Key factors to consider when choosing a cloud contact center for remote agents

The rapidly evolving health crisis caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) is disrupting the lives of millions around the world. As cities and entire countries shelter-in-place to slow transmission, companies large and small struggle to quickly equip employees with the right technology to work from home.

In the midst of this chaos, customer service operations are particularly vulnerable. Over 85% of contact centers still rely on premises-based technology that can’t easily support remote work. Employees in many of these contact centers are tethered to their workstations, using physical telephones, desktop computers, and contact center applications that are installed on local servers. Meanwhile, customer demand remains high, with call and ticket volumes spiking unpredictably. Maintaining business continuity in the contact center has never been more critical.

If you are like most CX leaders, you have at least done some due diligence on cloud contact center solutions. You may have even started planning your contact center’s transition to the cloud in the longer term. Now, COVID-19 is forcing your hand and extending your on-premises technology with VPN for at-home work is fraught with risk.

Although moving your contact center to the cloud has many benefits in both the short and long-term, it’s important to choose a solution with the right characteristics and capabilities to support a seamless transition to remote work. Talkdesk can help you maintain business continuity and deliver an exceptional customer experience during the current crisis and beyond, with solutions designed to make your transition to the cloud quick, easy, and cost-effective, regardless of your business needs.

As you weigh your options, there are a few key factors that should always be top of mind.

1. Speed of Deployment

Even if your contact center(s) is not located in an area heavily impacted by the coronavirus, it’s likely only a matter of time. A traditional contact center, by its very nature, is exactly the kind of environment that contributes to the spread of a virus. The recent outbreak in a South Korean contact center is a stark reminder that it’s time to send your staff home. At the same time, you need to ensure that your customers don’t experience any downtime. It’s important to ask any potential cloud contact center provider how quickly they can have you up and running in the cloud—and to understand exactly what that means.

Key questions:

• How long will it take your cloud contact center provider to provision all of your agents, forward existing phone numbers, configure your IVR flows and setup inbound call routing?
• Do they offer a mobile application that allows agents to take calls immediately, even if you aren’t able to provide them with laptops and headsets right away?

2. Ease-of-Use

An intuitive user experience should always rank highly among your evaluation criteria—slow onboarding and poorly designed workflows can cripple contact center productivity even in the best of times. When agents work remotely, it becomes even more important to provide them with tools that are easy to learn and easy to use. A quick cloud deployment won’t count for much if you choose technology that requires your agents and supervisors to go through extensive training in order to start serving customers.

Key questions:

• Does the cloud contact center solution have a modern user interface that streamlines workflows for agents and supervisors?
• How long will it take your staff to get comfortable using the new software? Are there online training and certification tools that can help with the training process?
• Do they offer integrations with out-of-the-box automations that reduce the need for context switching, or provide agents with an AI-powered virtual assistant?