What should you know about cloud contact center solutions?

With the world shifting towards cloud alternatives and many vendors changing gears, it's no secret that lots of companies seek cloud call centers, or CCaaS, contact center as a service. Unlike on-premise systems, a contact center as a service alternative isn’t only easier to set up but is significantly cheaper to maintain. 

Optimization of spending and development of new technologies made cloud contact center solutions (Contact Center as a Service, CCaaS) extremely favored. In comparison to on-premise systems, cloud alternatives are faster to set up and significantly cheaper to maintain. 

What makes a deal sweeter - a contact center as a service system requires no hardware considerations as everything is working in remote mode. Thus, you can start hiring remote agents without any buts. Add a lower entry barrier, and there is no wonder why most modern organizations opt to use cloud contact center software (Contact Center as a Service). The productivity yield from these call center as a service systems is even better, while the capacity to choose from diverse pricing politics suggests unbelievable cost savings. It is also a great choice to enhance contact center as service (CCaaS) in the cloud agents' performance.

Interestingly, on-premise contact center solutions (CCaaS sofware) aren’t able to offer such an assortment of functions as cloud-based contact center solution (CCaaS software) does. Another fact - cloud call center (CCaaS) software can help achieve business continuity. CCaaS solution offers a complicated interface, AI-integrating options for third-party software and different digital channels. Add here lower maintenance costs, infrastructure costs, and almost absolute trustworthiness and you will get a perfect tool.

Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) platform, sometimes called a cloud-based call center or cloud-based contact center,  furthermore offers live insights, control, monitoring prospects, heightened mobility, and multichannel communication with more heightened agents’ productivity. 

What is Cloud Contact Center (CCaaS)?

Cloud Contact Center as a Service, or CCaaS meaning is a cloud-based solution that suggests several communication channels, such as calls, SMS, emails, or webchat, to furnish a superior customer experience. Despite these options, it also includes many useful functions to oversee the yield of contact center agents and perform customer relationship management to track the customer journey. Real-time monitoring,  call queueing, workforce optimization and workforce management tools, and live dashboards are less part of the cloud contact center (CCaaS software) as service attributes. Because it is a cloud contact center solution (CCaaS software), it offers great cost savings for you as it needs no hardware to be set up and it’s more effortless to use for contact center agents. As Statista shows, the market for such call center cloud software (CCaaS) has grown 2 times since 2017.

Source: Size of the contact center software market worldwide in 2017, 2018 and 2023 (in billion U.S. dollars), Statista Research Department

How does a cloud call center work?

There are many cloud contact center (CCaaS) advantages compared to the classic system. Still, the fundamental dissimilarity is that a cloud contact center solution  (CCaaS solution) doesn’t require hardware. All actions, committed through different digital channels, are performed via VoIP. The CCaaS can unite various communications channels in a complex interface, so you can use all communications straight via the cloud contact center solution (CCaaS solution). The other call center software (CCaaS) benefits exist in the possibility to integrate CRM apps and let contact center agents work with all needed data in a single interface using Artificial Intelligence technologies. As the cloud contact center solution (CCaaS solution) is working just using VoIP technology, contact center agents can work in remote mode and still be able to use virtual phone numbers of any country, while it is difficult to implement with a classic solution. 

Essential cloud contact center software benefits  

As Gartner says, cloud-based contact center solutions (CCaaS solution) will be a top choice for every sphere in the nearest time. To finally close the question about the edges of the cloud contact center (CCaaS) solution, we have described its key features and abilities.

Consolidate all clients' actions in one place

Keeping all data about the client in one storage is the way to provide a superior customer experience. This option allows contact center employees to avoid shifting between different instruments. On the other hand, all info, like consumers’ requests, or their account value is provided up-to-minute. Tracking every customer`s action allows for supplying qualitative assistance and solving problems with agent efficiency and agent experience. 

Decrease operational costs while increasing employee productivity

We have already mentioned that cloud-based call center solutions (CCaaS) propose great cost savings compared to traditional solutions. Its price can be nearly 70$-150$ monthly (per agent), while all spending on a standard call center can be 6 times higher.  Another advantage is that your contact center employees will work more productively using omnichannel technology with a mixture of options and a complex interface.

New opportunities for expandability and flattening downtime

How many factors affect your on-premise contact center? Weather, rental problems, hardware crashes - all of these problems can leave you with no sales, or your clients won’t get help. Isn’t it more reasonable to avoid such troubles with the help of a cloud contact center solution (CCaaS solution)? Especially if an almost 100% uptime rate is paired with great cost savings. Why have we mentioned money spending? Because when you are using a cloud contact center (CCaaS solution), you pay for monthly or annual subscriptions only. It allows you to increase scalability whenever you require it by purchasing new accounts for contact center agents. 

