13.4.2022
The future of modern contact centres: Cloud
Cloud migration is one of the fasting growing business trends in recent years. Statistics show that the number of companies migrating to the cloud and using cloud services has almost doubled in the past year.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, many employees were forced to work from home for the very first time. As a result, cloud services accelerated to new heights as they enabled companies to operate and collaborate regardless of location. However, the cloud offers many more benefits to businesses. “… as more and more companies have begun to take advantage of new technological features such as artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, the importance of the cloud will continue to grow,” said Steve McSherry, Daktela UK’s Chief Commercial Officer.
Flexibility is a key benefit of cloud technology. For employees, this can mean remote, hybrid and flexible working hours. Cost-wise there is less CAPEX, you only pay for what you use allowing you to scale cloud-based solutions as your business grows. “With cloud infrastructure, companies can better manage the future of their business, gain a competitive advantage, and, faster than ever, increase the number of customers without having to invest large sums in new technologies,” Steve McSherry points out.
Another key trend in the contact centre market is omnichannel solutions, which provide seamless customer communication across a wide range of channels. “The age distribution of customers today is very diverse. People across different age groups are active on different communication channels, such as e-mails, calls, SMS or webchat, and messages via Teams or WhatsApp. Through all these channels, they reach out to companies and it is clear that they don’t want to repeat their request when switching channels. Therefore, modern contact centres will have to manage to communicate with customers virtually anywhere the customer addresses them. And preferably immediately and 24 hours a day,” said Steve McSherry’s podcast EM360 in March 2022.
Demand for complex online reporting will also grow this year. Contact centres are processing and managing increasing volumes of calls, data, and information from various communication channels. It is no longer possible to rely only on shift managers or contact centre managers to monitor and analyse the work of individual operators. Today, dedicated software enables you to monitor agent performance and statistics in real-time, so you can respond more quickly to challenges and day to day operations. In 2022, analytical platforms will have a vital position in UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) and CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service) trends.
“The importance of Customer Experience Management (CX) will also grow this year. Its main goal is to gather and manage all customer experiences, use them to further the development of the company and strengthen overall customer loyalty,” concludes Steve McSherry.
