Contact Center 2.0: More Than Just Going to the CloudContact Center 2.0: More Than Just Going to the Cloud
In building a next-generation contact center, enterprises must tie their buying decisions into bigger corporate goals.
July 10, 2018
Contact centers are facing unprecedented change, and decision-making has never been more challenging. The new technologies can be daunting and disruptive, but in many ways, they offer great opportunities to modernize in a hurry. None of this is really news for No Jitter readers, but when new research comes along to validate the state of things, it's worth looking at the data.
One such study has crossed my path recently, and the findings illustrate how complex decision-making is becoming in the current environment. RingCentral commissioned CITE Research to conduct the study, titled "Contact Center Digital Transformation," drawing insights from 500 contact center respondents in managerial and supervisor roles or higher at a wide range of enterprises by size, ranging from 50 to 10,000+ employees, in the U.S. and U.K.
Aside from being timely, the data lines up with what I've been hearing at all the various industry events in recent months. In short, as contact centers look to the cloud to address their challenges, they have more to consider than updating phones or IVR systems, and they must tie their buying decisions into bigger things.
RingCentral's take is to position all of this as a re-boot opportunity -- what it calls "Contact Center 2.0." I'd like to take this one step further, and in this post, will show how building a next-generation contact center means more than migrating from on-premises systems to the cloud. To do that, I'm going to tie together data points across four separate but related themes -- digital transformation, a focus on customer experience (CX), cloud migration, and integration of contact center with UC.
Theme #1: Digital Transformation
These days, enterprises can't not be thinking about this, but like "UC," digital transformation can be a vague term. This is good for anyone selling to enterprises, since they're all free to fashion a solution that addresses such a broad need. Of course, this makes your life harder as IT decision-makers, not just for evaluating offerings, but also in knowing when you're done. This "transformation" may never be complete in our lifetimes, so you need to think about this differently from clearly defined point solutions that have lifecycles of just a few years.
That said, the research found that 70% of respondents have some form of a digital transformation strategy. Only 15% said they don't, so overall, this validates the trend's strategic importance. Things get more interesting when considering the focus of that strategy, as summarized below:
| Table 1 – Focus of Digital Transformation Strategy | % of Respondents* |
|---|---|
| Digital technology integration | 71% |
| Customer experience | 71% |
| Operational agility | 50% |
| Workforce enablement | 46% |
*Multiple responses allowed (Source: Contact Center Digital Transformation)
As one might expect, the focus is largely on adapting to digital technology as a means of improving operations across the organization. However, CX rated just as importantly, and of all the attributes surveyed, it's the only one with an external focus -- and that brings us to the next two themes.
Theme #2: Focusing on CX
Anecdotally, we know how important CX has become, and that's certainly validated in the research. The table below summarizes the top challenges contact centers face, and from a longer list of 17 challenges, CX ranked highest. The ordering in the table below reflects the percentage of respondents who gave each of the listed challenge a one, two, or three (out of five) ranking.
| Table 2 – Top Contact Center Challenges | % of Respondents |
|---|---|
| Improved CX | 32% |
| Cost savings | 30% |
| Improved customer satisfaction ratings | 26% |
| Integrating new technologies | 24% |
| Improved agent performance | 21% |
| Better meeting the needs of today's customers | 19% |
The first and third challenges above are highly related -- CX and CSAT -- so on this level, the tie between digital transformation and the contact center is evident. However, while the data in Table 1 shows that CX is a key driver for digital transformation, the data above doesn't support the opposite.
In other words, when thinking about contact center challenges, it's all about the customers and agents -- and not so much about supporting a broader digital transformation strategy. This view is more tactical, so there's a danger of leaving decision-making here solely in the hands of contact center personnel. There's a bigger picture to consider, namely that contact center planning needs to be aligned with organizational imperatives, and that leads my analysis to the next theme.
