Flexibility in the Cloud

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Flexibility in the Cloud

Dynamic Market Changes Require Adaptable Customer Support Solutions

Elizabeth Herrell

President

Communication Initiatives

Jason Alley

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Strategic Insights

By Elizabeth Herrell, Founder and President of Communications Initiatives

What is Driving the Need for Flexible Contact Center

Solutions?

As the pace of technology continues to accelerate, business leaders need to respond quickly to meet their customer expectations for consistent and integrated multichannel support. Social and mobile channels have become the new norm for contacting a company, and companies must create a new support strategy to serve the next generation customer. However, the uncertainty of the existing business environment causes companies to defer decision-making to upgrade their current customer support operations. Yet the critical need for timely response to these rapid changes has

encouraged many companies to consider cloud solutions, which offer much greater flexibility than premise investments. Cloud contact center solutions enable companies to adopt leading edge technology solutions to deliver a compelling customer experience and provide a connected cross-channel experience. Importantly, cloud solutions support the contextual and personalized customer experience that promotes lifetime customer value and supports new revenue generation. This report describes the significant benefits for flexible cloud solutions and provides key criteria for selecting the right business partner to deliver a cloud solution for your business needs today and in the future.

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Internal challenges hinder adoption of more agile support model

The rapid changes in technology, social communications and economic conditions require companies adopt new processes to deliver consistent customer experiences. Companies that want to remain leaders must address this shift in customer preferences for communication channels and support. Unfortunately, the lack of effective

organizational collaboration, communication and cooperation often creates roadblocks that prevent companies from moving in sync with market demands. Companies often fail to act due to:

 Outdated policies for customer support. Internal policies guide most

organizations; but a review of processes for managing customers indicates they are based on earlier conditions and do not accurately reflect the current environment.

 Organization culture resistance to change. Some business cultures create steep

barriers to modifying the status quo and incorrectly claim that the current way of doing business is the best way.

 Budget restrictions that limit new spending. During a slow economy, IT

departments face spending cuts that make it difficult to introduce new projects and gain budget approvals for new investments.

 Lack of insight on customer comments and opinions. Many customer

comments do not reach senior executives who remain uninformed on the Facebook posts and Tweets put out by customers. They fail to realize the effect of negative comments that go viral and can potentially affect their reputation. Companies can no longer afford to delay making the necessary technology change required to support today’s next generation customer. Companies that adopt a flexible business environment to support the rapid change in customer attitudes will gain a competitive advantage by better serving their customers and creating a closer relationship with them.

Next generation customers require new support model

In just a few short years, customers have shifted their channel preferences and now many prefer to connect with companies over social and mobile channels rather than limit communications to voice channels and the web. The next generation customer has many of the following qualities.

 Use new forms of engagement. Customers, especially younger ones, want to

engage in conversations on social sites, blogs and community forums.

 Extensive use of mobile devices. Mobile devices and smartphones have

replaced the telephone and PC as the preferred communication device.

 Require anytime and anywhere support. Customers want companies to

support them at hours and on devices convenient to them. They expect information to be available on a 24/7 basis.

 Use social media for service request. Social media use is standard for many who

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 Expect contextual consistent support. Repeat customers assume that a

company they contact will recognize them and have access to their account information regardless of channel. This means that companies need to track their activities across all channels of communications and provide seamless support.

Companies must adopt a holistic approach to customers to deliver consistent cross channel support. It is important for companies to link cross-channel activities and capture their customer comments to gain insight into their performance and customer attitudes.

Cloud Solutions Expand to Support Market Transformation

Premise-based solutions involve an extensive investment in terms of time and internal resources, and companies find it difficult and expensive to continuously upgrade their existing infrastructure to support the rapid changes in customer support. Cloud solutions reduce the time required to make upgrades and offer flexible plans to allow companies to move forward with assurance and ease at the pace their business requires.

Technology benefits for moving forward with cloud solutions

Flexible cloud solutions offer a range of features to allow companies to easily progress from basic functionality to highly complex operations. IT departments will discover cloud solutions offer the following benefits:

 Support integrated cross-channel capabilities. Cloud solutions reduce the time

to upgrade existing operations to deliver full support for all customer channels and create a consistent cross-channel experience.

