Cloud Contact Center Featured Article

Small Businesses Should Leverage Cloud for Improved Customer Service

By Michelle Amodio
TMCnet Contributor

There’s a lot of buzz surrounding the cloud as it pertains to the contact center; the cloud, overall, enables companies, businesses and other organizations to reduce spending and save money by minimizing inherent IT and support costs. For the SMB market where budgets are tighter, this can be a boost for providing better customer service. Migrating to a cloud contact center is relatively cheaper and provides all-in-one solutions that can include essential software such as IVR, IP-PBX (News - Alert) ACD, call recording and monitoring, workforce management, performance management, outbound messaging and delivery of reporting to management – all in one highly integrated fashion.

Many companies today are moving to cloud applications to help them respond to the rapid advances in today’s market environment while simultaneously ditching many of the high costs and hassles of maintaining complex internal systems. This is especially helpful for the SMB crowd whose budget may not allow for dedicated, in-house IT department. By focusing on improving customer service and not complicated systems, SMBs can offer more to their customers. Also, since cloud contact centers require modest initial investments, customers do not have to purchase costly hardware and software infrastructure.

Because it’s in the cloud, access to components that are already integrated don’t require a big plan or large-scale budget. In other words, the solution is already there with the personalization up front.

Moving the contact center to the cloud can transform any contact center from a cost center to a revenue driver. The delivery model can drive down costs while the technology can deliver consistent customer service across multiple channels, right where new business opportunities are. SMBs in particular will better be able to engage with customers, building relationships that benefit both business and customer.

SMBs simply can’t afford to provide their own enterprise-level communications solutions, but just like their enterprise-sized counterparts, SMBs also can’t afford to put their business at risk—particularly when it comes to communications.

With a cloud-based phone system, SMBs can take advantage of sophisticated infrastructure, strict security measures, and an enterprise-level network at a much lower cost thanks to economies of scale afforded by cloud providers.

With a cloud-based phone system, you’ll have all the benefits of an enterprise-level network, including cloud contact center technology, without an enterprise budget.