Stay informed using business insights

Do you want to take control of all business processes? The cloud contact center as a service (CCaaS) has enough functions to track all KPIs and provide up-to-minute stats. Make informed decisions using all data about your consumers' actions and contact center agents’ activity. The possibility to investigate any process is your most essential tool to fix all imperfections.

Less setup and operational costs

While the traditional solution`s setup period is about 9 weeks, a cloud contact center (CCaaS) is all set in 1 or 2 days! The sooner you will be prepared to work, the more impact you’ll get, isn’t this statement right? A short setup in pair with less cost makes a cloud contact center solution (CCaaS) a perfect choice.

Enhanced client experience

Nowadays self-service has become extremely popular. Clients want to select the communication channels personally, and companies must propose this alternative to their consumers. Owing to the cloud contact center as a service (CCaaS), operators may solve customer issues regardless of what digital channels of contact they use - by email, by phone, or via social media. 

Top 7 Questions to Ask While Choosing a Cloud Call Center Solution

If you are on the fence and still not sure whether you need a cloud call center (CCaaS), try asking yourself these questions.

1. Primary objectives of your call center? — Determine what sort of calls you are going to handle, inbound or outbound, or maybe both. Furthermore, you must assess how current communication is done to choose the most functional solution. Don’t forget also about customer expectations to stay focused on customer retention and loyalty. 
2. On-premises or cloud? — If you have the right hardware, you might want to use an on-premise solution. However, do keep in mind that regular updates, upgrading equipment, and even ongoing technical support from specialists are pricey endeavors. If there are no specific requirements for the server location, your finest bet is to use cloud contact center technology (CCaaS).
3. Determine your abilities — As we already mentioned, opening new locations with a traditional solution will cost you a lot. Cloud options are much more flexible. Analyze your necessities and growth rate to determine which one is suitable. Also, pay attention to how fast additional licenses are activated during the seasonal increase in the number of employees and whether it will require additional customization.
4.  Is extra hardware/software required? — To create a faultless contact center infrastructure for your on-premise contact center technology, you will still need additional software licenses (like pricey Microsoft Windows server licenses, DB, etc.) or multiple servers. For the cloud-based solution, it is not necessary to purchase additional software or hardware.
5. Is a vendor ready to add extra functions to meet your needs? — Sometimes your requirements are too specific so no software will be able to handle them. Make sure your platform of choice allows for modifications and find out whether the cloud contact center (CCaaS) provider is ready to put in extra work to fulfill requirements.
6. What other business solutions do you already employ? — Make sure that your platform of choice can integrate with current business tools. Don`t make your agents use a dozen individual business solutions to answer a single customer query.
7. Is the vendor’s support reliable and professional? — The last question is about the stability and reliability of the tool. Ask your vendor how they handle crashes and unexpected downtime, bugs, upgrade requests, maintenance, etc. Other things you might want to know are what support modes they provide, how long the initial setup takes, whether they conduct any training and whether they bill extra for it.

Voiptime Cloud Call Center Checklist

Can’t choose between different options for any types of contact centers? Pay attention to the availability of such cloud call center features:

Multichannel routing

Since modern customers value a smooth experience and easy communication with a brand, this feature of your cloud contact center (CCaaS) is super important. Multichannel cloud contact center (CCaaS) routing allows distributing calls and non-voice queries (like emails, webchats, etc.) between the specific agent groups based on the chosen criteria ‒ telephone number, geographic location, configured priorities of the tasks, agent teams, sales teams, or agents themselves customer's selection, etc. As a result, they get the best customer service from the most skilled agent of your cloud contact center (CCaaS).

IVR (Interactive Voice Response)

It’s an automated telephone menu system of your cloud contact center (CCaaS) that interacts with your callers, ensures complete self-service, and directs their queries to the most skilled agent. IVR software in a cloud contact center (CCaaS) not only increases the service level of a cloud contact center (CCaaS) but reduces its costs at the same time. Since the agents no longer have to answer repetitive requests, they get to concentrate on handling more complex questions. Meanwhile, your customers won’t have to wait in line whenever they reach out. They can order a callback from the call queue thanks to this cloud contact center (CCaaS) feature.

ACD(Automatic Call Distributor)

Another call center feature that works with the IVR software and allows you to perform intelligent routing of calls using different types of intelligent routing, including skills-based call routing, priority-based call routing, time-based call routing, and so on. ACD software can use IVR data to understand the purpose of a customer call and route it to the most relevant agent using different criteria, such as language, customer status, time of day, and so on. Skills-based routing allows you to set a rate for each agent based on their skills and route the most important calls to agents with the highest rates. 

