Is Cloud the Best Solution for Your Contact Centre?

Cloud-based contact centres are a massive market

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Cloud-Based Contact Centre
Contact CentreInsights

Published: May 6, 2021

Anwesha Roy - UC Today

Anwesha Roy

Valued at $13.67 billion in 2019, cloud solutions for contact centres are expected to be worth almost $45 billion by 2025. But is the cloud the best choice for your organisation and customer service needs? Does it make sense to hop onto the cloud-only bandwagon, abandoning on-premise environments? The answer isn’t quite so simple.

Cloud Adoption Continues to be a Top Priority

Last year, we discussed the incredible growth pace we are seeing in the cloud contact centre segment, aided by technologies like CCaaS. Cisco’s 2020 global survey of 700 contact centre executives from 7 countries echoed this optimism, indicating that cloud migration was on the cards for 62% of companies in the next 1.5 years.

Notably, over a quarter (62%) are already on the cloud, and the COVID-19 pandemic’s remote work requirements will only add to these numbers.

The top reasons for choosing the cloud are:

  • The infrastructure is easier to manage and scale
  • The software is automatically kept updated at all times, thanks to remote management
  • The vendor can continually deliver new capabilities without infrastructure overhaul

Apart from this, there are also cost savings, because no on-premise storage or hosting is necessary. And one of the biggest benefits propelling adoption in the past year was the flexibility that agents enjoy, able to access their contact centre interfaces from home.

But this doesn’t make the cloud transition a no-brainer. The same Cisco survey also found that contact centres were often reluctant to switch to the cloud due to issues around control, existing investments, and migration complexity.

Why the Cloud May Not Be the Best Solution for Your Contact Centre

Contact Babel has an ongoing survey that documents the concerns around cloud-based contact centre solutions among those currently on-premise. The insights from this report are telling, demonstrating how these concerns have only mounted with time, and hold back adoption for many. For example, feats around the loss of control and third-party dependencies increased between 2015 and 2019. Lack of functional parity and integration problems have also been persistent over these past few years.

Looking at these trends, it becomes apparent that companies already entrenched on-premise will find it difficult to rationalise the switch to the cloud. This is primarily because of the integration, customisation, and cost requirements it would entail.

How to Decide?

To assess your readiness for the cloud and if it is the best solution for your contact centre, here is a handy checklist:

  • Have you invested heavily in customising your systems?
  • Are you operating in a moderately-to-highly regulated industry?
  • Is there more than one business-critical feature that you have built, but is missing on a cloud platform?
  • Do you have an in-house team for managing contact centre infrastructure?
  • Is your existing, owned system successfully avoiding cost overruns?

If you have answered with a YES to 3 or more of the above 5 questions, it could mean that the cloud may not be the best solution for your contact centre.

 

 

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