Moving a Large Business to the Cloud?

Neil Titcomb looks at 10 key things you should consider before moving your large contact centre to the cloud.

Traditionally, the drive to move to a cloud-based model has been led by smaller contact centres eager to reap the benefits of advanced customer service solutions without the huge development costs.

But recently we have started to see a growing uptake of larger contact centres opting for the cloud, eager to add new customer services quickly – and economically.

Here are 10 questions big businesses need to think about when moving to cloud technology.

1. Align with your company’s goals and strategies

Make sure you review the key traits and values of your own organisation, such as accountability, leadership, innovation, capabilities, responsiveness and motivation, and evaluate whether there is strong alignment of these items with the prospective provider.

Make sure you examine in depth whether the provider has the proven capabilities to do what you need it to, and evaluate how engaged and accessible their leaders are, and how accountable and responsive they are likely to be.

The best indicators of these is past behaviour, so make sure you talk to their existing customers about their experiences.

2. Speak with reference customers that have the same business goals, strategies and requirements

Reviewing and speaking with reference customers who have already had experience with the provider can provide a valuable insight into what the company is like.

Make sure you speak with customers that are similar to you in size and capability, and talk to them about their experiences with the provider.

3. A broad partner network to provide technology support for the future

Make sure they provide the basics such as ACD routing, IVR services integration and a delivery architecture that can support both inbound and outbound voice, as well as email and chat – and have all of the technology you require.

Also, don’t forget that a provider is as good as the company they keep. Have a look at their technology partner and ensure they have partnered with recognised contact centre and communications industry leaders in the past.

4. What level of customisation will you need, and at what cost?

The right service provider will work to provide clients with a cloud-based solution that fits their business regardless of the size.

Make sure they have a good history in providing customised services and check out the level of their available resources to accomplish the customisation.

You will also need to look at pricing. Some providers may offer customisation but at a high price, but the right provider will be able to offer the level of customisation you need at a reasonable cost.

5. What is the level of third-party back-office/telephony/CRM integration expertise and tools that are available?

Have the provider quantify the type of integrations offered and ask for a list of all existing and past integrations.

Use your internal IT team to evaluate the strength and competence of the provider’s capabilities, and set up a meeting between the service provider and your IT team to “test” the capabilities of the provider.

The right contact centre provider can integrate its systems within your own infrastructure to ensure seamless solutions and produce the intended customer and agent experience.

6. A broad level of business continuity options to meet your needs

As well as data security, you need to make sure the provider can keep you up and running during interruptions such as power failures, IT system crashes and natural disasters.

Ensure the provider’s equipment and applications are housed in secure data centres with geographic separation to overcome localised disasters.

7. How much has your vendor invested in providing the utmost security and compliance capabilities for your move to the cloud, and what are their levels of certification?

Some providers will be more secure than others. Choose a provider that can prove their solutions are fully compliant with the latest industry standards.

As part of your research, look for providers with architectures that maintain separation and security across all solution components.

8. How much does your vendor rely on third-party providers to implement and support your implementation versus having the resources in house for full accountability?

Ask detailed questions about the experience level of the provider’s in-house technical resources, such as how long they’ve been working for the provider and how many implementations they have successfully performed.

Also make sure you get clear answers about what, if any, part of the implementation will be outsourced or sub-contracted out for what specific tasks and by which vendors.

If any elements are sub-contracted, obtain references and be prepared to explore this issue carefully.

9. Is the vendor singularly focused on the contact centre or is their business model spread across many different business opportunities?

An extremely important consideration for you when choosing a provider is understanding how focused they are on the contact centre.

If the contact centre is simply an add-on for the provider, they may not have a lot of expertise about what is required, and they may be distracted by other businesses more of interest to them.

10. Responsiveness to changing contact centre capabilities?

Evaluate the provider’s track record for new product and service introductions and functionality upgrades. Ask if they are on the latest versions of all core software and how quickly they upgrade their applications.

As more organisations move to cloud-based contact centres, service providers will need to continue to stay on the cutting edge of contact centre technology innovation to help customers stay current and innovative in the way they handle customer experience.

With thanks to Neil Titcomb, UK&I Sales Director for Cloud at Genesys.