Key Features That Are Vital in a Cloud Communications System

In this exclusive post, Jeremy Payne at Enghouse Interactive comments on the key features that are vital in a cloud communications system.

Use the Scalability of Cloud to Quickly Flex to Meet Demand

The migration to the cloud has gathered pace over the past 18 months. The result has been that many organisations are now embracing many of the benefits that a cloud contact centre affords. Not having to rely on an office-based server means staff, whether permanent, interim, contract or gig economy, can access the system through any web browser.

Having shifted to cloud-based systems, businesses are finding they can scale and burst the amount of users they have around seasonal peaks and troughs and move closer to the consumption nirvana of only paying for what they consume.

Businesses can also use cloud to scale up their overall capability. With the burden of running the infrastructure off their plates, many businesses have re-focused IT around business process optimisation, finding ways to blend human and AI powered bots with social customer service to help improve the overall customer journey time and experience.

Make Sure Your Cloud Infrastructure Is Integrated and Secure

At the outset of the pandemic, many organisations raced to the cloud, buying point-and-shoot cloud business applications to solve specific problems. These businesses are now finding that the ‘magic glue’ of system integration needs work and of course it all needs to be done in a secure way.

It is now possible to achieve full end-to-end journey integration in the cloud. But to deliver on this, businesses need to do due diligence on the interoperability from a security perspective between the different cloud platforms and systems they are using.

Customer-facing organisations have to understand how those systems can interconnect in a secure way in the cloud. The need to embed security into the whole process and ensure every new system is securely integrated must be top-of-mind for every organisation today.

Use the Cloud to Radically Change Your Whole Contact Centre Model

The next five years will undoubtedly see a radical shift in the way contact centres are run, with the innovation supported by the cloud enabling businesses to bring in specialist expertise and capability as and when required.

The routine, mundane and boring tasks will have been pushed to the bots and AI-powered processes that enable customers to self-serve.

The complex softer-skill-based problems will be pushed towards specialised skilled humans, who, thanks to the flexibility of the cloud model, may work as part of a gig economy, touting their specialised skills within specific industry verticals to businesses with a need to solve specific problems.

Use Innovative Technology to Ensure Employee Well-Being in a Cloud-Enabled Remote Working World

Managing a workforce remotely and in the cloud comes with its own set of problems – and so innovative cloud technology needs to be supported by other kinds of innovation.

Agents can feel a real sense of isolation and disconnectedness, which can adversely affect their health and well-being. And it’s hard to tell if a colleague is in the middle of a bad call and offer support when you can’t see them.

Smart organisations are using technologies like real-time speech analytics to gauge agent stress levels. Moreover, the ability to listen in real time and detect aggression or bad language can be a trigger for a supervisor to step into that call and assist their junior colleague.

The softer side of workforce management has come to the fore in recent months as many contact centres wrestle with unprecedented levels of staff churn, born out of a sense of isolation and repetition. And while software can answer many of these challenges, some of this is down to soft skills, people management, culture and a focus on employee well-being.

Thanks to Jeremy Payne, International VP Marketing, at Enghouse Interactive for this article.

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Enghouse Interactive delivers technology and expertise to help bring your customers closer to your business through its wide range of customer contact solutions.

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Author: Enghouse Interactive