 Provide more agile response to customers. Delayed upgrades are no longer

acceptable in a world dominated by real-time communications where customers expect a fast response to their communications.

 Offer insight for customer discussions. Social channel customer conversations

spread quickly and companies need the ability to monitor customer comments and provide appropriate responses immediately.

 Refresh technology as needed. Cloud solution providers upgrade their software

continuously, which prevents companies from being locked into software that no longer serves their business needs.

 Minimize pain of rip and replace. Many companies find their current platform

cannot support new traffic levels and face expensive investments for upgrades. Cloud solutions easily scale to provide needed flexibility for businesses.

 Provide expertise and support. Cloud solutions also provide access to experts

who can problem solve, handle difficult technical issues, and support

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Figure 1: Important Cloud Solutions Benefits

Flexible cloud solutions produce quantifiable savings

Cloud solutions are more than a replacement for premise equipment. They also support a sound business investment. Customers who have invested in flexible cloud contact center solutions find the following quantifiable areas of savings.

 Faster time to market. Cloud solutions typically have a shorter deployment

cycle than premise solutions. This provides more rapid market response.

 Lower costs for internal resources. External experts reduce in-house training,

support costs, and assure competence on maintaining newer applications.

 Extend life of existing investments. Advanced software features can be added

to the internal infrastructure, which delays the need to replace legacy equipment and extends the life of existing investments.

 Offer redundancy and security. Managing secure redundant operations is

essential, but it also represents an additional expense for companies. Cloud solutions typically support full geo-redundancy and security.

 Manage upgrades on a convenient schedule. Companies can make changes at

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Customer experience improves with cloud solutions

Many customers’ first interaction with a company is through an interactive voice

response (IVR) system. It is not unusual to find companies still forcing their customers to go through rigid touch-tone menus before reaching an agent. However, cloud solutions typically include natural language voice portals as a replacement for rigid menus – resulting in a more favorable customer experience and a higher adoption of self-service. Additionally, cloud solutions designed for cross-channel customer support provide consistent handling of customers across all channels. This makes it easier for companies to connect to customer databases and deliver a personalized contextual response. Also, advanced analytics enable companies to better serve their customers by spotting trends and emotions to respond more quickly to emerging problems.

Develop Your Flexible Cloud Strategy without Compromise

Each company has its unique set of requirements, and this is a major reason why many cloud contact center solutions with a single fixed offering have not met the needs of the market. Businesses go through many cycles of expansion and contraction and need the flexibility to adjust quickly to changing market conditions without having to re-engage in major vendor negotiations. Depending on your current operational needs, consider vendors who offer a range of solutions that go from basic to comprehensive. This will allow you to make changes as needed and scale up or down depending on business conditions. A company should never need to compromise its operations because a solution provider cannot accommodate changes without incurring major expense.

Requirements Standard Advanced Premium

Business needs

Small, basic support, standard operations

Mid-sized for more complex

transactions

Critical care and custom support requirements Services ACD, IVR, UC (Core

apps), multi-channel (MC)

Core apps, quality monitoring (QM) and reporting, MC

Core apps, QM, reporting and customization, MC Self-service Basic DTMF IVR Basic speech

recognition

Adv. text to speech, natural language Integration Select CRM and UC

support Multiple integrations with public API Virtual programming interface Support Basic support hours Basic support

hours, professional services

24/7 support and professional services

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Consider best practices when moving to the cloud

The most important factor when moving from premise-based solutions is a continual flow of current operations that result in a seamless upgrade to the cloud. The following are steps you can take to ensure you select the right vendor for your organization.

 Perform internal needs assessment. This is basically a gap analysis of what you

have today and what you need to meet your business goals and the customer’s expectations.

 Evaluate options for near and long term goals. Some needs must be addressed

immediately, while other functions would be desired over a longer term.

Identifying a timeline for adoption will help you prioritize capabilities needed for the initial roll-out.

 Compare vendor solutions based on flexibility. Avoid solutions that will lock

you into a fixed configuration and require a major investment to modify or expand the initial plan. Also, consider solutions that will allow your company to switch back to a premise solution at a later date if desired.

 Determine compatibility with existing infrastructure. Many companies have

not fully depreciated their current investments in legacy telecom equipment and may need the option for a hybrid solution that enables companies to retain their existing voice communication system and voice path.

