The days of physical, centralized contact centers are quickly passing away. As more enterprises embrace the need for full-scale digital transformation, the cloud is becoming the center of business operations.
As shown in a recent survey by McKinsey and Company, the average company anticipates spending 80% of its IT-hosting budget on cloud technology by 2024, up from the 45% initially planned in 2021. For companies heavily oriented toward customer service, cloud contact centers—often referred to as Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS)—will make up a significant portion of this cloud spend.
In the CCaaS model, legacy, centralized contact centers are replaced by digital, cloud-based solutions that easily adapt to remote workforces and scale with changing business needs. Adopting this model is essential for delivering a high-quality customer experience, but it requires a thoughtfully planned and well-executed cloud migration process.
Let’s look at the pressing need for businesses to make this cloud migration happen for their contact centers—and how they can overcome the barriers that make it difficult.
CCaaS Adoption Is Accelerating Rapidly
The migration of contact centers to the cloud was already picking up pace before 2020, but the pandemic pushed it much higher on many companies’ priority lists.
New data from Gartner Research notes that at least half of contact centers will have migrated to the cloud by 2022. Additionally, the latest AVANT 6-12 Report forecasts that the CCaaS market, which currently represents $3 billion in sales worldwide, will account for $10.5 billion by 2027. Most IT decision-makers surveyed were planning to migrate by mid-2022 if they hadn’t already started the process.
As workforces have transitioned to remote or hybrid models and enhanced digitally driven methods of delivering customer experience in the wake of the pandemic, these changes have become essential. The cloud no longer seems optional—it’s the 21st-century way of doing business.
Cloud Migration Is Critical for Contact Centers
The benefits of migrating contact centers to the cloud are many. When you move to the cloud, you gain nearly limitless flexibility to adapt to changing business needs. It doesn’t matter whether your workforce is remote, in the office, or shifting between the two. To connect with your customers, all your staff needs is a headset and a computer with a reliable internet connection.
Many businesses’ needs shift with the seasons, and this always posed logistical problems for legacy contact center systems. How do you deliver the same level of customer service when call volumes double or triple at certain points of the year? This is no problem in a CCaaS model. Simply scale your business up or down as needed to meet demand.
Cloud-based contact centers also make system updates much easier. Gone are the days of cumbersome new software implementation that had to be done at each site on a server-by-server basis. CCaaS updates happen seamlessly in the cloud with little or no interruption in service.
To top it off, cloud migration opens the door to several other solutions that will drive results for your business, from artificial intelligence to automated testing to regular system monitoring. All of this makes more efficient customer resolutions possible.
Barriers to a Smooth Migration
That’s all possible, that is, if migration is done well. And, although the benefits of cloud migration may be clear for many organizations, the barriers to successful migration are less so. Too many companies are quick to migrate without accounting for everything that’s required to make a smooth transition.
When you enter the process unprepared, you will quickly encounter problems. Missing data, incomplete system mapping and documentation, clunky manual testing processes, security concerns, and simple human error add costs and slow down migration. Unanticipated demands on your infrastructure can easily tack on nine to 12 months to your transition timeline.
These roadblocks often lead to inertia among leadership, further slowing the process and resulting in overspend. The McKinsey report noted that, overall, companies spend 14% more on cloud migration than anticipated, and this often results in scaling back and not completing a full migration.
Overcome Barriers With AI, Testing, and Assurance
In contrast, companies that plan well and work with key partners set themselves up for a smooth and successful transition—not to mention more fully realizing the benefits of operating from the cloud.
Ultimately, cloud migration for your contact center should be part of a larger DevOps mindset and implementation within your organization. Your goal is to deliver a flawless customer journey. Simply moving your contact center to the cloud won’t do that—it requires other systemic changes and supportive processes.
No matter which cloud contact center platform you select for your migration—Amazon Connect, Genesys Cloud, or any other industry-leading provider—Cyara helps you make a seamless transition. Our system documents your IVR setup from the outset so you can build out a new and fully realized customer journey in the cloud.
We support this journey with AI-infused desktop technologies for agents, and we automate testing and system monitoring so you can efficiently deliver high-quality CX and launch updates more quickly. An efficient, automated testing process—one that’s implemented throughout the development cycle—is particularly important.
With these measures in place, companies that work with Cyara see cloud migration that’s up to twice as fast as those that don’t. Not only that, but they see development cycles shortened by 40% to 70%, thanks to efficient testing and monitoring.
Plan for a Successful Migration
Cloud migration is essential for today’s contact centers. But it’s only effective when it’s done with the right support, tools, and planning. If you migrate haphazardly or half-heartedly, it could create more chaos and costs instead of reducing them.
When you partner with Cyara for your migration, you reduce your contact center labor and free your workers for higher-value work than managing call problems. You’ll see 90% fewer high-severity outages and an 80% drop in abandoned calls. These are just a few of the cloud migration benefits you can fully realize.
Ready to move your contact center to the cloud? Browse our cloud migration resources today to learn more about how Cyara will accelerate your contact center cloud migration.
