This article was co-authored by Shalima Bhalla, Global Lead, Partner Development, AWS and Andriy Zakharchenko, Technical Partner Manager in Sales, Cyara
The future is in the cloud – and so is most of the present. There are many reasons businesses are migrating their existing infrastructures to the cloud–despite the challenges–and the business benefits greatly outweigh the challenges.
Why closed, legacy systems impact your business
Over the years, most large enterprises have deployed various legacy technologies, which are based on closed systems that are difficult to expand and integrate with other technologies. This creates a host of problems, including:
Customer frustration: Legacy systems provide limited avenues for customers to reach businesses. Customers expect businesses to meet them where they are and in real time. Historically, their only option was to call. Now, today’s consumer communication preferences have shifted to include text, webchat, social media, and more. Legacy systems are limited in their ability to meet this expectation, simply because the systems are not designed to adapt to modern communication platforms.
Agent productivity loss: Agents often need to toggle between disparate systems to resolve customer queries. This back and forth not only delays response times to customers, but also creates inefficiencies in staffing, resulting in increased costs of operations and agent attrition rates.
Security risks: As tech progresses, legacy systems get left behind, opening businesses up to vulnerabilities and data breaches, which can be extremely costly. The longer a legacy system is in place, the more likely it is to be subject to a security breach.
Compliance challenges: As laws evolve, technologies become subject to regulations on how they handle personal data such as GDPR. Legacy systems do not account for these requirements. In fact, the functions of legacy systems are fixed and can quickly get left behind.
The latest contact center technologies have adapted to efficiently manage and maintain systems. Advancements have automated day-to-day tasks, making time-consuming, cumbersome operations simpler, and reducing human error.
With advancements in technologies–such as cloud–it is easier for enterprises to be agile, reduce downtime, and improve customer satisfaction. According to Phillip Moore, Operations and OSS Manager at Vodafone, by taking advantage of more advanced capabilities, such as with cloud technology, organizations can elevate the customer experience.
“We’re all about automation and making things easier for ourselves, which allows us to focus more attention on our customers.”
Migration: Addressing move to cloud challenges
Contact center deployments are complex and migrating from legacy systems to cloud isn’t as easy as pushing a button. Traditionally, migrations can take years to complete, and come with a list of common challenges, including:
Documentation: Which system is installed where and what is the dependency? This alone can result in major downtimes.
Load testing: Testing in a lab versus in a production are two completely different things. Software can work perfectly during a test but fail in the real world.
Mapping existing routing logic: Most large enterprises have deployed a routing logic incrementally over the years that either lacks documentation, or knowledgeable staff have left the company. It can feel impossible to map logic to a new system.
Reporting: Contact center operations rely heavily on reporting, and outsourced contact centers rely heavily on training. However, it is daunting task to evolve the backend systems to the latest technologies.
Migrating to cloud can and should be done. And it can be done more easily than you think.
Concerns over a cumbersome migration to cloud no longer need to keep you locked out of today’s tools and solutions, held to legacy systems. Solutions exist to simplify, streamline, and accelerate your call center migration to cloud, minimizing downtime.
Amazon Connect in partnership with Cyara makes the cloud migration journey easy for businesses. Cyara with Amazon Connect enables CI/CD, Agile and DevOps methodologies with a focus on maximum automation and productivity through ease of use.
Cyara offers an automated CX assurance platform for Amazon Connect that spans the entire development lifecycle for your contact center technology. It also tests voice and digital channels, as well as self-service through agent-assisted services.
If you’re ready to learn more about upgrading your closed legacy system to the cloud, streamlining your processes, and increasing your security and customer satisfaction, take the next step and ask about Amazon Connect with Cyara.
