Back in 2020, many business owners found themselves suddenly having to operate remotely. Now in 2024, it looks as though the need to facilitate WFH will continue. A study by the Pew Research Center estimates that roughly 14% of all employed adults in the US work remotely full-time.

As businesses continue to factor remote workers into their long-term plans, it is critical to consider contact center solutions that make communications from the office and home seamless.

ON-PREMISE VS CLOUD CONTACT CENTER SOLUTIONS

One of the most significant benefits of cloud-based rather than on-premise contact center solutions is flexibility.

On-premise solutions depend on wired connections to a physical server. This dependency means you must change the wiring if you want to add another employee. It also means having to make a physical change to allow employees to work from home. With workers switching between home and the office, this quickly becomes impractical.

Cloud-based solutions allow you the flexibility to scale the number of people working in your sales or customer service contact center up and down as you need to without having to make physical changes. It also allows you the flexibility to have people working within your communication systems from anywhere in the world. This means your employees can easily switch between the office and home.

Cloud-based contact center solutions also provide tangible benefits to the way that your business operates, including:

Connecting inbound email, chat, text and social media connections to your systems - Giving your customers the ability to communicate with you in the way that they prefer shows that you respect their time and preferred method of communication.

A single source of data - Connecting all your communication channels in a cloud system means that there is just one source of truth for all your prospect and customer data.
Allowing your customers to self-serve - The ability to self-serve improves the customer experience and removes the need for an agent. Self-service isn’t just nice to have; it’s quickly becoming a requirement. Studies have shown that 88% of customers expect businesses to offer a self-serve option, and companies that don’t meet that expectation are likely to be left behind.
Improvement of internal communications - You can save yourself a lot of time by facilitating more efficient communication between staff.
Advanced reporting capability - Reporting software can be plugged into cloud-based contact centers. This allows you to better support employee and agent productivity and effectively analyze your sales and customer service performance.
Modernization of your hardware and phone systems - A more modern phone system means better call quality in terms of clarity and fewer dropped calls.

Integration with ticketing systems - Integration with your ticketing system enables user support tickets to be raised automatically, rather than having to be created manually. It also means that employees or contact center agents can track tickets more efficiently to help them serve customers better.
Integration between departments - This improves customer service and allows departments to work together more effectively (and not call that one prospect 5 times in a week).

Going cloud-based also gives you the option of a CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service) offering, which means that you can outsource the management of your contact center technology altogether. CCaaS is an excellent option for businesses that want to reduce costs and lean on the features of optimized contact center software.

OUTSOURCING TO CONTACT CENTER AS A SERVICE

CCaaS allows businesses to utilize pre-built contact center software built by a third party. According to Gartner, CCaaS solutions offer an adaptive, flexible delivery model for customer service and support.

When implementing CCaaS, you inform your CCaaS provider what technology and features your organization needs and for how many users. Based on this, you agree on a monthly subscription fee. Most CCaaS providers will allow you to add users or features at any time. However, you can typically only remove users or features at the contract renewal process. When you increase or decrease the number of employees or add or remove features, you will typically negotiate a new monthly price accordingly with your CCaaS provider.

The benefits of using a CCaaS solution are:

Predictable costs - Your monthly cost should include maintenance and repairs, which means you won’t be faced with any unexpected expenses.
Ability to quickly deploy new features - Developing new features yourself can be a headache! Most CCaaS providers will have a catalogue of features that can be deployed ‘out of the box,’ meaning you can access them more quickly.
Scalability - If your business suddenly expands or shrinks, your CCaaS provider will be able to quickly make the changes necessary to keep you operating efficiently.

Only pay for what you need - If you are a relatively small operation without the need for complicated features, then you don’t want to be paying for lots of features that you just won’t use. CCaaS is a great way for small businesses to keep their costs down.

Of course, the quality of your CCaaS solution (and included features) is dependent on the provider.

