We all know the technical benefits of a cloud-based contact centre, as opposed to a conventional contact centre. However, while there is no denying the benefits of lower operating costs and scalability, these benefits cannot be realised through technology alone. Many contact centres struggle to utilise the full potential of their cloud-based platform, not because they have neglected the technical aspects of agile migration, but because they failed to consider the business side of the operation. As someone who has worked with contact centres for over a decade, it surprises me to see the divorce between the technical and business aspects of cloud migration. The two are far more interconnected than anyone acknowledges and ignoring the connection only hurts ROI on cloud migration. While there is no denying the technical importance of cloud migration, the business side deserves just as much attention, which is what is addressed here.
Business mistakes in agile cloud migration
Failing to future-proof their technology
Cloud platforms make an excellent online investment, but their full potential will not be realised overnight. It can take months or even years to adjust to the day-to-day operations of a cloud platform, by then, the industry would have moved on to something else. The tech world moves at a fast pace, and contact centres need to have their finger on the pulse of the industry to stay ahead of their competitors. However, many contact centres fail to account for the future when planning cloud migration. In other words, they fail to future-proof their vendor of choice.
Contact centres should prepare for the future by ensuring that their platform of choice can integrate new features with minimal disruption to customer service. This requires due consideration to both the technical and business side of the contact centre platform. On the technical side, contact centres need to ensure that the cloud’s architecture is set up for easy configuration, and integration with future systems. When it comes to business, contact centres need to ensure that integrating new features and expanding functionality is specifically mentioned in the contract.
Failing to engage all stakeholders
Deploying to the cloud is not a matter of switching over to a different platform and turning it on. Contact centres need to account for the business needs of all their stakeholders before switching to a different model. Yet, many contact centres fail to communicate with their stakeholders, hurting the migration process. Some of this is due to difficulties of getting departments across the board to agree on a common agenda (put simply, office politics). Other times, it is difficult to account for the business needs of every department in the centre, but more often than not, the main reason is negligence.
Contact centres often neglect to account for the different needs of their respective departments. For example, customer care needs a platform that makes router switching fast and efficient, while the business department wants a dashboard to measure SLA dependencies. The lack of unity and synchronisation across different departments hurts the migration process in two ways: Slowing the rate of migration, and not realising its full potential because different departments struggle to leverage its full value. To ensure greater unity between technical and business-oriented departments, contact centres need to ensure all their stakeholders have their requirements met.
Failing to consider the pros and cons of the shift
One business-related mistake of cloud migration is failing to consider the pros and cons of each technique. Contact centres often fail to consider the true cost of the migration phase against the ROI of the platform because they want to complete the job as quickly as possible. For example, ‘Lift and Shift’ is a common method that involves moving to the cloud without adjusting the new platform. The advantages of the Lift and Shift method is the cost of migration and ease of setting a baseline performance. It is a lot faster to migrate data and easier to set a baseline to compare performance between the old and new platforms. Unfortunately, the Lift and Shift method denies contact centres the chance to take full advantage of their native features unique to the cloud platform, which could hurt ROI in the long run.
Failing to upskill customer agents
Most contact centres migrate to a different cloud platform to provide omnichannel customer service to their clients. However, one mistake contact centres make is not upgrading the skills of customer agents. Some agents excel at voice-to-voice communication, able to pick up nuances in tone, while others excel at text-to-text communication. Customer agents need to excel at both to truly provide omnichannel service. While technology is important, customer service skill is just as important for providing maximum ROI on cloud platforms.
Preparing for a shift in the cloud migration
While there is no denying that cloud migration comes with several benefits, businesses errors hinder the ROI of migration. If contact centres wish to make the most of their cloud platform, they need to pay attention to both the business and technical side of the migration process. By paying attention to both sides, contact centres can ensure the process will be a profitable move in the long and short run. Agile cloud migration is more than just selecting the right cloud vendor, it is also a question of making the right business decisions and setting the right processes.