Cloud contact centre guide for beginners

Until very recently a huge chunk of UK contact centres worked in a traditional on-premise model and very few agents across companies worked remotely from home. With the pandemic impacting the whole world, businesses both big and small were forced to work remotely. Thus, began the realisation of switching the contact centres to the cloud.

84% of respondents reported that they had moved from a centralised office environment to being mainly home-based. This has been possible because of cloud contact centres.

Source: Contact Babel

In this article, we will touch base with ‘Everything about a Cloud Contact Centre’. We aim to create this into a ready cloud contact centre guide for beginners.

What is a cloud contact centre?

A cloud-based contact centre is a call centre setup that is hosted over the internet (VoIP phone system). It is easily deployable with a minimum upfront cost. It’s a software solution that offers a comprehensive suite of tools and applications which allow you to deliver outstanding levels of customer service. In a cloud contact centre, all inbound and outbound calling operations are run over the internet and it provides uninterrupted customer service through all channels like Voice, Email, Chat, and Social Media.

Further, it’s a software solution that offers a comprehensive suite of tools and applications which allow you to deliver outstanding levels of customer service. Most companies go for a cloud contact centre to reduce their hardware setups cost and minimize the installation to go up and running in less time. But then there is much much more to it than just this.

Gamma has recently launched Horizon Contact, a cloud-based contact centre for small and medium-sized businesses.

How does a Cloud Contact Centre work?

Are you looking to enhance your customer service? Is customer retention something that is bothering your business? If yes, then this solution is definitely for you. Cloud Contact Centre is an integrated business communication solution that simplifies customer interaction. It, therefore, helps you keep your customers happy and they do not want to say goodbye to you any time soon.

Further, it is perfect for organisations that want to make it easier for customers to engage with them and unlike most Contact Centre solutions, Horizon Contact provides an easy to use, self-service feature set, for small to medium businesses, at a price point they can afford.

So, a Cloud Contact Center solution (Unified communications solution or VoIP) typically integrates multiple communications channels into a single system so that agents can communicate with customers or clients by phone call, email or instant messaging, and maintain a consistent record of all communications regardless of the format.

Benefits of using a Cloud Contact Centre

1. Reduced Costs

A cloud-based contact centre is more affordable for any-size business. On-premise products typically have large, upfront licensing fees, as well as additional maintenance and upgrade costs

2. Faster Implementation

Cloud-based contact centre solutions can be set up much faster since users will be accessing the software online.

3. Higher Scalability

Cloud-based contact centres ensure higher scalability. If your contact centre starts growing rapidly or has a sudden increase in inbound call volume, additional seats can easily be added.

4. Greater Security

Cloud-based contact centre solution providers are more likely to have multiple data centres and the resource to provide both virtual and physical security for their data centres.

5. Ease of Remote Working

It is a go-to solution because of the flexibility it gives employees in terms of remote working.

6. Improved Customer Experiences

Finally, agents can meet customers wherever they are most comfortable—whether it be over the phone, email, video chat, texting, or Facebook messaging.

Cloud contact centre vs on-premise solution

Cloud-based contact centre vs on-premise solution: which one’s better

When we talk about the advantages of migrating to a cloud based solution for your contact centre, it become even more important to compare it with the traditional solution. Let us look at 5 primary ways by which a cloud-contact centre outshines an on-premise solution.

Let us look at 5 primary ways by which a cloud-contact centre outshines an on-premise solution.

1. Cloud contact centre streamlines interactions

Cloud-based contact centre allows you to create personalised voice conversations and speed up interactions.

2. Less effort and greater customer satisfaction

Messaging reduces effort and improves customer satisfaction. Incorporating social media through a cloud-based contact centre provides cross-functional, asynchronous, and mobile-friendly channel.

3. AI enables increased transparency

A cloud-based contact centre allows you to increase transparency through Conversational Artificial Intelligence.

4. Improving First-time resolution

Chatbots can provide fast customer service in response to frequently asked questions. Also, can provide automated subscription content to bespoke communications.

5. Flexible working

Finally, give your agents to work flexibly, especially in this time of the pandemic. Unlike an on-premise solution, a cloud-based contact centre allows your business to move to remote working at any given time

comparing Cloud-based contact centre vs on-premise solution

Top 10 Cloud Contact Center features

Most new technologies and solutions outshine traditional systems in terms of the benefits they provide for the users. Likewise, there are several features that outshine the traditional on-premise solution in comparison to a cloud contact centre solution. Let us go through the TOP 10 features that make cloud contact centre the go-to solution for SMBs.

1. Voice channel

Enables agents to make and receive calls and manage the current and historical communication with customers.

2. Call Back Facility

Can be assessed to position the caller’s position in a queue, announce the wait time and offer the option of a call-back in case the waiting time is too long.

3. Email Channel

Allows customers to use existing email services, such as Gmail or Microsoft 365 and multiple email addresses can be used.

4. Advanced queue management

Customer interactions are queued and managed within the contact centre environment. Further, calls/emails are prioritised into VIP queues to improve first contact resolution.

5. Call Recording

With a cloud contact centre you can choose if you want to record inbound, outbound or internal calls for customer service, training or audit purposes.

6. Live Data and Wallboards

This helps to show powerful live data from the minute an agent starts to handle a call, email or webchat.

7. Skills-based call routing

This special feature allows you to automatically route calls to the most qualified agent. This aids in first call resolution and enhancing customer experience.

8. Management Reporting

Scheduling and extracting reports either to a third-party reporting tool or to manager’s email are a useful tool for supervisors

9. Webchat

Webchat conversations can be served between calls to ensure high agent productivity or agents can work on multiple chats at the same time.

10. Automated services like auto-attendant and music-on-hold

Finally, it helps to reduce the number of staff required to provide the contact centre service and to take care of callers until an agent becomes available.

Cloud contact centre advantages and disadvantages

While every new solution or technology has its share of disadvantages or drawbacks yet if the benefits are far more the reason to switch become evident. So, let us take a closer look at the advantages of using a cloud contact centre and how these overshadow the few drawbacks.

1. Easy installation

Cloud contact centre is very easy to install and does not require too much hardware.

2. Lower Capital Expenditure required

This comes with eliminating the need for infrastructure and hardware installation.

3. Enables remote working

Work across multiple geographical locations and a laptop and strong internet connection will suffice the need for handling all calling operations.

4. Easy to scale

With a cloud-based call centre, you can scale up and down as per your business requirements without worrying about operational costs.

There is 1 distinct limitation of using a cloud-based solution for your contact centre. Though it is important to highlight it, still it is yet to be confirmed if it really has an impact on businesses.

Voice quality might differ

Voice quality depends on the speed and quality of the internet connection. Therefore, in places where the internet connection is not the best, your call-quality might suffer.

How secure is a Cloud Cloud Centre?

Finally, it turns out that your information may be safer when stored in a data centre managed by a cloud provider in compliance with national and global security standards and certifications.