The public cloud is part of everyday life these days. Most of our personal communication – emails, voice and video calls, messaging, etc – uses it. Even our documents are stored on virtual drives. Despite this, a substantial number of contact centers still resist the move to the cloud.
Why?
Reasons we hear include:
- “Cloud solutions lack basic features.”
- “Voice quality is unreliable.”
- “Integration, when it’s even possible, is painful.”
Here’s the problem: many benefits that were claimed some years ago were found in practice to be hype. But these benefits are now demonstrable reality, and organisations are missing out on an array of opportunities that cloud-based contact brings.
Many latest generation cloud contact center platforms are robust and mature, offering multi-channel and multi-session capabilities, and the opportunity to integrate best-of-breed solutions easily. These facilities remove many of the limitations of traditional on-premise solutions and greatly enhance both the customer and the agent experience. There has never been a better time to move a contact center to the cloud.
Features to look out for
But not all cloud contact center platforms are created equal. When considering a move, look carefully at the capabilities on offer.
Here are 5 features you should expect from your solution:
1. Full functionality
A cloud contact center platform should offer the same full range of functionality as an on-premise solution, e.g. inbound, outbound and blending capabilities across all channels (including email), multi-session handling for agents, a comprehensive reporting system, and connectors for messaging.
Most importantly, all these should be delivered in a single, unified platform rather than as disparate, bolted-together components.
2. Scalability
In the cloud, you should expect to be able to scale seamlessly from 10 to say 500 seats, and drop back to 60 at any moment. No fuss, no downtime. And you should be able to add and remove tenants instantly, via a centrally-controlled multi-tenancy model.
3. Open web APIs
A cloud platform should offer full and open 3rd party web APIs. This is key to the successful integration of 3rd party business workflow systems, such as CRMs or ERPs.
4. Designed for the cloud
Unlike early migration models, where vendors just tried to host traditional systems in virtual machines, a cloud platform should be designed from the ground up for cloud environments.
Media sessions – voice, messaging, email, SMS or any type that emerges in the future – should share the same properties, so they can be routed and dequeued in exactly the same way by a mulitmedia ACD, keeping agents busy and queue times low.
APIs should anticipate the fact that systems can and will fail and will do so in an unpredictable way.
Designing for instability is key to the success of a cloud system.
5. Easy addition of new technology
If a new technology is to be added, e.g. speech analytics, an AI chatbot or support for a new media channel, a cloud platform should offer a connector to allow you to start using it, without the need to add equipment.
Other advantages of the cloud
Whatever the platform, moving to the cloud brings other advantages. All the power and convenience of the Internet is available, enabling use of local and remote agents, global access and supervision, reduced IT and telephony costs, and the ability to forecast service rental costs.
And having no more responsibility for servers, PBX, or hardware components that can fail, your only concerns are your workstations and your internet connection.
With all these points in mind, and given the wide range of cloud contact center solutions on offer, the key for a successful move to the cloud is choosing the right technology partner.
For more information about Sytel’s products just talk to us.
See also …
What We Offer
Sytel Limited develops and supplies Softdial Contact Center® (SCC) – multimedia, multichannel, fully blended cloud contact center solutions.
Available by subscription as CCaaS, fully managed and supported by Sytel, or for quick and easy deployment by partners and enterprise users.
All Sytel cloud components are secure, resilient and scale seamlessly from 10 agents to 10,000+, whether local, mobile or remote.
Flexible Contact Center Software
Softdial Contact Center™ – rich functionality, all-in-one, designed to deliver at scale
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Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS)
CCaaS for subscribers – global service, with no upfront costs
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Contact Center Platform – CCaaS Partners
Build your own CCaaS business using the power and flexibility of Sytel software
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Contact Center Platform – Enterprise
High performance platform to drive contact center productivity – cloud, on-premise or hybrid
Blended Media Desktop
Fully customisable, multi-channel, multi-session workspace
Work Anywhere
Browser-based tools, no software installation required
Customise, Localise, White Label
Design all user interfaces to individual requirements
Integration via APIs
‘Swap out’ components and integrate with 3rd party apps
World Class Development
Continuous evolution pushing technical boundaries
Capabilities
Softdial Contact Center™ (SCC) is designed to be flexible, extensible and scalable, integrating with any legacy equipment, and meeting the most complex of requirements.
All Media Channels
Voice, chat, email, social, etc – fully integrated and blended
Agent Multi-Tasking
Work with multiple live contact sessions of any media channel
Dynamic Workforce Management
Optimise agent usage and balance workloads in real-time without human intervention, across all media channels
Predictive Dialing
Best-of-breed performance under compliance
Optimised Inbound Routing
Smart rules and ‘best-available’ decisions to drive great customer service
Agent Scripts
Help agents achieve and maintain excellence
Voice and Screen Recording
See and hear exactly how agents are interacting
Analytics and Data Feeds
Measure and evaluate performance at every level
IVR, Bots & Conversational AI
Design effective automated flows or integrate with 3rd party providers
Customer Journey Tracking
Stored customer contact history, to aid routing and add context to conversations
Modules
Drive operational efficiency, increase customer satisfaction & improve agent performance
Softdial One™
Highly flexible unified web UI for agents, supervisors and administrators
Softdial Scripter™
Create complex process flow scripts for agents, IVR, chatbots and other applications
Sytel AI Dialer™
Maximum predictive dialing performance, under any compliance rules
Softdial Pathfinder™
Precise routing rules for ‘best available’ connection
Softdial Media Server™
Core telephony functions to manage all inbound/outbound SIP calls
Softdial Reporter™ 5
Fully customisable performance stats, charts and reports, across all channels
Softdial Publisher™
Comprehensive data output to build your own reports
Softdial Recording Monitor™
Audio and screen recording of agent activity to ensure the highest standards
Softdial Campaign Manager™
Automation to optimise any outreach strategy
Softdial Repository™
Central storage and configuration of common resources
Sytel Global Compliance™
Flexible ‘no contact’ rules to protect contact center and consumer
Solutions
Performance and efficiency for a wide range of business applications
By Business Type
Enterprise
A full featured contact center software solution, designed for optimum performance at scale
Small/ Medium Business
Options for SMBs to subscribe to our full-featured cloud service managed and hosted by either one of our partners or by Sytel themselves
By Industry
Customer Service
Connect quickly to well equipped agents
Market Research
Best-of-breed predictive dialing with CATI integration
Debt Collection
Automated inbound/ outbound blending integrated with any debt management app
Sales & Telemarketing
Maximise agent productivity with best-of-breed predictive dialing
Healthcare
Secure, highly-configurable multichannel communications for excellence in patient care