If you’ve been trying to build a compelling case for migrating your contact center to the cloud, COVID-19 may have provided an unexpected boost. The necessity to transition your agents to work from home (WFH) and burst to scale might be the convincing argument you’ve needed.

If you’re using an on-premises solution, you’ve heard the arguments against the switch—most of which center around resistance to change and the perceived comfort of staying with the status quo. There are likely fears within your organization about potential business disruptions or downtime, or that the cloud’s benefits just don’t seem strong enough to justify the change. But as many contact centers are learning through their experiences during this pandemic, now is a smart time to (re)consider the cloud.

Over the last two months, as we have helped contact centers quickly address the effects of the crisis with our Rapid Response program, we’ve seen COVID-19 serve as a clear catalyst for cloud migration.

Drivers for Moving to the Cloud: WFH Agents & Volume Spikes

The urgent need to quickly move agents to WFH to keep them safe from COVID-19, while swiftly scaling to volume fluctuations, required a cloud solution. More than ever before, we’re hearing from contact center leaders struggling to adapt with their on-premises technology and looking for alternatives.

Some of the compelling reasons why these contact centers are considering the cloud include:

  • Agent access regardless of where they work. The cloud enables agents to work from anywhere and still access the tools they need to serve customers. With cloud, it only takes an internet connection and browser.
  • Easily burst to scale. A cloud solution can easily scale up or down, which is critical if your contact center is experiencing large and unpredictable spikes in volume. You can easily add agents as needed and reassign them to different channels when necessary.
  • Simplify agents workflows: With a unified platform like CxEngage, your agents will have a seamless experience with one tab for all tasks. This reduces handle times, boosts agent morale, speeds interactions and delivers an optimal customer experience.
  • Quick implementation: It’s much faster to set up a cloud tenant to support your WFH agents than an on-promises platform. A cloud solution eliminates the need to buy expensive hardware and software and configure and maintain it internally.
  • Analytics to evaluate performance: CxEngage’s built-in reporting and analytics enable you to clearly measure performance. With this, if you stood up a cloud tenant specifically to handle the effects of the pandemic, you now have hard data on its effects.
  • Long-term disaster recovery: The cloud’s reliability is second to none. Once you set up a cloud tenant, in the event of a future disaster or crisis disrupting your normal operations, you have the infrastructure in place as soon as you need it again and a reliable rapid recovery plan.

The Benefits of a Pilot

Many contact centers with on-premises solutions found a cloud pilot program the best solution to adapt to the changes forced by COVID-19. As a result, they now have data to back up the cloud’s benefits, including the ability to support a quick pivot to remote agents. And both agents and IT teams have had a chance to use it and provide feedback.

These pilot deployments have helped businesses realize the cloud is a viable solution, and it can quickly and easily be expanded. This alleviates concerns about long implementation times and business interruptions.

Along with the anecdotal results of user feedback—and effects on customer experience—contact centers that implemented CxEngage specifically to address the effects of COVID-19 can leverage reporting and analytics to build a business case for the cloud long-term. You can compare the anecdotal feedback from users and the CxEngage reporting and analytics with your on-premises solution results to determine if the cloud is a worthwhile long-term solution.

Ensure Business Continuity During a Crisis

With these pandemic-forced cloud pilot programs, organizations are gaining experience responding to crisis while maintaining business continuity. COVID-19 has required a lot of pivoting for contact centers, and they need the cloud technology to continue to respond quickly to what will now be an uncertain and constantly changing future. With the cloud, you can effectively respond to needs on a moment’s notice.

Regardless of the specific situation, when trouble strikes, cloud contact center solutions like CxEngage support WFH agents, scale for increased call volume, monitor remote agent productivity, comply with HIPAA and other regulatory mandates, and support customer experience-focused features like an omnichannel contact center. The important point is the cloud enables business continuity in a way on-premises systems simply cannot. It delivers a powerful business case for a full cloud migration.

If you’ve leveraged the cloud to manage the effects of COVID-19, now may be the best time to extend the investment for long-term benefits. To learn more about the CxEngage Rapid Response program, click here or contact us now.