CHOOSING A CCAAS PROVIDER

When you are choosing a CCaaS provider, some things to consider are:

Integrations - If you want to realize the full benefits of a CCaaS system, it’s imperative that it integrates seamlessly with your existing software solutions, e.g. CRM, marketing automation, support ticketing, etc. It’s important to communicate which systems you are currently using within your business when you approach potential CCaaS providers, and to confirm that they integrate with them.

Automation - Contact center solutions that allow your customers to self-serve, and which can intelligently take the load off your contact center agents, are a must. Tools like chatbots equipped with NLP (Natural Language Processing) mean that you can provide excellent customer service while freeing up your staff to carry out more complex tasks. Look for a provider who has plenty of experience in AI and automation to support this.
Reporting and Analytics - It might not sound as impressive as AI, but reporting and analytics are vital for business success. A good BI (Business Intelligence) system will allow you to pull together vast amounts of data and gain useful insights from it, which help you optimize business strategy and profitability. Intelligent reporting gives you the opportunity to improve efficiency and increase sales.
Workforce Optimization (WFO) - Your CCaaS solution should provide you with insights on things like productivity, scheduling and hold time, which in turn improves efficiency. This is possible through detailed reporting, combined with AI.

Five of our most often requested CCaaS providers currently are 8x8, Evolve IP, Nextiva, RingCentral and Vonage. Here is what they offer and how they stack up:

8x8

8x8 is an ideal provider for organizations with 20 to 500 seats, but they provide services to organizations with as few as 1 seat. 8x8 stands out as a cloud provider that is Gartner recognized for both UCaaS and CCaaS. They have a native CRM included, as well as integration with Microsoft Teams and Salesforce. Historically, 8x8 has been successful in the entertainment, finance, healthcare, retail, and tourism industries.

Evolve ip

Evolve IP is a browser-based application with a sweet spot for providing services for organizations with 20 to 500 seats. They offer DaaS (Desktop as a Service) and Identify & Access Management solutions for secure remote working. And on the roadmap, they have an integrated app running inside Teams. Evolve IP has shown success in the finance, healthcare, legal, and retail industries. Notable clients include Marlin Business Services, McLane Company and Preferred Care Services.

nextiva

Nextiva is an ideal provider for smaller organizations with between 1 and 50 seats. This solution includes native customer relationship management capabilities as well as a variety of included and paid implementation packages. They also offer both remote and onsite resources for implementation and training. Nextiva has historically been popular in the healthcare sector, as they are in compliance with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability) regulations.

RingCentral

RingCentral is a solutions provider that is ideal for organizations ranging from 100 to 1000 seats. RingCentral Engage Voice leverages the US AWS Cloud footprint and is specifcally tailored for outbound-oriented contact centers that require auto, manual and TCPA-compliant dialing. Business process outsourcers and finance companies widely use RingCentral. RingCentral services notable clients such as iPacesetters.

Vonage

Vonage is an ideal provider for organizations with between 25 and 1000 seats. Vonage is unique because they offer several services including SIP, UCaaS, CRM integration, and Contact Center (CCaaS), all from a single unified technology stack. They are a trusted provider for many companies within the finance, healthcare, retail, and transportation sectors. Their notable clients include Author Solutions, Getty Images, GlassDoor, HotelBeds, McAffee, and WatchGuard.

You can learn more and compare all these solutions and more in our downloadable matrix.

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Interested in a complimentary custom matrix of CCaaS providers you’re considering? Fill out this form and list the providers in the Comments box.

Custom Matrix

HOW OPKALLA HELPS

There is a lot to think about when choosing contact center solutions for your business. All the information is out there, but it is hard to locate and filter through. And it is even harder to get budget approval.

Opkalla works with you to understand the needs of your business, the problems you are facing, what kind of contact center solution is right for you, and how a CCaaS investment can provide real business returns. We offer extensive, unbiased vendor research, present you with a list of the best options available, and arrange meetings to discuss the requirements and how vendor products can meet them.

We offer all these services at no cost to you. Opkalla gets paid indirectly by the vendor after your selection process is complete. Our clients pay the same price or less going through us as they would going directly to the vendor themselves.

Connect with us today to learn more about how we can help.

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A Guide to Choosing Contact Center Solutions In 2024