When’s The Right Time to Move Your Call Center to the Cloud?

It may be tempting to delay the transition of your call center to the cloud. After all, a traditional phone system is familiar, and a switch is potentially disruptive, especially if you have a large customer service team.

But eventually, most businesses will hit a point where they need to upgrade their call centers – both to keep customers happy and to stay ahead of their competition.

There are obvious moments to make the move– such as when the chief financial officer tells you it’s time to cut costs. However, other times the signs aren’t as clear. If you find yourself facing one or more of the following scenarios, you’re likely to benefit by moving your call center to the cloud sooner rather than later.

Customers Ask for More Ways to Communicate

With more options available to connect with businesses – the Web, email and chat – customers are demanding flexibility. For example, while sometimes they want to talk to a customer service representative on the phone, there are times when they find chat is far more efficient.

Traditional phone systems simply aren’t as flexible as cloud-based solutions. If complaints about long wait times or the inconvenience of phone-only customer service are on the rise, it’s probably time to transition the call center to the cloud.

And it’s not just about customers. Your call center employees may be frustrated with the lack of options, too. If they’re raising concerns, you may want to evaluate the options for deploying a multichannel call center based in the cloud.

IT Spends Too Much Time On Your Phone System

Your IT group should focus its expertise on projects that propel the business forward – not managing your call center. If revenue-producing projects are consistently running behind schedule or are delivered without achieving their goals, it pays to review how your technical resources are allocated.

With the call center in the cloud, the tasks of adding, upgrading and maintaining features and functionality are handled by the vendor. That lets your IT team focus on what matters most.

Your Business Needs To Be More Adaptable.

Today’s companies need to be flexible in the face of changing circumstances. New product launches, busy seasons, and the addition or loss of customers all can stress the workload in a call center – and a legacy phone system can become an albatross.

But a cloud-based solution introduces a high level of adaptability, making it easier to manage overflow, add employees, and route calls to those with the skills appropriate to resolving specific problems. With greater flexibility, you can even introduce creative solutions that help increase revenue – such as treating your inside sales team like a virtual contact center.

It’s Time To Upgrade Or Deploy A CRM

At some point, all businesses need to reevaluate their requirements for customer relationship management. For many, this is an opportune time to move the call center to the cloud. Whether you’re upgrading or deploying a new CRM, integrating it with a cloud-based call center will elevate customer service capabilities. Powerful features such as click-to-call, inbound screen pops, automated call notes and enhanced metrics will increase efficiency and productivity, all while improving the customer experience.

Call Center Incentives

Finding ways to reward call center agents is one of the top five customer service trends of 2015. Since one way to increase customer loyalty is to provide excellent customer service, this is no surprise. If your business plans to introduce incentives, it needs a way to measure the effectiveness of its representatives. When the call center is cloud-based, management has access to detailed call reports, evaluation forms, and call recordings, making it easier to identify and reward the people who deliver the best service.

Businesses in fast-moving markets often have to choose among many critical initiatives. Sticking to a legacy phone system for your call center may provide them with a certain degree of comfort – for a while. But when the signs begin pointing to the cloud, it’s a smart decision to heed them.