 Create a cost analysis based on future changes. Many vendor solutions may

claim flexibility but have a high cost for modifying the current platform. Create a cost analysis on charges to modify initial configurations and fully understand how vendors address future modifications.

Call to Action: Select Flexible Cloud Solution Provider Based

on Following Success Factors

As you move forward with a cloud recommendation, it is important to convey to senior executives the urgency of integrating social and mobile channels into your existing operations and the need for cross-channel consistent support. Begin your vendor selection process by clearly identifying your requirements and considering the following attributes:

 Evaluate vendor’s ability to deliver. Consider the vendor’s cloud experience

and its stability and growth specifically for contact centers.

 Consider security policies and service reliability. These are two critical factors

for companies considering moving their customer support operations to the cloud.

 Understand relationship with carriers. Determine the extent the vendor

maintains strategic carrier relationships and their current carrier partnerships.

 Review global footprint and redundancy. Find out which countries are

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Customer Insights

By Jason Alley, Solutions Marketing, Interactive Intelligence

 Evaluate its use of technology and refresh options. Make certain the solution

offered is state of the art, and determine how often the vendor performs technology refresh to its core platform.

 Support staff of experts. The vendor needs to support professionals who are

knowledgeable on the software solution offered and have expertise in integration with a customer’s applications.

 Manage change effectively. Flexibility is essential when considering a provider

with the expertise to quickly and efficiently keep pace with market trends and help companies modify as needed.

Contact Centers Demand Flexibility in the Cloud

Insights shared by Communication Initiatives are critical for those managing the customer experience and advancing customer interaction strategies. My guess is that increased flexibility is one of the key factors driving you to consider the cloud. Perhaps you’ve seen or heard of others using this additional flexibility to gain the advantage in the area of customer service – and you want to do the same.

The mid to large-size contact centers we speak to that are looking to take this step echo the importance of selecting a flexible cloud solution. The following are five elements of (solution) flexibility we’ve found to be particularly important to them.

Choice. They want the flexibility to deploy in the cloud in a way that is best for their

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Scalability. One of the expected financial benefits of the cloud is the ability to rapidly

scale up or down to meet seasonality and corporate growth requirements while only paying for what is used. In this regard, customers tell us they want to be able to scale to meet changing business requirements and conditions, no matter how large or complex their business becomes, without disruption.

For example, a company may start with 75 agents, grow to 125, then up to 200 agents and 100 business users, ultimately peaking at 5,000 agents and 2,500 business users across multiple locations. Contact volumes fluctuate significantly in and out of the busy season. More sophisticated applications are added over time.

Cloud customers expect providers to support this kind of growth seamlessly without a change in platforms, applications, or providers along the way. They want to know their investment is protected.

Globalization. Companies want the flexibility to deploy a new cloud contact center

solution in a given region and, once proven, quickly roll it out internationally. They tell us it’s important for providers to have a strong global footprint and data centers located in key regions throughout the world. A great example of this is a global healthcare provider who, after a successful deployment in North America, extended new, advanced contact center capabilities to skilled agents across the globe.

Customization. While one of the benefits of the cloud is simplicity, some contact

centers still desire the flexibility to customize applications. They don’t like the idea of having to settle. Why should they? Especially when the developer of the technology is providing the service that powers their contact center.

Tiered pricing. IT managers tell us they want the same flexible tiered pricing other

standard cloud offerings provide (for example, CRM and storage services). This allows functionality and support to be tailored to their exact needs and maximizes their return on investment.

While certainly not an exhaustive list, these are five flexibility demands we hear

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The Authors

Elizabeth Herrell is the founder and president of Communication

Initiatives. As a recognized industry leading analyst with eleven years' experience at Forrester Research as Vice President and Principal analyst, she has delivered multiple consulting projects to companies and provides expert advice on business

communication solutions and contact center transformation. Elizabeth has published more than 500 reports on industry trends, vendor

assessments, best practices and technology insight and is often a featured speaker for business conferences and client engagements. She is frequently quoted in major news journals and trade publications.

Prior work experience includes senior marketing positions with IBM, Rolm and Siemens Corporation. Elizabeth earned her MBA from Pepperdine School of Business and a BA degree in economics from Notre Dame

Jason Alley has both a broad and deep background in the area of

Flexibility in the Cloud