Constantly changing customer demands means that call center operators must frequently adapt and optimise their IT systems. For many, their IT infrastructure has been pushed to its technical limits. As new technologies and solutions have emerged, it has become increasingly difficult to stay one step ahead of the competition. What does this mean for call centers? To stay ahead of the curve and to ensure sustained success, they will need more sophisticated solutions that provide ongoing flexibility, scalability and cost optimisation.

And, with further developments in Artificial Intelligence starting to have an impact in the industry, securing ROI from call centers has become still more challenging, particularly for on-premise deployments. Keeping pace with change is simply too expensive. That’s why many are finding cloud-based call centers to be a more attractive proposition. Shifting to the cloud means obtaining a continuous roadmap and updates, so the inclusion of new technologies can become significantly more cost-effective.

A large segment of the call center industry continues to maintain critical customer data with traditional on-premise solutions. Specialised software systems still dominate on-premise call centers with dedicated communications servers, headsets and other industry-specific solutions that are installed, configured, licensed and made compatible with their industries.

Of course, companies that opt for on-premise call center solutions are also responsible for maintaining and modernising their software systems and ensuring that they have the right skillsets in their IT staff – which can prove to be a challenge when there are other operational systems to maintain.

Indeed, many call center operators with on-premise solutions are already finding that these have reached their limits. Concerns about changing regulatory requirements, technology evolution, budget commitments and future strategic direction all mean that existing on-premises solutions cannot always meet emerging challenges. The industry is at a turning point and the cloud is starting to look a better bet for the future.

Of course, a key factor behind the growing adoption of cloud-based solutions is the speed with which they can be deployed. But there are other benefits, too. For example, they can offer greater flexibility; a more agile roadmap; enhanced ease of integration with other processes; up-to-date security and data protection optimisation; pure OPEX models; reduced initial investment; reduced TCO; and, as a result of all of these, better ROI.

In the context of the cloud, services are provided remotely to businesses, primarily with a subscription model. Organisations value cloud-based platforms because they can offer a rich and flexible feature set that improves customer interaction and helps to drive customer satisfaction in all areas. Overall, cloud-based call centers can enable better profitability by improving operating costs while also improving customer service quality.

In summary, it’s clear that we will continue to see a number of key benefits driving the adoption of cloud-based call and contact centers:

• Speed of deployment
• Scalability
• Improved customer support
• Cost optimisation
• Flexible subscription models
• Performance monitoring
• Data security