Outbound dialers with timezone rules and flexible redialing rules

This set of features is necessary for a cloud contact center (CCaaS) that is working with clients around the world. You need a cloud contact center (CCaaS) auto dialer that allows you to configure flexible redialing intervals after each failed dialing attempt to make sure you reach every single person in your contact list. However, an auto call back shouldn’t happen in the middle of the night. That’s why it’s awesome to have a cloud contact center (CCaaS) outbound dialer with timezone rules.

Call blending

Many organizations need a cloud contact center (CCaaS) to fulfill two different needs – ensure top-notch customer support and get in touch with potential clients. Luckily, it’s possible to kill two birds with one stone. The call blending cloud contact center (CCaaS) feature allows agents to combine inbound and outbound campaigns in a single interface of a cloud contact center (CCaaS) software, which increases sales and improves customer satisfaction.

Call scripts

The ability of a cloud contact center (CCaaS) to construct flexible call scripts is a must during the first months of agents’ work and later on as they deal with more complex customer queries. This cloud contact center (CCaaS) feature improves sales communication strategy, helps your agents run surveys, and gives them the knowledge base to answer any client's question. 

Call recording and monitoring

Every call center manager would love to have some helpful cloud contact center (CCaaS) features for call monitoring. It’s great to have cloud contact center (CCaaS) software that records phone calls, but it’s even better to use one that lets you listen to the active conversations of your team in real-time. Such cloud contact center  (CCaaS)features as silent call monitoring, call whispering, and call barging are invaluable for coaching and agent training.

Dashboards & reporting

Other important cloud contact center (CCaaS) features are historical reporting and analytics. Various cloud contact center (CCaaS) metrics reports, such as agent’s KPI, detailed campaign monitoring, inbound and outbound call metrics, and user activity reporting will help you get total control over your cloud contact center (CCaaS) campaigns in real-time and make informed decisions.

Quality assessment

The cloud contact center (CCaaS) call quality scoring feature allows you to track an agent’s performance over time, identify opportunities for coaching, and more. It lets managers grade agents’ after listening to the call and give the right development vector for improving their skills to upgrade cloud contact center (CCaaS) performance. All the information is stored in the so-called scoring cards with the desired parameters for assessing the quality of agent-customer interaction and a relevant cloud contact center (CCaaS) call recording in the attachment. It’s a great plus to have it in cloud contact center (CCaaS) software.

CRM integration

If you are already using a CRM system, it would be great to have the ability to integrate it with your new cloud contact center (CCaaS) software. It’s possible to ensure a two-way CRM integration via API, which also helps with lots of other tasks (like capturing leads from a website or transferring them into cloud contact center (CCaaS) software from another system).

Cloud contact center (CCaaS) software that has all the features mentioned above is sure to satisfy most, if not all your business needs. Also, always take a free trial or pilot if available to see the cloud contact center (CCaaS) solution in action. It will help you make your final decision.

Do I Need Cloud Contact Center Software?

Absolutely. We challenge you to ask yourself, are you looking for online freedom and high-quality VoIP calls? Do you care about efficiency and cost reduction paired with business continuity? Do you need to increase customer loyalty and focus on customer success? Here’s when you definitely should use cloud contact center (CCaaS) technology, because it suits your business requirements.

You need the advantages of online freedom proposed by the cloud contact center (CCaaS). The way we communicate with our customers is constantly changing and evolving. To keep up with the competition, you need modern instruments. If you use on-premise systems, you are effectively cutting down on your income as contact center cloud solutions (CCaaS) don’t limit you to just incoming and outcoming calls. Each cloud contact center (CCaaS) software allows you to write emails, send text messages, use IVR to guide prospects, talk with clients using a web chat, use outbound customer communications, and more. 

You look for high-quality VoIP calls. Cloud contact center (CCaaS) solutions are far more efficient in speech transmission. The cloud contact center (CCaaS) isn’t affected by the quality of the hardware, nor do they experience static or delay. If you want errorless, distortion-free, and delay-free calls, the cloud contact center (CCaaS) is the way to go. 

You care about efficiency & cost reduction. Cloud contact center (CCaaS) will eliminate the need for hardware maintenance and cut expenses on software setups and license purchases, while also boosting agent productivity. And then there’s the fact that no extra hardware upgrades are needed once you have more agents because all the cloud contact center (CCaaS) infrastructure is on the cloud. Just pick a bigger plan and you are good to go.

Not Sure Which Cloud Contact Center Software to Go For? 

If you are searching for reliable cloud contact center (CCaaS) software to increase the sales rate and improve support, order the demo. Our cloud contact center (CCaaS) has everything you might ever need. Start discovering all possible features of perfect cloud-based call center (CCaaS) software right now!