While the number of contact centers migrating from traditional on-premises solutions to contact center-as-a-service (CCaaS) steadily increases, contact centers still exploring cloud options are considering their potential moves carefully.
In a recent survey of 100 contact center leaders, conducted by Serenova at last month’s Enterprise Connect, 64% of respondents said they are planning a move to the cloud (27%) or exploring cloud options (37%). Twenty-seven percent said they are already using the cloud (14%) or a move to the cloud is in process (13%). Only 8% of the Enterprise Connect attendees we surveyed said they were not considering a move to the cloud.
What best describes the status of your contact center’s move to the cloud?
Two (Real) Tales of Migration
Our prospective and current customers tell us objective, real-life experiences of organizations that have successfully migrated to the cloud are an essential part of the necessary due diligence when making a decision about their own move to the cloud. That’s why, earlier this year, leading industry analyst Sheila McGee-Smith spoke to companies from diverse industries about why they chose to migrate to the cloud. She shared her insights in this report and webinar.
Here’s a summary of what she learned from one of those companies about how customer experience, cost savings and efficiency were critical drivers in making its decisions.
City Facilities Management: End-of-Life System Necessitated New Choices, Big Improvements
City FM Australia offers more than 30 end-to-end facilities management services to retail and commercial partners across Australia. The nature of its business requires City to provide 24/7 access and support for its customers—whether for a simple repair or a facility emergency. A seamless customer experience is business-critical.
Its contact center plays a vital role in City’s services. Michael Jackson, systems architect in City’s information technology department, explains, “For any issue, a manager calls through to our contact center.”
When City learned the premises-based contact center system it was running had been categorized as end-of-life by the vendor, it was the impetus needed to re-examine its needs.
Its on-premises system was about eight years old and, according to Jackson, was hindering the company’s growth because it didn’t have the capacity to expand. City was moving some of its services off-shore, from Australia to Malaysia, and the on-premises system couldn’t easily support that. Additionally, the business required more robust reporting functions.
To meet its goals, City migrated to Serenova’s CxEngage cloud contact center solution in 2018.
With CxEngage, agents can be based anywhere. For City, that means they can have agents in Malaysia and Australia taking calls from the same queues, at the same time, which wasn’t possible on an on-premises system. CxEngage allows City’s contact center to provide a seamless transfer from one set of agents to the other as it closes its Australian centers and Malaysia picks up after-hours support.
Another routing benefit has led to an even more dramatic improvement in City’s contact center operation. With the on-premises system, agents were assigned to up to seven different queues or services. However, calls were not automatically routed. Agents were able to select their next call from any of the queues with calls waiting. That meant supervisors had to frequently direct agents to pick up calls on one line or switch off another line. It was very reactive and inefficient.
“Now we’re able to put in more of a logical matrix of calls an agent should take so that they don’t need to worry about deciding what call to pick up,” Jackson explains. With cloud capabilities, the manager doesn’t need to worry about whether priority calls are handled appropriately.
According to Jackson, there was also an immediate improvement in key performance indicators related to calls answered after moving to the cloud.
Three Days of Real-Life Contact Center Stories
One of the reasons I never miss the annual ICMI Contact Center Expo (May 13-16) is the abundance of opportunities to share real-life experiences and engage in frank discussions with contact center professionals. With a special focus on practical case studies, it’s your chance to learn from leading organizations who have done what you are thinking of doing. At ICMI Contact Center Expo, hear the challenges other contact center leaders from top brands encounter and the lessons they’ve learned as they share their strategies.
I’m particularly excited to hear from one top food industry brand, which will share real-life, practical advice for better customer experiences. Don’t miss it Tuesday, March 14, at 1:15 in the Solutions Spotlight Theaters (in the expo hall).
Serenova’s VP of Customer Success, Jen Jackson, will sit down with the lead of the company’s Workplace Solutions team to share insights for driving contact center innovation to deliver exceptional customer experiences. By eliminating silos of customer data in various systems, the company is focused on achieving objectives through the consolidation of disparate systems and an investment in cloud-based technologies.
Don’t miss this session, where you’ll walk away with proven techniques on how to make the transition to the cloud and hear plans for continuing to future-proof your customer experience.
Can’t make it to the expo? Read Sheila’s full report, Migrating to a Cloud Contact Center: Tales from the Far Side, about the experiences of the four companies she interviewed as they moved their contact center to the cloud.
