virtualisation &
cloud computing
(CRM) applications and 57 per
cent for their customer contact
centre. 83 per cent of cloud users
have successfully improved the
reliability of their IT through their
use of cloud based services, 85 per
cent have increased the speed of
access to technology and 17 per
cent have seen an improvement in
their customer engagement.
Confidence in the cloud
they can support these requests with
a more contemporary infrastructure.
According to the Cloud Industry
Forum’s (CIF) latest research
paper, ‘Cloud: Driving Business
Transformation’, the overall cloud
adoption rate in the UK now stands
at 88 per cent, with 67 per cent of
users expecting to increase their
adoption of cloud services over the
coming year. CIF predicts that by
2019, 93 per cent of organisations
will use at least one cloud service.
The research paper also
revealed that by 2020, 70 per cent
of organisations expect to have
adopted cloud for their Customer
Relationship Management
As the advantages of cloud
mature and make themselves
clear, businesses are losing
their initial fears of security and
costs. The technology is well
established in many customer
service environments, with cloud
computing becoming imperative to
elevating contact centres into fully
fledged, omni-channel customer
engagement centres. However,
crucially, this is achievable for any
size business looking to establish
a modern customer service that
meets modern expectations for
exceptional experiences.
Respondents to CIF’s latest
research stated that cloud services
are successful in furnishing them
with a competitive advantage.
Almost half (48 per cent) state
that using cloud has given their
organisation a competitive
advantage, and a further 21 per cent
expect to see one in the future.
Operational benefits of cloud
in the contact centre include
lower upfront costs, streamlined
maintenance and upgrades and
support for integrations between
CRM, self-service and contact
centres, which drives personalised
interactions. To embrace an omni-
channel strategy in the customer
engagement centre successfully,
integration and erasure of silos (such
as channels or analytics) is vital for
delivering the right response at the
right time through the right channel.
Going forwards, the only
computing method that can
provide the necessary scalability
‘As the
advantages
of cloud
mature
and make
themselves
clear,
businesses
are losing
their initial
fears of
security and
costs.’
is the cloud, which will not restrict
customer interaction and can
store the growing data that the
increasing number of channels
provides. Cloud computing is
the key to delivering the agility,
elasticity, and efficiency required
to maintain contact with the
customer, brands can increase
and decrease the usage of certain
channels as necessary, fulfil the
needs of the customer on their
terms and learn enough about the
customer to provide a proactive
customer experience.
The cloud allows brands to
aggregate huge amounts of data to
give instant insights and predictive
analysis. If used correctly, brands
can separate customers into micro-
groups as opposed to the traditional
gender/age brackets and truly
provide a personalised experience.
As technology will continue
to improve and transform the
customer engagement centre, the
cloud will enable the flexibility
and agility to embrace and adopt
new technologies. Similarly, cloud
enables organisations to meet the
expectations of today’s mobile,
connected and highly demanding
consumers. Cloud computing
is driving innovation, reducing
costs, and improving the customer
experience so we are seeing a
continued increase in adoption
rates as businesses are leaving
legacy architecture of old call
centres behind.
July 2017 | 19