4 Reasons to Move to the Cloud Before the Holiday Rush
Do you remember last year’s holiday rush? And are you ready to make 2019 unforgettable? I hope so, because there’s a lot of cash at stake.
Total retail spending during the 2018 holidays rose nearly 6 percent and totaled $998 billion dollars. 2019 is poised to rise even higher, with projected spending for Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday through New Year’s Day forecasted to climb over $1 trillion.
That’s great news if you’re a kid eagerly awaiting this year’s trending holiday gifts. Not so great if you’re tasked with managing holiday call spikes and increased call traffic across your outdated on-premise system.
Anyone who has tried managing their call-center activities during a holiday rush knows the recurring headaches:
- Ongoing cost and maintenance
- Inflexible with modern technology
- Poor scalability as demand increases
But luckily, these common pitfalls can be avoided.
By shifting your call center software from an on-premise system to a cloud based environment, you can tap into a number of key advantages that let you enjoy the holiday business without the hassles.
Here are four reasons why moving your call center software to the cloud is the best holiday gift your business can receive:
IT’S EASIER FOR YOUR IT STAFF TO DEPLOY AND MANAGE A CLOUD-BASED SOLUTION
Whether your call center is managed internally or outsourced, leveraging a cloud based software solution offers your organization the quickest deployment of leading call center technology, supported by the latest features.
A cloud based solution eliminates IT constraints or internal hardware issues that your organization would normally handle. Moving to the cloud allows you to take that FTE burden from your internal IT operations and re-allocate those resources (and costs) back into the customer experience.
Modern cloud based providers spend a tremendous amount of time on security and redundancy to support their many clients, at levels your organization would likely be hard pressed to match. In most cases, matching the level of security and safeguards built into cloud platforms on your premise system would involve buying and deploying redundant servers and licenses to match the type of failover capabilities of modern cloud based deployment. The capital expenditure for the servers in addition to the man power to implement geo-redundant environments is considerable.
What’s more, as the holidays bring sudden communication spikes and rising call and digital traffic, you need a solution that is stable and efficient. If you see gaps in how your current on-premise solution handles communication spikes, don’t wait until the holiday season to realize you need an evolving technology to meet the constantly changing demands of your customers.
A cloud software partnership is the fastest and easiest way to improve call center service and drive better ROI from your agents.
GIFT YOUR AGENTS WITH BETTER CONTACT CENTER TECHNOLOGY
By moving your call center environment to the cloud, you’re empowering your agents with leading-edge technology and the business agility to proactively leverage best-in-breed features.
By 2021, it is estimated that 15 percent of customer-agent interactions will be powered by AI. Are you prepared to manage your solution to keep pace with technology and rising consumer demands?
IT and implementation costs make it hard — even impossible — to stay current with the latest features. Even if money was no object, onboarding and training your internal IT staff is a burden that falls to your teams.
So while you roll out your on-premise technology that promises to add agent efficiency and improve the customer experience, you still have weeks, often months, of implementation before agents can access the benefits. Cloud based solutions offer a future-proof tech platform that agents can leverage right away.
As slick new features and technology additions become available, ongoing integrations are handled in the background by your vendors or a third-party. You’ll never again lose a second of agent productivity or continuity of service because of a hardware update. Modern cloud deployments are often built on API driven systems that allow your organization to leverage other tools more effectively through much simpler integrations. Because the software manufacturers develop on top of their own APIs they maintain them with a much stricter change guideline ensuring you don’t have the same complications of the days of one off integrations.
Once the holidays are in full swing, your call center environment will be handling countless customer communications – don’t let a hiccup in your technology capabilities be the reason your first impression with a customer becomes your last.
BOOST AGENT PRODUCTIVITY DURING THE HOLIDAY SEASON
Your call center agents do their best work when they’re not overburdened by repetitive and manual tasks, and chances are they do it faster. By adding the latest and greatest features — such as automation and efficiency tools – you can ensure your agents are well equipped to increase your organization’s call center ROI from day one.
Whether it’s a few minutes here, a few minutes there — cloud based solutions make it easier for agents to achieve faster resolution times and lower call abandonment rates.
A move to the cloud empowers agents to do more work in less time, which drives higher customer satisfaction and improves agent retention. That’s because agents are most fulfilled (and likely to stick around) when they are adding tangible value across customer issues.
CALL CENTER FLEXIBILITY ACROSS HOLIDAY RUSH
Growing businesses need the freedom to adjust at their own pace. For call center managers, the holiday rush requires organizations to scale their resources rapidly to meet spiked consumer demand.
But with an on-premise system – constrained by hardware and licenses – it’s impossible for centers to stay as agile as they’d prefer across the ebbs and flows of holiday demand.
What’s more, that inefficiency from your outdated system trickles into your customer experience.
Cloud-based solutions offer cutting-edge features and integrations that ensure you’ll have the bandwidth and capabilities available to meet your growing needs.
LET OUR CLOUD CALL CENTER SEARCH AGENTS HELP YOU MAKE THE RIGHT MOVE TO THE CLOUD
There any many technology options in the call center marketplace to choose from. At no charge to you, Cloud Call Center Search can work with your experienced agents and managers to select the right cloud software technology and vendor partner to drive amazing results during the holiday season — and beyond!
Work with an agent-focused partner that is in your corner and understands your industry to discover the right vendors to bring out the best in your call center agents.
