Transitioning from an on-premise contact center to the cloud

Contact centers are increasingly choosing to migrate to the cloud to streamline their operations and achieve significant cost and resource savings. However, organizations need to carefully assess their current circumstances and plan their future needs before making such a move.

The key differences between on-premise and cloud

Before deciding whether or not to migrate their contact center to the cloud, organizations need to have a clear understanding of the key differences and advantages of each. For example, having a contact center on-premise requires more physical space to accommodate the necessary equipment and infrastructure. Additionally, on-premise infrastructure incurs various costs, including purchasing and maintaining hardware and software, and setting up the infrastructure. These expenses can significantly restrict a contact centers’ ability to scale up, especially at short notice.

Cloud contact center migration means that organizations no longer require physical locations and agents are now better enabled to work from any location. This allows organizations to have employees located across the world, often leading to decreased operational costs and less agent turnover, as well as reduced building and office expenses.

Cloud-based contact centers can be set up very quickly and without the need for any investments in hardware or infrastructure. A reliable internet connection is the only requirement! Cloud-based contact center charges are typically billed on a subscription basis, either annually or monthly. This allows organizations to better plan their expenses and budgeting ahead of time. Additionally, they can scale up much more quickly without incurring additional, unplanned costs. Scaling up an on-premise contact center would incur significant costs. On-premise centers are also adversely affected if there is a need to unexpectedly scale down their services as they are left with surpluses of software licenses and devices which have already been purchased.

Many believe that an on-premise system is safer for important data, especially customer data, compared to being located on the cloud. However, research has shown that data is, in fact, safer in a cloud environment. This is because the majority of data breaches tend to be as a result of onsite interactions by humans such as human error or even intentional malice. Cloud companies also typically make significant investments in robust cybersecurity measures to protect sensitive data and maintain their reputation.

Key stages of migration

1. Assess and plan

Before undertaking any migration work, organizations must comprehensively understand their desired outcomes. This includes examining current customer experience (CX), agent productivity, total costs, data security, flexibility and scalability. Recording these metrics is necessary to enable benchmarking before, during and after the migration. Additionally, businesses need to have a clear plan of their requirements and any desired improvements.

2. Understand resource requirements

Organizations must be aware of all technologies, applications, backup systems, processes and other items that are linked with their contact center operations. Prior to migration, organizations need to meticulously assess which elements must be transferred to the cloud, updated, or even replaced. Often at this stage, organizations identify legacy, out-of-date systems that need to be retired. Businesses must clearly understand how their new cloud infrastructure interoperates with all systems and technologies that they intend to use in future operations. If these components can’t function together, organizations need to establish alternative plans. This understanding will also assist in prioritizing which applications and business functions should be migrated to the cloud first or whether everything should be migrated at once.

3. Choose the correct provider

Choosing the right partner and cloud provider is one of the most critical decisions an organization can make during the migration process. They need to be able to not only understand the company’s current context and circumstances, but also their future needs, requirements and expectations. Many offer additional call center features that will help ease the organization’s transition to the cloud and make it more seamless. Both parties must thoroughly understand the total costs, resource requirements, and other contractual obligations.

4. Automated, continuous testing

At all stages of migration activities, organizations must continuously test their security, scalability, optimization, and other aspects to ensure a successful transition to the cloud. This proactive approach will help to minimize any disruptions to both agents and customers.

5. Training and support

It is essential to fully train and familiarize all employees with any new systems, technologies, or processes they may need to use after the migration. Management must also ensure they support and communicate regularly with staff at all stages of the migration process.

6. Celebrate wins

Through ongoing performance and monitoring, organizations will have a comprehensive understanding of any changes to their contact center’s performance. This will allow them to immediately rectify any issues that may occur. Additionally, it means that organizations will be aware of goal achievements and positive results much quicker. The organization should celebrate and showcase these achievements across the organization to demonstrate the value of the migration and increase buy-in from all team members.

Cloud migration assurance

Regardless of where they are located, contact centers are an essential aspect of CX. Cloud migrations usually involve significant scale and come with numerous questions, uncertainty, risks, and costs. Cloud migration assurance can reduce these factors by automating the testing and monitoring of all customer channels at every stage of an organization’s migration journey. It allows businesses to:

• Accurately size, scope and plan their migrations

• Accelerate their migrations without compromising on quality

• Reduce defects and the resultant unplanned work

• Coordinate and synchronize more effectively across their organization

• Test and validate their readiness for migration

• Assure the success of the migration and performance from the start

Conclusion

If organizations decide to migrate their contact center from on-premise to the cloud, thorough planning and understanding of their requirements and ambitions are imperative. To ensure a smooth transition and optimal performance from day 1, without any negative impacts to CX, organizations must invest in cloud migration assurance.

Migration assurance will reduce the company’s effort by automating the testing and monitoring of their new cloud contact center infrastructure. A decrease in testing time and resource requirements at all stages will also lead to reduced costs. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, contact center migration assurance will help businesses mitigate risks that could negatively impact their customers. Automated testing will continuously monitor the infrastructure, allowing prompt issue detection and resolution if necessary.

Cyara revolutionizes the way businesses transform and optimize their customer experiences. Cyara’s AI-based CX Transformation Platform empowers enterprises to deliver flawless interactions across voice, video, digital, and chatbot experiences. With Cyara, businesses improve customer journeys through continuous innovation while reducing cost and minimizing risk. With a 96% customer retention rate and world-class Net Promoter Score (NPS), today’s leading global brands trust Cyara every day to deliver customer smiles at scale.

To learn more, visit cyara.com or call 1-888-GO-CYARA.