In today’s modern age, retaining customers seems to be one of the biggest challenges businesses face across all industries. The best way to have repeat customers is by creating an excellent customer experience right from onboarding. In the height of competitiveness, customers expect more from brands and don’t mind switching to a competitor after undergoing even one negative experience. A truly customer-centric approach would involve a contact center that offers the support customers need as quickly as possible.
As customer demands continue to grow, businesses must step up to optimize their current IT ecosystem and integrate a technology that provides a seamless customer experience to retain customers and stay ahead in today’s competitive business landscape.
Challenges of Traditional Call Centers
Since the pandemic forced businesses and customers to shift to digital experiences more rapidly, customers have become more comfortable seeking digital-first solutions to their problems or questions. Despite that, a significant portion of the contact center industry relies on traditional on premise solutions. Businesses that have on premise call centers have to take charge of maintaining and upgrading their software systems and IT staff. Though on premise contact centers offer the reliability of engagement between representatives and customers, they have major limitations.
Budgetary and strategic decisions need to be made while adopting on premise call centers, adding operational costs. Customer service representatives are always required to be around their desks to deliver better CX, which restricts operational mobility. Because call centers need to avoid data breaches, managing the privacy and security of large customer data is another challenge that traditional call centers must mitigate on a daily basis.
Due to the various limitations of on premise call centers, organizations are increasingly turning towards cloud-based contact center solutions to fulfill their business priorities. One of the major reasons that contribute to the success of contact center software is the speed of deployment. With a foolproof security system, this optimized technology can substantially meet growing customer needs to improve profitability.
Understanding Cloud Contact Centers
Technology is continuously evolving to become more sophisticated, providing cost optimization, flexibility, and convenience to several businesses. As digital intelligence solutions, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud Technology, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are gaining momentum, contact centers across industries are realizing the potential benefits they can incur from switching to cloud contact center solutions.
Contact centers are looking at automated, responsive, and reliable data centers to meet growing customer behaviors, overcome the shortcomings of traditional call centers, and adopt more flexible business models.
Cloud-based contact centers allow businesses to manage CX across email, text, phone, and social media. It offers functionality that goes way from outbound and inbound calls. Some of the key features of a cloud contact center include –
- Omni channel capabilities across voice, chat, email, phone, video, and SMS
- Data integrations using the helpdesk, CRM, and marketing software.
- Reports and analytics on calls, cases, self-service, and quality management.
- Customer interaction tools for supervisors and agents to lower call volume with workflow automation.
Unlike on-premises call centers, cloud-based contact centers don’t need telecom hardware that requires purchase, installation, and maintenance. When the software is connected with other channels, such as email or social media, it can do all the work. Because contact centers can sync data with the CRM software in the background, it allows everyone to be on the same page.
Cloud-based contact centers work over the internet entirely, which also means that agents will just need headsets, an internet connection, and a workstation to work, making it convenient for agents to receive emails, calls, and chat messages and interact with customers consistently, regardless of the contact method.
When implemented in an organization, cloud contact centers can offer improved functionality, accelerated setup, and real-time analytics. Eventually, it would mean a better customer experience, lower operating costs, and faster time to market.
Here are the highlights of the key benefits businesses can gain from choosing cloud contact centers over traditional call center deployments –
- Developed and Future-Proof Technology
- Improved Agent Performance
- Faster Deployment
- Flexibility and Improved CX
- Better Scalability
- Data Security
- Better ROI
Industries with Cloud Contact Centers and Overall Growth Potential
The growth momentum of cloud-based contact centers will accelerate at a pace of 19.97 percent, with a market share increase of USD 27.02 billion between 2021 and 2026. Businesses in Financial Services, Healthcare, Business Process Outsourcing, and Consulting Services are already leveraging cloud contact center solutions to increase profitability.
Industries that heavily depend on retaining customers, such as BFSI, retail, telecom, healthcare, Ed-tech and more, will find investing in a cloud-based contact center to be an asset more than a cost.
Wrapping Up
Our current marketplace demands agile technology solutions that support responsive decision-making to enhance customer service and steer ahead of the competition. As a result, cloud contact center solutions have become an integral part of enterprises. Companies see it as a necessary step to adopt this streamlined approach for enhancing performance, channeling engagement and support, and reporting deep insights to successfully accommodate customers with changing preferences.
When leveraged strategically, cloud contact center software can make an organization agile enough to meet various business objectives. The higher uptime customer experience will lead to reduced customer service problems and better ROI.
At Engagely, we provide AI solutions to help your business deliver an exceptional customer experience. Regardless of the size of your business, we can offer cloud-based contact center services that aptly accommodate your specific needs.
Akshada Benke
Senior content developer- Marketing
Akshada Benke is a content marketer at engagely.ai with more than twelve years of experience in digital content marketing field. She describes herself as a Philomath. She is confident & professional in developing strong consumer-insights driven goals to build brand and relationships.