Evolution to the cloud and customer commitment, priorities of contact centers

According to the “2016 Executive Report on Contact Center Technology” developed by CCIQ, currently contact centers technology it is not only moving towards the cloud, but also putting the focus on the customer.

As extracted from the report, today’s organizations are moving to the cloud and they want to “create a more efficient and effective experience, and focused on customer engagement”. While only a year ago 80% contact center technology of companies was based on a local physical infrastructure, today, that percentage has been reduced to 58%, and is expected to fall to 44% in the next twelve months.

This evolution of business communication technologies to cloud solutions is driven by the conviction of improving customer relations by offering a more effective and efficient experience. But nevertheless, adoption offers interesting nuances.

Towards a more flexible definition of “workplace”

More and more companies are allowing, and even encouraging, their agents to work remotely. It is producing a less strict redefinition of the concept “workplace” while the trend is towards the agent-customer proximity through the implementation of contact centers in multiple locations.

Still, the proliferation of contact centers in an organization does not tend to infinity; the average seems to be in a range of 2 to 5 locations. This moderation is in line with the trend of “teleworking“. Although the percentage of employees working in a remote environment has declined, it is expected that within a year, more than a quarter of companies will have a considerable number of employees working from home.

More implementation of cloud technology

Many companies are choosing to multiply the locations of their contact centers. However, is there a real trend towards the adoption of cloud-based communication solutions? And if this is so, which is the model preferred: a hybrid model or one that is based a hundred percent on the cloud?

A year ago, 80% of surveyed companies said that their contact center technology was wholly or mainly located in the same location. Over the past year, these figures have dropped to 58% and it is expected to make up 44% over the next twelve months.

By contrast, only 15% of organizations based fully or mostly their contact centers on the cloud a year ago. This amount has risen to 19% at present, and will reach 28% by the end of next year.

22% say their contact centers will be fully based on cloud technology during the first half of 2017, compared with 19% who remain oblivious to this technology.