Alternative Networks : Time to get Laser Focussed on Customer Experience

A few years ago the marketing fraternity started talking about 'Laser Focus'.  As a 70s child I am still pretty impressed by the whole 'laser' thing, but the constant droning on about 'laser focus this, laser focus that' started to grate a little. 

Luckily they have moved onto pastures new (I gather 'Software Defined' is very much en-vouge these days) but in hindsight, laser focus isn't a bad thing to strive for. When my organisation does especially well for example it is usually a result of significant and consistent focus on something. Conversely when the company BBQ ends up looking more like a last-minute trip to Iceland it is generally a result of us trying to spin too many plates.

Maintaining contact centre efficiency means looking at every element of customer engagement operations, from agent performance to the returns on your base technology investment. Whilst the latter can prove difficult to quantify, the sheer overheads of procurement, deployment, maintenance and ongoing management has already lead many customers to look at ways of getting access to the technology they need without the significant overheads traditionally associated with such. Furthermore, while 'own-and-operate' models offer some benefits, resilience and scale are often restricted by CapEx budgets and as a result fail to deliver the flexibility and agility that constant delivery of customer experience excellence demands.

As a result, many organisations are now realising that an alternative procurement and consumption models for contact centre technologies might be just the ticket for the delivery of what they need in terms of scalability and future-proof flexibility. Cloud adoption has perhaps unsurprisingly risen to meet this demand and is rapidly becoming a popular method of removing the overheads associated with operationally owning the infrastructure yet ensuring organisations have access to the latest technologies they need to optimise agent productivity, engage with customers in the way they want and break down silos within the business.

As long as the migration is carefully planned, (I recently went to an Amazon Web Services event and they had some great examples of how a Cloud 'Centre of Excellence' can make all the difference in making the leap safer), cloud-based contact centre infrastructure can make a lot of sense. Not only does your budget extend a lot quicker to the shiny new things you need to need customer demand, but you find yourself with more time for doing important, customer-oriented initiatives rather than infrastructure maintenance, upgrades, patching and the like……..

……..Dare I say it, but cloud might just allow for the creation and maintenance of a bit of customer experience 'laser focus', which can only ever be a good thing!