Klaas van der Leest, MD, Intelecom says it’s time to connect CCaas and WFO to create the perfect customer experience.
In just the same way that you wouldn’t buy a new car without the latest satellite navigation equipment, why would you deploy Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) technology without the latest cloud-based Workforce Optimisation (WFO) solution? Klaas van der Leest of Intelecom says it’s time to embrace the latest innovations in WFO to create the perfect, integrated cloud-based contact centre environment that delivers excellent customer service again and again through a proven operational expenditure (OPEX) model.
The case for CCaaS
Cloud computing is here to stay and the benefits of CCaaS deployments are already clear to see. These include:
Maximum return on investment – there is no need to rip out existing telephony kit, modern cloud-based contact centre services simply sit on top of the current infrastructure * Superior resilience, service levels and call quality – the CCaaS model is independent of hardware, software and agent location and callers never receive an engaged tone because of the huge capacity in the cloud and using carrier grade telephony maintains call quality. Cloud contact centres do not have to be dependent on Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
Business on your terms – the CCaaS building block approach means that functionality can be added as and when demand dictates with the added bonus of a payment model based on actual agent usage which can scale up and down and is paid monthly
Flexibility – 100% web-based, a CCaaS contact centre is easy to control and customise – agents and satellite offices simply log onto the
same centralised platform from anywhere, at any time. Combined with WFO in the cloud agents across multiple sites can be scheduled to deal with demand regardless of their location.
Control costs – the OPEX pay per resource used model of CCaaS can reduce the cost of ownership of both contact centre and WFO technology. In addition in today’s multichannel environment, an agent is an agent regardless of whether dealing with phone, email, chat or social media enquiries, making it cost-efficient to add new communication channels as they emerge when using CCaaS
Security is key – centralised data storage security is enhanced with CCaaS and for those contact centres taking payments working with a Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) compliant cloud application specialist provider reduces risk and boosts customer confidence
Social media is built in, not bolted on. To the cloud, the channel is irrelevant with all social media enquiries such as Facebook and Twitter
coming into the same place, vastly accelerating response times and improving the customer experience.
WFO in the Cloud
What better place to start than focusing on a contact centre’s most valuable asset – its people? Integrating a cloud based contact centre solution with the latest workforce optimisation software ensures maximum call handling during times of high demand and allows contact centre staff to be diverted to other more productive activities during quieter periods. This approach offers a number of essential features and guarantees:
– Accurate forecasts of daily and long-term workloads with the ability to track intra-day trends against the forecast and take action quickly.
– Optimum schedules that support business objectives and meet service levels consistently and cost effectively, while accommodating employee proficiencies, quality scores, skills, preferences and rank
– Total support for inbound/outbound voice calls, blended phone/email/chat and in-house/outsourced/virtual contact centres as well as back-office and branch operations.
– Easy monitoring of employee adherence to schedules and easier management of exceptions for phone and desktop activities from a single screen. Plus, the ability to drill directly into recorded interactions that are secure and protected at all times.
– Staff empowerment – agents can view periods of under or over-staffing, enabling them to request blocks of voluntary time off, or overtime that aligns with their individual skills and proficiencies.
CCaaS and WFO: a winning combination
Combining a powerful cloud-based contact centre solution with market-leading WFO capabilities puts an organisation in complete control of its contact centre operations and guarantees agents are always in the right place at the right time to respond to customer demand. The latest integrated technology delivers clever functionality like real-time, graphical views of forecasted, actual and predicted contact volumes, handling times, service-level statistics and more. All this in one flexible cloud-based solution to schedule multi-site, multichannel agents and paid for out of operational expenditure (OPEX) on a monthly basis according to usage.
An integrated CCaaS and WFO solution creates a carefully blended contact centre in the cloud that empowers staff, boosts productivity and delivers the perfect customer experience time and again.
About the Author
Intelecom is a leading provider of contact management solutions and with over 15 years’ experience, Intelecom was one of the first to develop a cloud-based contact centre. Highly flexible and scalable Connect from Intelecom can be adapted to accommodate from one to several thousand concurrent agents using any device, in any location and integrates with multiple applications seamlessly.
