When proposing a cloud migration project to a contact center, it's important to put their concerns and objectives at the forefront of your planning. Many would argue that digital transformation (DX) is inevitable, and simply start listing the necessary steps and implementations that would mobilize the process. Unfortunately, that's not always going to bring your potential client on board. Not only is a migration project a significant financial undertaking for a contact center, but there are other elements such as stakeholder buy-in and the ultimate impact on customer experience (CX) that will be amongst their primary concerns.
Formulating a plan that demonstrates how the proposed technological integrations and processes will help the contact center reach its goals is essential. Whilst many recognize the importance of adopting cloud technology, not all contact centers will take the same path towards migration. By aligning your objectives with your customer's goals, you will ensure optimal functionality and an end result that provides long term opportunities for the call center and you as a third-party support specialist.
With cloud migration, your contact center customers are likely to be looking for a "lift and shift" solution, or they may want to adopt a fully cloud-native offering. Their decision will be affected by their vision for the contact center's future, as well as the costs associated with implementing and maintaining cloud technology. A full SaaS solution will enable them to scale; it will afford them the benefits of integrating with cloud optimizing software and enable further AI development and automation in the future.
When proposing different products for the migration, pick the suppliers that allow you to demonstrate the value they add to the project. This will go a long way towards helping the customer envision the outcomes of the cloud migration. Be sure to select SaaS partners who can provide free demonstrations so that you can show your clients the expected ROI from your services. By doing this, you can answer any opposing questions early on in the proposal process and back up your answers by showing how the software integrates and complies with existing infrastructures as well as give a glimpse into the expected user experience (UX).
For the implementation to be successful, communication is key. You must develop a strong understanding of your customer's business requirements and processes. Get under the hood of what the call center's goals are, the time scales they are working to, and the best practices they want to put into play in the new cloud-based environment.
Your plan will have to demonstrate how the implementation will incorporate testing and training as part of the migration. Automated testing will speed up the implementation by alerting DevOps teams to any setbacks or errors in the new environment. Show your customer which testing software you propose and the results and data you will be able to extract from the testing process. This will reassure them that all bases are being covered and that the efficiency of the cloud environment will be maximized thanks to this information.
It is also recommended that during this testing phase, you carry out any diagnostics on the contact center’s existing infrastructure. This can help alleviate any concerns the organization may have regarding the stability of the cloud deployment and allow you to identify if any infrastructure improvements are needed before moving forward.
Help your customer to understand what the new environment will look like and which teams will be involved in the initial launch of the cloud contact center. Stakeholders need an overview of the next stages and what that will mean for additional integrations that need to be considered for a smooth deployment.
Training is a significant part of user adoption. Make provisions for it in your budget and have a comprehensive onboarding plan that's going to not only upskill call center agents but also help them to see the value in the new cloud-based model.
Put yourself in your customer's shoes. It's often the case that the adoption of new technologies is met by resistance. There's a lot that users have to take on board on top of existing workloads, and if the benefits are not presented to all the stakeholders in a way that gets them excited about the cloud, your plan may not be easily accepted.
Make an effort to show how the new environment is going to streamline operations and improve the call center agents’ workflows. Devise an engaging training plan that will quickly win over the skeptics. Point out that cloud-technology will now facilitate seamless remote working and provide the contact center with a variety of on and off-site operational models. In turn, this will reduce costs and provide further benefits when sourcing new talent.
Showing your client how you're going to deal with inevitable challenges is an essential part of gaining their trust. You can also use this opportunity to demonstrate how the cloud migration will allow the contact center to be more innovative when delivering new products and services and how their responsiveness to changes in the market can now be rolled out more efficiently.
In turn, this will also enable your business to play an instrumental role in future upgrades and developments of the call center's cloud environment. You will become an indispensable ally in ensuring that operations continue to run and scale smoothly.
If you'd like to discover more information on how to assess, migrate, and optimize a cloud migration project, get in touch today.