Technology

The Rush to Cloud-Based CX Platforms: Are Businesses Moving Too Fast?

<p>Customer Experience &lpar;CX&rpar; leaders everywhere are wrestling with the same question&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;How do we move our contact center to the cloud and do it right&quest;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>We&&num;8217&semi;ve all heard the promises of flexibility&comma; scalability&comma; and lower costs&period; How often have we seen businesses move to the cloud without planning&comma; which has caused more headaches than it solves&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In this article&comma; we&&num;8217&semi;ll follow a real-world use case of a mid-sized financial services firm and see how they went about migrating to a <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;cleartouch&period;in&sol;cloud-contact-center-solutions&sol;" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">cloud-based customer experience  platform<&sol;a><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;cleartouch&period;in&sol;cloud-contact-center-solutions&sol;">&period; <&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>You&&num;8217&semi;ll learn everything related to migrating right to an advanced cloud contact center  platform from this use case&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2>Use case&colon; Mid-sized financial services firm<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<h3>Step 1&colon; Recognizing the need<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p>The financial services firm has been running an on-premise contact center for over a decade&period; They were living with the following challenges&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<ul>&NewLine;<li>Phone&comma; email&comma; and chat operated in silos without any integration&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>Adding additional agents meant buying additional licenses&comma; increasing the server capacity&comma; and depending on the IT staff&&num;8217&semi;s expertise&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>Very little choice for agents to log in from home&comma; even during the pandemic&period; The only option available was the expensive VPN connectivity&comma; but that didn&&num;8217&semi;t work either because of high bandwidth requirements&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<&sol;ul>&NewLine;<p>They understood that their costs were becoming huge without any flexibility or scalability&period; So they decided to move to the cloud&comma; lest they&&num;8217&semi;d remain reactive and behind the curve&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>However&comma; they didn&&num;8217&semi;t want to rush the migration&comma; and they decided to work through a plan in a phased manner&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h3>Step 2&colon; Building the migration plan<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p>They gathered all the stakeholders &lpar;IT&comma; Finance&comma; Quality&comma; senior agents&rpar; to map out the migration plan&period; They defined the following&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Objectives<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<ul>&NewLine;<li>Cut infrastructure costs by 30&percnt; in Year 1&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>Enable 100&percnt; of agents to work remotely within 60 days&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>Reduce average hold times by 20&percnt; using advanced call routing and analytics&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<&sol;ul>&NewLine;<p><strong>Phased rollout<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<ul>&NewLine;<li>Phase 1 &lpar;Voice &amp&semi; IVR&rpar;&colon; Move inbound&sol;outbound voice and IVR first&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>Phase 2 &lpar;Omnichannel&rpar;&colon; Integration of all the customer service channels<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>Phase 3 &lpar;Analytics &amp&semi; AI&rpar;&colon; Roll out real-time analytics&comma; dashboards&comma; and chatbots&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<&sol;ul>&NewLine;<p><strong>Key requirements<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<ul>&NewLine;<li>The platform needs to be tightly integrated with their Salesforce CRM<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>PCI-DSS compliance as they were handling payment data<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>An intuitive and user-friendly interface that would require minimal training<&sol;li>&NewLine;<&sol;ul>&NewLine;<p>With this migration plan&comma; they could easily validate every step and improvise to ensure the success of cloud migration&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h3>Step 3&colon; Selecting the right platform provider<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p>They evaluated several cloud platform providers and understood that most of them are just legacy systems hosted in a data center&period; They weren&&num;8217&semi;t providing the necessary flexibility&comma; scalability&comma; or integration capabilities&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>They wanted the vendor to fulfill the following needs&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<ul>&NewLine;<li>A truly multi-tenant architecture that would allow them to scale easily and support automated updates&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>Pay-as-you-go model with no contractual commitments or minimum guarantees<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>Pre-built integration with Salesforce and API integration capabilities with other IT systems<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>PCI-DSS compliance and redaction capabilities<&sol;li>&NewLine;<&sol;ul>&NewLine;<p>ClearTouch&&num;8217&semi;s platform satisfied all their needs&comma; and they decided to go with ClearTouch for their cloud migration needs&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h3>Step 4&colon; Phase 1 – Voice and IVR implementation<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p>As a first step&comma; they ensured firewalls and internet bandwidth could handle SIP traffic&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Then ClearTouch&&num;8217&semi;s Salesforce connector was set up so that incoming calls automatically pulled up all the caller&&num;8217&semi;s records from the CRM instantly&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>They ran a pilot through which agents logged into the platform from their respective homes and tested calls&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Through this entire process&comma; ClearTouch support was available to troubleshoot and handhold the financial services agents in using the platform efficiently and optimally&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Within 48 hours&comma; their team saw&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<ul>&NewLine;<li>A 