Contact Centers in the Cloud increase 63% between 2013 and 2017

The adoption of technology in the cloud is on the rise. Between March and May 2017, Aberdeen surveyed 322 contact centers about key trends and best practices that influence their activities. This was a continuation of similar studies carried out between 2013 and 2015, which surveyed 748 companies in total. One of the most surprising findings when analyzing the trends from one year to the next in these surveys was the increase in the adoption of cloud technology, since contact centers in the cloud increase by 63% between 2013 and 2017.

The trend line suggests that 2018 is likely to be the year in which more than 50% of customer service centers will be deployed in the cloud.

What drives the adoption of technology in the cloud?

Companies invest in cloud technology to implement contact centers in the cloud for multiple reasons.

One of the main reasons why companies invest in technology in the cloud is the financial agility and the empowerment of the agents. The data shows that 79% of call centers move from the installations to the cloud in anticipation of the conversion of fixed costs (such as the initial investments in hardware and software needed to run a contact center in the facilities) at variable costs.

On the other hand, 74% of contact centers expect to train their agents with access to applications that they would not otherwise be able to pay due to the heavy initial investments required for a model in the facilities. Taken together, these two factors indicate that companies turn to cloud technology primarily for financial gain and operational efficiency.

In fact, the percentage of companies citing improved uptime and less reliance on IT as objectives to boost their investments in cloud technology support this claim.

The report prepared by Aberdeen Group under the title “Cloud Contact Center: Customer Centricity with Great Agility & Less Cost” shows that, in addition to these benefits, the best contact centers in the cloud outperform their competitors in the improvement, year after year, of the following metrics:

• Agent productivity:1% versus 4.1% of the rest.
• Customer lifetime value:9% versus 7.8% of the rest.
• Average cost per customer contact:9% versus 2.2% of the rest.
• Number of quality SLAs met:7% versus 2.4% of the rest.

The results revealed that the best contact centers in the cloud retain 60% more of their clientele and improve the first contact resolution rates 11.1 times more than all the others, year after year.

The improvement in customer retention rates shows that these high-performing employees have found ways to be more adaptable to meet and exceed customer needs. These results also increase agent utilization rates and shorten average management times thanks to the tools and information to solve customer problems that cloud technology provides. Also, the data shows that the best contact centers in the cloud enjoy an annual decrease of 10.9% in service costs.

Main objectives fulfilled by contact centers in the cloud

• 44% of the organizations have achieved that their agents have access to better applications in the call center.

• 38% of the companies that have opted for a Cloud Contact Center solution have managed to implement a flexible financial structure by transforming the fixed implementation costs of the customer service center into variable costs.

• 46% of companies have managed to increase uptime thanks to cloud technology.

• 48% of companies have managed to reduce their dependence on their IT team and use previously assigned IT resources in innovative projects.

In conclusion, the process of migrating contact centers to the cloud is advancing steadily. Likewise, in the coming years companies that have not yet climbed into the cloud, will adopt more appropriate strategies that have already been put into practice by the best in order to achieve the desired objectives.