First of all, you’ll need to get the right people involved.
You should have at least one director responsible for the migration project if you operate a small business, whereas larger businesses might require a team formed of people from different departments to ensure consistency.
For example, this might include someone from IT, someone from operations, someone from marketing, and so on. You’ll need to ensure you’ve attained senior management sponsorship, along with the right permission to start implementing the project.
Your key goal will be to ensure that the cloud migration goes as smoothly as possible. It’s important to avoid disruptions and think about other systems that need to be integrated with your telephony systems and employee mobile contracts.
It’s a good idea to keep in mind that you’re aiming for a unified communication system that combines multiple channels, and to avoid asking for other integrations during the migration process.
Consider which cloud communications model and service best suits your business. Will the public cloud provide the flexibility and cloud security you need, or do you need a more secure solution that operates in the private cloud? Perhaps a combination of both means the hybrid cloud is the best option for you?
Check out service providers and analyze their offerings as well as the price tag they have attached. There are plenty of options out there, so why not start with Dialpad?
Before beginning the migration, assess your IT infrastructure to ensure everything runs smoothly. You don’t want any big data breaches to occur during the process!
Before migrating, test the platform. You don’t want to spend all that time and energy migrating to a platform that just doesn’t meet your business needs. Typically, service providers offer a free trial that allows you to see whether it’s the right solution for your business.
Make sure to consider how the platform will affect customers, as well as your teams across departments. If you work with remote teams, consider how they’ll be affected as well.
To stay competitive, make sure you stay up to date with any progress and new uses for the cloud. Cloud technology is constantly developing, and with the increasing availability of AI and machine learning technologies, it’s only going to get more exciting as we head into the future.
Be sure to keep all the end users at your company up to date, too, so they can always be using your new cloud communications platform to its full potential!
Don’t send everyone in blind. You’ll need to know how you’re going to roll out the new cloud communications platform to all your teams and departments.
Cloud communications solutions are usually relatively easy to get used to, as most people already have some experience using the cloud in their personal lives. Ensure your employees are fully trained about how to use the platform and all its features to ensure their user experience is seamless.
Finding the right cloud communications solution for your business requires careful thought and consideration. This decision is going to impact how your team communicates, collaborates, and succeeds.
If you’re looking for a cloud communications and collaboration solution that ticks all the boxes (and then some), check out Dialpad. Take it for a spin with a free trial (it takes just a few minutes to get all set up with a virtual business number), or book a product tour to see it in action!
Cloud communication is a technique that allows companies to establish a point of customer contact over the internet instead of using a connection over a telephone network.
Cloud communication leverages cloud-hosted technologies, tools, and platforms to strategize customer contact, including hosting conversations, sending messages, and arranging video conferences.
Cloud communication dissipates the need of installing any hardware or having a physical network to operate a customer support center. It offers more opportunities, improves scalability, and creates diversity in your customer communication strategy.
The latest upgrades and advancements mean cloud communication is no longer a telephone line used by customers to reach you. Instead, it is now an essential part of brand building that can quickly deploy the required resources and manage the entire brand communication system.
Appropriately implemented, cloud technologies can improve customer experience, manage customer relationship agents better, and improve operational efficiency.
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Cloud communications platforms are rising in popularity due to their advantages in managing customer service operations efficiently. Some of the benefits of using a cloud communication strategy are:
A cloud communication system provides more freedom to the operating staff. A cloud solution can be accessed using any device connected to the internet and removes the location constraints.
It implies that a cloud network allows your team to be more flexible and can use it from remote locations.
In light of the recent events of the global pandemic, remote working capability has become one of the significant areas of concern for companies, and a cloud communication network can help navigate such issues if they occur in the future.
Since the data flow in real-time, you can also avoid delays in contact center operations by keeping the workforce updated.
Since the cloud communication system works via an ever-connected internet system, it helps you reduce the hardware downtimes, which is so familiar with physical contact centers.
Further, the traditional methods were more equipment-dependent. The contemporary solution in cloud communications allows the administrators to include multiple connections.
Contact center operations also depend on seasonal peaks at times, and having a seamless option to scale the process using virtual numbers can help businesses handle multiple calls at ease. In addition, this helps enhance the customer experience since they don’t have to be kept on hold for long.
Call centers are often susceptible to security risks, and keeping aware of them is essential for companies to avoid the potential loss of data or reputation.
Cloud networks rely on several security protocols to prevent issues like phishing, fraud, call interceptions, spoofing, and other security issues with convenience.
These are far safer options than physical restrictions or traditional security protocols. Further, the cloud networks consist of encrypted servers and network security that allows you to keep your conversations and customer data safe.
Multiple layers of encryption like two-factor authentication and digital identifications can also add extra protection layers.
When customers contact a business, they expect a prompt response. This helps improve customer expectations and experience, which often translates into more conversions and upsells.
A reliable customer contact center also enhances customer loyalty and builds trust. Moving your communication system to the cloud can help you improve your service quality and call center availability using a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with the service providers.
Cloud communications platforms also enhance the tech-adoption rate that ensures continuity, improves data security, and makes customer connectivity failsafe.
The cost of running a contact center can be massive. Larger organizations can afford more agents and are better equipped to carry out their operations.
However, having a budget matching their contact center operational aspirations can be difficult for smaller organizations.
Cloud communication solves the issue by enabling cost cut-downs under multiple aspects such as workforce requirements, round-the-clock availability of agents, and the cost of maintaining expensive equipment.
Cloud communications platforms let these organizations pay only for the opted services and remain relevant to their customers.
When customers connect with your contact center, they want a quick response and resolution to their issues. A cloud-based communication center allows you to leverage the potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning here.
It enables the integration of other technologies such as automated response systems or chatbots that can converse with the customers based on their historical online data.
These technologies rely on customer data and use them to form more relevant human-like conversations with them. This, in turn, helps companies scale customer center operations faster.
It also reduces the human dependencies of the contact center, therefore, reducing human errors or wait time for the customers.
Moreover, AI bots are devoid of any emotions. This helps manage customers with behavioural issues better by further escalations or automatically initiating an action according to the set protocols.
Today, customers are active across online touchpoints, including social media channels, websites, connected TVs, etc.
A cloud-based communication strategy undertakes all these touchpoints into consideration while interacting with them.
It also understands the customer behaviour and activities across these platforms and devices and can initiate communication based on their interest and preferences.
Consequently, it solves the customers’ queries with relevance to the customers’ persona if they arise at any point in time.
Since cloud communication platform consolidates the call center activities under one dashboard, it provides the managers and team leads with complete visibility of the operations.
It also helps them empower their teams to upskill themselves by reducing the usual stress levels at the call center.
Despite the initial hesitance of some enterprises to get on board with cloud communication systems, this technology is regarded as the future of contact center operations.
It provides an opportunity to include the innovations in the tech space and speeds up processes with unmatched agility. If you are looking for more details on cloud communications, get in touch with us.