15&percnt; reduction in hold times&comma; thanks to intelligent call distribution&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>Twenty agents working remotely with no technical glitches&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>A 25&percnt; cost savings that first month&comma; moving from annual maintenance fees to per-minute usage&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<&sol;ul>&NewLine;<h3>Step 5&colon; Phase 2 – Adding omnichannel capabilities<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p>They mapped the customer journeys to ensure that all customer interactions were seamless and productive&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>They first defined the flow of customer interaction&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Here&&num;8217&semi;s how they defined it&period; All website chat goes to self-service channels like chatbots&comma; FAQs&comma; and a knowledge base&period; Anything nuanced or complex is directly routed to human agents&period; At any point during the interaction with the chatbots&comma; customers are provided with an option to transition to live agents seamlessly&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>All their agents were trained in using ClearTouch&&num;8217&semi;s omnichannel console with color-coded tabs for different channels&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>They configured the platform&&num;8217&semi;s BI to display live call counts&comma; average wait times&comma; and email backlogs in their dashboards&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>With omnichannel capabilities and reporting&comma; the CSAT scores rose by 12&percnt;&comma; and they were able to manage more interactions without adding additional seats&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h3>Step 6&colon; Phase 3 – Analytics and advanced capabilities<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p>With the basics in place&comma; they decided to focus on data-driven improvements&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h4>Voice analytics<&sol;h4>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;cleartouch&period;in&sol;voice-analytics&sol;" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">ClearTouch&&num;8217&semi;s voice analytics solution<&sol;a> can help you understand the negative sentiment of the customers&comma; and it can flag an irritated&comma; stressed&comma; or plain disappointed customer&period; Besides&comma; it can help identify compliance issues&comma; misselling&comma; agents&&num;8217&semi; training needs&comma; and privacy issues&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h4>Workforce Management &lpar;WFM&rpar;<&sol;h4>&NewLine;<p>Based on historical data and real-time variations&comma; ClearTouch&&num;8217&semi;s WFM can forecast&comma; schedule&comma; and manage intraday effectively&period; It will ensure that the right number of agents with the right skills are available to address customer queries&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>By the end of Phase 3&comma; the center was a modern&comma; data-driven operation&period; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>They achieved&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<ul>&NewLine;<li>A 20&percnt; reduction in average handle time&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>A 30&percnt; increase in first-contact resolution&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>A 40&percnt; lift in agent satisfaction&period;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<&sol;ul>&NewLine;<h2>How ClearTouch made a difference<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p>The financial services firm&&num;8217&semi;s success wasn&&num;8217&semi;t luck&semi; it was the result of partnering with a truly cloud-native provider&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h3>True cloud-native architecture<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p>ClearTouch has high availability and auto-scaling into its foundation&comma; so holiday rushes or traffic spikes never break the system&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h3>Transparent&comma; per-minute pricing<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p>They paid only for the actual minutes used&semi; there were no surprise bills&period; Cost predictability made their finance team breathe easier&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h3>No dependency on internal IT<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p>As a cloud platform provider&comma; ClearTouch handled all platform maintenance&comma; upgrades&comma; and security patches&period; Their IT team didn&&num;8217&semi;t have to get involved in the CX operations&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h3>Seamless integrations<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p>Pre-built integration with Salesforce and API capabilities ensured that all the systems were integrated to offer a single view of all customer interactions across interfaces to agents&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h3>Expert support<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p>ClearTouch handheld the customer through the implementation to ensure their success&period; Besides&comma; our availability 24&sol;7 via email&comma; chat&comma; and voice ensured that the financial service firm did not have to go through any surprises&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h3>Compliance<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p>ClearTouch&&num;8217&semi;s platform was compliant with PCI-DSS and supported PCI redaction&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>ClearTouch ensured that the implementation stayed on schedule and within budget while ensuring that every requirement was met&period; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Here is the blueprint to get your cloud migration right&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Plan deliberately&colon; Set clear objectives&comma; map integrations&comma; and roll out in phases&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Invest in your people&colon; Train agents&comma; secure buy-in&comma; and use change management&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Secure your data&colon; Verify compliance&comma; encryption&comma; and backups&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Choose a true cloud-native partner&colon; One with transparent pricing&comma; built-in integrations&comma; and expert support&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Above all&comma; choose a partner who will be with you at every step&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

Hardik Patel

Hardik Patel is a Digital Marketing Consultant and professional Blogger. He has 16+ years experience in SEO, SMO, SEM, Online reputation management, Affiliated Marketing and Content Marketing.

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