The evolution of call centers into omnichannel contact centers has been nothing short of sweeping. Phone-based systems that singularly filtered incoming calls and assigned them to agents have widely been replaced with all-encompassing, cloud-based contact centers leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), analytics, CRM software, and unified platforms. This shift has propelled customer experience (CX) transformation into hyperdrive while simultaneously increasing the volume of structured and unstructured data.
The Rise of CCaaS
Prior to the pandemic, many enterprises were reluctant to fully move to contact center as-a-service (CCaaS) environments, despite the availability of the technology. The top barriers to cloud migration were centered on existing on-premises contact center investments and security concerns, as well as a resistance to change.
These misgivings quickly went out the window once cloud connectivity became table stakes for supporting remote sales, service, and support teams. In other words, cloud became the way forward to keep the proverbial lights on.
Just how extensive was the uptick in CCaaS adoption? According to Metrigy’s “Customer Engagement Transformation: 2020-2021” study of 700 global organizations, over 60% adopted single- or multi-tenant, cloud-based contact center technology during the pandemic.
During this unexpected—and albeit forced—digital transformation, it became clear that CCaaS offers valuable benefits:
- Reduced costs and greater scalability
- Newfound access to disruptive solutions to improve customer service
- Simplified integrations with other as-a-service tools and technologies, including AI and even the internet of things (IoT)
- Greater levels of personalization and simplicity for customers from real-time analytics
The Competitive Advantage of Real-time Insights and Analytics
Companies that invest in cloud-based contact centers quickly discover the competitive advantage of real-time data analytics to identify issues and make decisions to improve CX and fuel business growth. Chatbots, voicebots, speech recognition tools, and more can continuously collect data about interactions across a growing number of channels to identify trends and patterns of behavior, as well as understand sentiments and predict next actions.
But it doesn’t come without challenges—especially when you consider much of this data can be subject to strict compliance regulations, and the sheer volume of it all.
Contact Center Data Management Challenges
The modern contact center has become a key generator of important data garnered through interactions, transactions, and journeys. But collecting, organizing, analyzing, and acting on all this data is no simple feat.
The Vulnerability of Customer Data
And there’s yet another challenge when it comes to the mountains of data being collected by cloud-based contact centers: security. Because contact centers manage personally identifiable information (PII), including social security numbers, credit card information, and home addresses, they’re a primary target for cybercrime. Data breaches from internal and external sources, as well as technology vulnerabilities, can harm a company’s customers, damage its reputation, and result in a flurry of fines and penalties from regulators.
CCaaS systems are particularly vulnerable to attack given the number of internal employees and external customers that access them, requiring a proactive approach to minimize the impact of bad actors and help maintain business continuity.
The Value of a Modern Data Platform
For companies deploying CCaaS, these challenges are very real, propelling the need to carefully evaluate existing data storage. With both data volumes and cybercrime threats rising, a next-generation data management platform like Pure Storage® is the way forward. It can mean the difference between struggling to transform and being able to leverage all the benefits of a cloud-based contact center.
Robust, simple, and primed for modern technologies, Pure delivers the innovation necessary to help provide a deep, rich understanding of consumers and their habits, improve service satisfaction, and deliver a security infrastructure to bounce back quickly from cyber threats. Support is AI-driven, so issues can be resolved before they become outages. And with the Pure Storage Evergreen™ portfolio of subscriptions, there’s flexibility to quickly scale up or down to meet evolving needs.
Customer service is more than the sum of interactions employees have with consumers. It’s about the products sold, the services offered, and the technologies used to make experiences more memorable and satisfying. By combining CCaaS with the right cloud storage solution, companies gain the internal efficiencies to make the best impression on consumers and the right business decisions.
Learn more about how Pure solutions can help maximize the benefits of your cloud contact center.
