The use of technology in contact centres is allowing them to reach much larger audiences and by using cost effective pay as you go cloud based solutions, they can also save money. This is very important for contact centre managers who have varying call volumes.
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Call Centres are Changing
Many of the call centres that advertise their jobs on CCJM will use cloud technology. According to New Voice Media ‘the cloud is simply an alternative acquisition or delivery model for contact centre or customer service systems and applications’. With more companies using cloud applications rather than investing in expensive IT equipment and software, it has allowed more businesses to enter the market. These new technologies are making it cheaper to run a call centre than it was a decade ago.
Cloud Security
An article on the CallCentre.co.uk website says that 73% of respondents to a survey did not class cloud security as a risk. Nearly all of those asked said that ‘good providers generally have better security than most of their customers’. The report also explains ‘serious cloud-based solution providers have invested very heavily in physical and logical security which many organisations have not done’.
Interaction Analytics
The online magazine Business Wire explains how at least 12% of contact centres in the UK have started to implement interaction analytics. This means that contact centre agents can engage with their customers by using more than one point of contact. This includes email, chat and voice, but will also allow the company to use many other social media platforms which will help improve productivity. There are approximately one million people working in the call centre industry and this figure is only expected to rise.
Flexibility
Once a company starts to use cloud technology they no longer have limits on where their staff have to work. The systems allow for all members of staff to work from home or in different parts of the country or the world. Once they are connected they can access, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone systems, and also use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software or apps. These all allow the person to take payments securely with card payments that are processed upstream in the cloud.
Infinite Storage
the company would need a never ending stack of hardware…
Whenever you phone a call centre you’ll hear the words ‘your call may be recorded’. If all of these calls are stored in the building the company would need a never ending stack of hardware. But if a call centre uses the cloud for storage they will have unlimited room and will only pay for what they use. This not only saves money, but also space and energy.
Reliability and Performance
Many small and medium sized businesses can’t afford big IT systems or IT managers to run the systems, so using the cloud can save the company precious money and time. The use of this relatively new technology allows any member of staff to access any of the businesses data from anywhere they have access to a web browser. Now that people and companies are starting to trust the security of the cloud the faster it will grow.
Sophie is a freelance writer. Sophie is passionate about providing engaging content and has featured in a number of online publications.