This week, we wanted to take a look at a recent report from Forrester Research, “Predictions 2015: The Days of Fighting the Cloud are Over.” According to James Staten, VP and principal analyst, and one of the report’s authors, “In 2015, cloud adoption will accelerate and technology management groups must adapt to this reality by learning how to add value to their company’s use of these services through facilitation, adaptation and evangelism.”
So what does further adoption of cloud contact center technology mean for contact centers, and for companies as a whole?
1. Organizations will likely place increased emphasis on Customer Analytics to drive the business, especially as CRM and other customer data moves from remote on-premise data silos to more accessible services in the cloud
2. Agents will have instantaneous access to a wealth of customer information, regardless of where that information originated globally, and will use it to promote stronger relationships during customer interactions.
3. Marketing and other departments in the organization will use this information to develop and deliver more customer-centric products, programs, and offers.
Likewise, there are substantial operational optimizations to be gained from cloud adoption.
1. Installing on-premise technologies and staff requires significant investment, but with the cloud, these resources can be exported or outsourced anywhere and utilized just as readily as if they were on-premise.
2. Data from customer interactions no longer needs to be stored in physical hardware within the office, freeing resources and funds for other aspects of the business.
3. Contact center agents can be located anywhere in the world, and a cloud-based routing system will allow customers to be connected to the proper agent just as seamlessly as if they were calling a locally-based contact center.
And finally, cloud-based technologies allow companies to react to business demands more dynamically than traditional on-premise systems. Because the cloud reduces the need for on-premise technical resources, scaling up or down and configuring application functionality to respond to business changes can be done by the business team itself for a more streamlined process. This greater agility applies not only to the contact center, but to the company as a whole, and so once again the benefits of adopting cloud technology extend beyond the contact center and to the larger business.
We have long recognized the benefits of a cloud-based contact center technology with regards to contact centers, and it looks like this trend now being applied across the board. You can check out the full list of Forrester Research’s predictions for cloud adoption in 2015 here.
