remote and hybrid work world, it’s crucial to ensure your CCaaS environment supports your team.
Look at the kind of tools your agents are going to be interacting with every day. What kind of things could you make easier for your staff? Are there any pain points you can address during this transition into the cloud? A few points to consider include:
- Supporting remote employees: These days, contact center employees can operate just as well from any corner of the globe as they do in the standard office environment. If you’re embracing a hybrid or remote-working team to ensure business continuity, how well will they be supported by your CCaaS technology? Can you offer the same seamless experiences through the cloud to your remote workers as you do to in-office employees?
- Collaboration: Keeping your team members connected is crucial in any contact center. A good strategy for collaboration can improve customer experience by ensuring staff members can work together and get support when dealing with complex issues. Building your contact center on top of a collaborative environment like Microsoft Teams can help with keeping your employees connected. It’s also a great way to improve adoption, ensuring everyone gets the same comfortable experience for CCaaS technology on any device, from anywhere.
- Engaging employees: How can you ensure employees stay engaged and focused when they’re working on delivering amazing customer experience? Can you use bots and tools to help them find information rapidly when they’re dealing with complex tasks? Are there any automation components you can put into place to support your team members in getting work done? What are you going to do about motivation? Dashboards and wallboards are a great way to get your teams engaged and working harder towards their goals.
It’s also worth considering things like wellbeing in an environment where you’re not going to be able to check in with your staff face-to-face on a daily basis. Implementing bots into your CCaaS environment that can check in on team members and keep a finger on the pulse of the workforce can be helpful.
Regular meetings and conferences where people can come together and share thoughts and concerns are often useful too. Is your new cloud contact center prepped for regular team communication?
3. Address Management and Business Decision Making
One of the biggest reasons for making the transition to the cloud, is that the contact center is evolving at an increasingly rapid pace. Shifting into a cloud contact center means you can make quick decisions about which new tools to implement, how to arrange your staff and more. However, in order to make the correct choices, companies need the right insights.
Management and supervisors in your team need access to the right tools to help them track and support the performance of their team. At the same time, your contact center needs to be equipped with solutions that help your business remain secure and compliant in an evolving world. When moving to the cloud, think about:
- Supervising and managing employees: How are you going to help your management professionals supervise and support staff in a hybrid landscape? Can you use analytics and reporting tools to give them insights into which employees need the most training and support? Could dashboard tools with instant notifications, barge-in features and whisper functions help managers to assist agents in times of trouble?
- Insights and analytics: What kind of metrics can you measure to make decisions about the future of your company and the way your team should run? Analytics in the modern contact center aren’t just for tracking the customer experience, they can also be essential for showing companies the next best step for business growth.
- Security and compliance: What can you do to ensure you’re up to date with the regulations and requirements of your local area, country, or even industry? Do you have the right compliant call recording features in place for your customer conversations? How can you preserve data in the most secure way possible when learning about your customers? What do you need to do about data sovereignty when managing conversations in the cloud?
It’s also helpful to ensure you work with a vendor on your CCaaS solution who can help you make quick changes based on the needs of your business. When you decide you need to implement new tools to improve business growth, manage changes in demand, or simply address security issues, the right vendor will be essential.
Make the Most of your Cloud Transition
A transition into the world of cloud contact center technology is an excellent opportunity for today’s companies to rethink their entire customer service strategy. Now that you’re moving into a more flexible and scalable environment, you’ll have more freedom to adapt your contact center to suit the changing needs of your business and customers.
It all starts with choosing the right vendor to help you make this crucial next step. Reach out to Geomant today to discover how we can help you make the transition to the cloud one that truly benefits your business.