Before the pandemic, cloud migration was already top of mind for most contact centres, but work from home arrangements have pressured organisations to transition to the cloud much faster than many had planned. In fact, DMG Consulting predicts that Cloud-Based Contact Centre Infrastructure (CBCCI) functionality will become a standard productivity tool across enterprises in the next 10 years.
To add to this pressure, there is a clear need across the contact centre and wider customer experience (CX) operations industry to build and rely on modern technologies. For example, there’s no doubt that automation and AI deliver better customer experiences and offer operational efficiency.
So why has only 17% of the contact centre market has migrated to cloud-based contact centre technology?
The reality is there are pros and cons to migrating a contact centre to the cloud, but with the right partners and the right strategy for connecting, implementing and managing the overall CX technology ecosystem, these challenges are far more achievable than you might think.
No cloud migration comes easy
While the benefits of migrating to CBCCI are important, let’s be honest, the journey to get there is not simple. Contact centre technology consists of connected software and applications, it is not a standalone solution.
A contact centre’s software is connected to carriers, payment service providers, call recording technology, quality management tools, workforce management technology, CRM systems and more. This means that transitioning from one contact centre technology to another is not straightforward. Migrations are time-consuming, expensive and introduce risks to the business operations and overall customer experience.
All too often, one or multiple CX technology providers constituting the CX "technology stack" would not have embraced cloud-based technology just yet either. This means compatibility and connectivity issues often further add to the complexity of the migration project.
Don’t bother without company-wide buy-in
Looking beyond the technical aspects of implementing a cloud migration, there is the critical change management component to take into account. With new technology, tools, and capabilities come new processes, ways of working, and training. Without the people to implement and benefit from the technology, the business cannot realise any of the value it originally set out to accomplish. Ensure that people and their growth are not an afterthought in the cloud migration process and that teams are set up to succeed from the start.
Every business is being impacted by disruptions in different ways and will need to address their cloud migration uniquely to meet customer needs. Considering the complexity, range of options, and people-related aspects of a cloud migration is the first step.
Hybrid models are viable options
We hear from customers that they are interested in migrating their contact centre or calling technology every day. But the connectivity between their current and future technology is seen as complex, expensive and risky.
Organisations have been spending significant amounts of money on technology such as call recording or speech analytics, and while they are keen to migrate their contact centre technology to the cloud, they want to preserve some of their existing assets and maximise the value of these investments. Others are looking at connecting contact centre software and automation technology like an intelligent virtual agent and, again, seek easy and secure ways to connect everything.
At SecureCo, we offer enterprises the possibility of augmenting their existing technology environments to allow for a more controlled transition. This means enabling legacy technology to be connected to new technology in ways that offer the organisation modern tools and data points to manage their customer experience and operations. For example, an on-premise contact centre technology could be connected to a cloud-based stereo recording service, enabling speech analytics, voice biometrics and more. We also quite often work on connecting the dots between a calling technology and an intelligent virtual agent solution.
When embarking on a cloud migration, it should never be an “all or nothing” approach from day one. Maintaining the capability for your architecture to stay agile and flexible is essential. A calling technology migration project can be the ideal time for reviewing your connectivity across your CX technology ecosystem. What you want is the capability to connect, migrate and deploy voice technology pretty much on-demand. This is how you maintain your CX competitive advantage.
If you’re interested in discussing calling technology migration and voice connectivity, reach out to us and speak with one of our architects.