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Globally, businesses – irrespective of the domain – are becoming increasingly aware of the advantages of cloud contact centers. It is more difficult than ever before to ignore the proven use cases of higher scalability, increased operational efficiency and improved customer experience – all from smaller investments. Whether private, public, hybrid or a mix of various models – cloud adoption is seeing a steady rise.

Unfortunately, some businesses are jumping on the bandwagon in fear that they may lose their competitive differentiation without riding its coattails. They are reactively taking hasty decisions in the hope that it somehow leads their contact centers to be more efficient and profitable than ever before.

With cloud technology, it is pertinent that you do not get swept away by the hype and forsake all the critical questions you need to ask yourself as a future-ready business. Otherwise, you may end up investing in a fork in the road – without being sure about which direction it may lead your contact center to.

Often, the migration process of moving to the cloud is bereft with challenges – both predictable and unseen. From insufficient security planning to interoperability issues and obsolete technologies, there are many risks involved. In order to successfully navigate your contact center around them and maximize the true potential of cloud computing, your roadmap must be filled with checkpoints that need your attention.

First, always start with the why

Before you decide to take your contact center to the cloud, start with asking yourself – Why should you move to the cloud, and what are the type of problems that you are trying to resolve through it? It is a lot more complex and nuanced than merely changing a set of assets from your premises to another – without losing ownership. Instead, it is an opportunity to transform the business behind your contact center operations. However, if you try to replicate what you have been doing for years into the disruptive cloud technology – you may be throwing away a trampoline in favor of a wooden stool!

Among others, these are some of the reasons to move to the cloud:

  • Find a newer and more future-proof service ecosystem
  • Revamp existing IT and operational strategy to focus on growth strategies
  • Shift the risks to external vendors
  • Solve traditional problems associated with the current system
  • Gain access to continuous innovation
  • Get a detailed view of costs, and efficiently allocate them

It is best that you use your own primary objective to identify the right cloud solution or the best-fit vendor.

Determine the how: Key success factors for cloud migration

Your contact center is the battleground of customer experience through well-defined KPIs that evaluate agent performance and accurate channel data that directs you on how and when your customers want your service. Therefore, it is important to maintain the continuity in the processes that govern them on the cloud.

The key areas to focus are:

  • Application migration
  • Roles and responsibilities of vendor and your team on managing key KPIs
  • How can you manage the transition with multiple technologies
  • Date migration – do not lose the rich, powerful data of legacy systems

Change the culture

The biggest challenge in cloud adoption is often the change management. First, your people and your processes must be accepting of the change before your technologies are ready to integrate it. Migration to the cloud requires a shift in decision-making culture; as much as infra-migration. You need to help your organization through this change. So, prep the IT/business teams to a ‘new’ way of doing things, and give people the room to adopt since some have to give up traditionally-held controls.

Choose the right partner

The initial movement to the cloud is closer to a one-way street than you may think. Once you get on this road, you need to diligently travel for a period of time. Hence, choosing the right partner is critical. A partner with the data center, license, and infrastructure is not necessarily the chosen one to handle your complex cloud needs. Infrastructure, in fact, is the easiest part. You must strive to look for a partner with applications and diverse integration capabilities along with the capacity to handle multiple technologies. More than a pure play cloud player, you require someone who understands your KPI needs and the way your business works in the real world.

There are a multitude of reasons to migrate to the cloud – agility, flexibility, cost efficiency, better performance and digital transformation. As evidenced, migrating to the cloud comes with its own set of challenges. That is why it is important for you to have a nuanced view on all the pieces involved in it. Without a holistic understanding of why you want to move your contact center to the cloud, you might end up puzzled after it.