Before going there, however, it's worth noting how cost savings is viewed as being just as much of a challenge as improving CX and CSAT. This brings to light a fundamental challenge all contact centers struggle with, namely the impossibility of reducing costs and improving CX and CSAT.
Essentially, these are conflicting priorities that an organization can't address at the same time. The survey didn't explore that dilemma, and doing so here would take the analysis off track and in another direction entirely. I'm citing it here as a sidebar, but let's stick to the four themes for now.
Continue to next page for a look at cloud migration and UC integration
Continued from Page 1
Theme #3: Cloud Migration
This is another familiar meta-trend -- and a prime reason for RingCentral to commission this study -- and it's particularly pressing for contact centers. The research indicates that 62% of respondents have premises-based contact centers, and as Table 3 shows, they have a long way to go for this migration.
| Table 3 – Cloud Plans for Contact Center | % of Respondents |
|---|---|
| Fully transitioned | 11% |
| Partially transitioned | 24% |
| Have plans, but no transition yet | 26% |
| No plans for moving to the cloud | 15% |
| Don't know | 24% |
While it's not clear if a sense of urgency is lacking, this transition goes hand in hand with digital transformation, and with CX being so important, there's a real gap here. That's evident when considering why contact centers would move to the cloud. As with Table 2, respondents ranked the top five reasons, and Table 4 below shows the top overall reasons from a list of 13 factors.
| Table 4 – Reasons for Moving to the Cloud | % of Respondents |
|---|---|
| Increase reliability/uptime | 28% |
| Better meet needs of today's customers | 27% |
| Better reporting and analytics | 26% |
| Ability to scale up or down | 25% |
| Improving security | 24% |
| Reduced reliance on internal IT | 23% |
Perhaps not surprisingly, these reasons are mostly about the contact center -- improving performance, making it more secure, getting better diagnostics, etc. While all of these are valid -- and should ultimately help improve CX -- the responses show no indication that moving to the cloud will somehow help support the organization's digital transformation strategy.
By now, contact centers surely recognize they'll never improve CX in today's market as currently constituted, and cloud represents the best path forward. However, that shouldn't be done in isolation -- the opportunity is bigger than the contact center, and as the last theme indicates, it even extends to our old friend, UC.
Theme #4: Integrating Contact Center with UC
These worlds have been moving closer together for the right reasons, and with cloud being the main enabler, this final theme ties things together. Overall, 61% of respondents have some level of integration, and at face value, this is a good sign.
To be fair, the survey defines this broadly, referring to any from a list of communications applications (voice, messaging, video, etc.), rather than integrating the contact center with a UC platform that incorporates all of these applications. However, even this watered-down form of integration is positive, and is further bolstered by the finding that 42% of those not doing this now are considering an integrated solution.
Even more encouraging is the broad range of expected benefits. As per earlier tables, respondents ranked their top five reasons, and here's what came out on top.
| Table 5 – Benefits for Integrating CC and UC | % of Respondents |
|---|---|
| Cost savings | 53% |
| Time savings | 52% |
| Improved levels of customer service | 52% |
| Increased agent productivity | 50% |
| Better communication between agents and rest of the company | 44% |
Implications
Table 5 may well hold the key to address the alignment gap between the needs of the contact center and overall plans for digital transformation. Clearly, these benefits received high rankings for importance, and what's notable is the variety. This is a great mix of benefits, especially if thinking across all the themes in my analysis. Digital transformation isn't articulated explicitly, but these certainly reflect the desired outcomes, and I think tell a stronger story than just trying to address cloud or CX independently. This leads me to conclude that starting here could be the best path for elevating the conversation from a technology refresh to the more holistic Contact Center 2.0 vision RingCentral is communicating with this research. How do you see it?
BCStrategies is an industry resource for enterprises, vendors, system integrators, and anyone interested in the growing business communications arena. A supplier of objective information on business communications, BCStrategies is supported by an alliance of leading communication industry advisors, analysts, and consultants who have worked in the various segments of the dynamic business communications market.
