Published the Sep 12, 2021
On-Premise Call Centers Vs Cloud-based Call Centers - Moving contact center operations to the cloud brings many benefits to all businesses
When any business decides to address its customer base, the first action on the agenda is to establish a call center, and this decision divides business owners into two alternatives – traditional-on-premise call centers Vs cloud-based call centers.
In order to decide whether it’s suitable for your business model, first, you need to realize that modern customer experience nowadays focuses on personalization. Customers need personalized, prompt, and easy resolutions to solve their problems and to improve customer loyalty. For your call center to become a desired service-reporting platform in the market, all you need is to ensure that you have the right tools to address a customer’s issues. Also, it’s very important for customers to have multiple ways of reaching their solution providers.
On-premise call centers are traditional call center setups wherein the companies store all hardware and other physical equipment and servers at the company’s location. In the case of an on-premise deployment, the burden of maintaining the systems relies on the company itself. This might require them to hire a team of specialists also. Setting up an on-premise call center is usually a time-consuming process.
What is Cloud-based Call Center?
A cloud-based call center is the total opposite of an on-premise situation. Here, the organization does not need to invest heavily in the physical infrastructure. This solution requires only internet access with sufficient bandwidth for virtual agents to smoothly manage inbound and outbound calls. Moreover, cloud call center providers build, operate, and maintain standardized telephony platform offerings on their own servers, with customers gaining remote access through the internet on a subscription or as-needed basis.
There are a number of fundamental differences between a traditional on-premise call center and a cloud-based call center.
Technology can make or break the customer experience (CX). With the cloud, teams can focus on what matters most: delivering exceptional customer service. This is because this technology has the following features:
Agents may need to switch between multiple applications to access customer information. Not only can this take a long time, but it can also make the customer’s journey feel disconnected since they have to answer questions repeatedly. This is an important aspect that companies should look into because quick and efficient access to information is a great sign that companies are prioritizing human contact and connection.
With a cloud-based contact center, companies can simultaneously access statistics, call duration, and customer information. Agents can easily follow the customer’s journey, minimizing the need to repeat their problems from one agent to another. These “connected agents” can also use the available reports to predict problems and provide solutions from there.
A few years ago, an article in Forbes predicted that the current call center industry is a relic waiting to happen. It pointed to the ability of artificial intelligence (AI) to provide human-like interactions as the main reason why this could happen.
The current situation is not far from what the article predicted. However, beyond the promise of artificial intelligence, call center businesses to face some challenges in how their operations operate. This includes the emergence of powerful web platforms that can support full-fledged operations using the way both small and established businesses operate.
One area where its impact is noticeable is in customer experience. Call center cloud technology improves the customer experience because it can collect and analyze customer interactions across connected channels. It can use the help of a universal queue, which can route clients’ problems to agents better suited to their problems. This not only minimizes call processing time but also builds trust and credibility among customers.
The use of cloud computing gives businesses the ability to access their systems anywhere as long as there is a good internet connection. This convenience is a significant benefit for any company that has employees on the road or working from home. It can also give many companies the opportunity to expand their business to include international affiliates. This is possible because the technology is on the Internet and not on company premises.
Specific scenarios can put pressure on existing call center technology. For example, a call center business that caters to the travel industry experiences high call and email volume during the summer or holiday seasons, which does not occur at other times of the year. Some companies are also able to expand rapidly due to their growing customer base. These situations test the technological scalability of a business and when a cloud platform can perform better.
Unlike traditional call center technology, a cloud-based system minimizes the need for expensive and time-consuming installation of licensed software that can be required when expanding a business. It can also eliminate the long deployment period of additional equipment to call, chat, or email customers during peak seasons. It can also allow businesses to quickly add and remove users based on product demand. All of this is possible because cloud businesses have larger servers that can host other businesses’ IT systems faster than on-site internal storage.
The cloud call center provider offers a lower starting fee than traditional solutions. This is because conventional call centers require expensive system hardware, costly upgrade licenses, and labor to install, repair, and replace if necessary.
On the other hand, cloud systems require much lower initial capital and operating costs because they are hosted by a third-party provider on the Internet. They do not need to purchase infrastructure such as private branch Exchange (PBX) or IP-PBX (IP-PBX) media servers. This means that businesses can start and run a call center without much cost.
When you compare on-premise vs cloud-based call centers, you’ll notice a huge change in strength and capability in the services. The cloud-based call center is a new tech, and it’s an all-inclusive service laced with core functions such as call masking, call data recording, analytics, call whispering, live KPI’s dashboard, emotion tracker, end call survey that helps business owners understand how their clients feel, and many more.
Key Takeaways
Upgrading customer loyalty is much easier with well-maintained call center technology. Years ago, on-premise call centers were the only choice, however, with growing expectations and challenges in the respected field, cloud-based call centers are smart choices to choose. The important part about picking the right call center technology also depends on your needs and objectives.
TRY ZIWO Cloud-Based Call Center — 14 day free trial
No need to worry about the big capital or the investment costs, if you are going for this one! This is because you are only required to take care of your internet connection while the rest is taken care of by your cloud-based provider.
More Related Topics:
https://www.ziwo.io/how-to-become-a-customer-centric-organization/
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