3 Ways Cloud Contact Center Software Benefits Customers

When IT decision-makers consider adopting cloud-based contact center software, the business case will be driven by internal needs, such as reducing operating costs, using fewer agents, or automating parts of the customer experience. All these needs are valid and may well provide sufficient rationale for cloud. This represents an operations-centric view that is still prevalent in the contact center space.

In recent years, however, many enterprises have embraced a more customer-centric mindset for driving technology decisions. For these businesses, meeting customer needs is paramount – which means internal or operational needs now serve to support this mantra. Cloud can provide business value in many ways, and when it comes to the contact center, customer benefits provide a strong rationale. Here are three ways cloud-based contact centers can address customer needs.

Learn more about Upstream Works for Amazon Connect, our omnichannel cloud-based contact center solutions here.

Cloud Contact Center Software Provides 24/7 Support

No call center or contact center has the luxury to have every call answered by an agent, so self-service options play a key role in the overall customer experience. Before the advent of digital channels and AI, IVR was the default for self-service, but this technology isn’t adaptable enough for today’s customer expectations. This is a key reason why customer satisfaction levels decline. Our always-on global economy creates added pressure to provide 24/7 service.

While legacy technologies can enable 24/7 support options, they can only support simple forms of self-service and lack the integration needed to provide end-to-end service. Unfortunately, this sets a low bar for service quality and detracts from the convenience offered by the promise of 24/7 service. Cloud helps call centers fulfill that promise with chatbots and conversational AI for a customer experience that goes beyond query-based IVR scripts.

Cloud-based self-service applications are rapidly improving, allowing for more intelligent forms of self-service that do not require live call center agents. As such, not only does the cloud provide more self-service options for 24/7 service, but better options that are certain to raise that service quality bar with your customers.

Not surprisingly, a recent survey from Contact Center Pipeline found that improving self-service is the top priority for 21.8% of contact centers in 2021.

Cloud Enables Effortless Customer Experiences

Providing 24/7 service has become table stakes for many enterprises, but this only addresses accessibility and has little to do with the quality of service. Both are important to your customers, but each requires different capabilities. The root cause of poor service often pertains to having high-effort customer experiences, which can quickly decrease customer loyalty. According to Gartner, 96% of customers who experience high-effort service become more disloyal. Common examples of high-effort CX include long hold times, dealing with agents who aren’t able to address their concerns, or having to repeat their story multiple times when transferred to other agents or departments.

These scenarios are all too common in contact centers, and cloud-based offerings can go a long way to reduce effort – not just for customers, but for agents as well. To start, cloud-based contact center software provides a consistent user experience for a distributed workforce of home-based agents, which will likely remain in place throughout 2021.

As such, regardless of where customers or agents are, enterprises can now provide a customer experience that requires less customer effort. With capabilities like intelligent routing, unified agent desktop, and automated processes, cloud enables enterprises to significantly reduce customer effort.

With these pieces in place, customers will be more likely to get the right agent at the right time with the right expertise.

Cloud Contact Centers Offer Personalized Customer Experiences

Effortless customer experiences are sure to improve customer satisfaction, but it can come across as being clinically efficient, transactional and one-dimensional. Some forms of service require little else, but nothing makes customers feel more valued than personalized service. As customer interactions become increasingly digital, enterprises compile data sets that can provide rich insights about every customer.

Cloud can provide the scale and data processing power that allows call centers to keep up with rapidly growing data sets. These are the capabilities needed for omnichannel, where the context of each interaction moves when changing channels or agents. Every step of the customer journey remains personal. With real-time access to relevant customer data on the desktop, agents can provide insightful, customer-specific dialog that elevates the customer experience from good to great.