The Most Intriguing Cloud Hosting Statistics

Contact centers are an integral component of organisations. They help facilitate seamless communication between the target audience and your business. And considering how important support interactions are, you shouldn’t leave any stone unturned to deliver the best of customer experiences.

Callers value contact centers that offer round-the-clock-availability, approachable representatives, and prompt resolutions. Businesses, on the other hand, value call centers that are cost-effective and centralised with a robust infrastructure to work even during critical situations like a natural disaster.

So, with these varying expectations, what kind of a contact center do you think will succeed and sustain in today’s competitive ecosystem?

Cloud-hosted contact centers come with the aforementioned capabilities and much more to enable frictionless communication between the customers and your business.

Before we delve into the intricacies of cloud-hosted contact centers, let us understand more about them.

What Is a Cloud-Hosted Contact Center?

A cloud-hosted contact center is one that is hosted on a centralised server. Contact center data is placed in this centrally accessible repository. Furthermore, it allows access to business-sensitive information irrespective of the agent’s location.

Cloud contact centers also facilitate multi-channel communication through email, chatbox, social media, and voice channels.

This capability of cloud contact centers paves the way for efficient customer service and, hence, creates a positive impact on customer experiences.

Moreover, cloud service providers ensure end-to-end support for the cloud-hosted environment. This includes maintenance, regular updates, taking care of security patches, disaster recovery, and scaling infrastructure based on specific needs.

With that in mind, let us delve into a few important statistics that throw light on the importance of cloud contact centers.

Cloud contact centers have lower abandonment rates when compared to on-premise contact centers.
Cloud contact centers are 27% cheaper and lower the possibility of downtime by 35% when compared to on-premise contact centers.
73% of cloud contact centers prove that the capability to provide increased uptime is the primary reason to embrace the cloud.
72% of users state that obtaining access to applications through on-premise centers is expensive.
70% of contact center users identify high-end security and best compliance practices available in the cloud as the major reason to invest in it.

Still, confused about migrating to the cloud? Here are a few more statistics that will change your mind.

Customer satisfaction is considered to be the most important metric according to 95.7% contact center professionals.
Customer service will be given more importance when compared to the price of the product and will be the key differentiator.
86% of customers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience.
70% of customers wish for a consistent and seamless process when they contact a brand using any customer service channel.
58% of customers state that the quality of service impacts their choice of brand.
Poor customer service costs businesses a whopping $75 billion annually.
88% of customer service professionals state that customer expectations have grown with time.

Sources: Microsoft, Forbes, Salesforce, Hubspot

1. Cloud-hosted contact centers boost efficiency

Contact centers can no longer be limited to just phone calls. Customers now look for multiple ways of reaching out to your business. Cloud contact centers ensure multimodal communication through video calls, SMS, chat, and voice calls.

These statistics will further throw light on the significance of these capabilities.

66% of consumers prefer brands that have more than one communication channel.
Almost 92% of organisations offering multiple contact channels identify customer experience as a significant factor to attract customers.
59% of customers prefer organisations that seriously take up complaints posted on social media.
35% of customers wish to be able to reach out to the same contact center agent from any of their preferred communication channels.
Email is the preferred medium of communication with a brand for 54% of customers.
Web and email are cheaper mediums of contacting a brand. They cost 81% of the voice medium.
66% of companies use live chat for B2B and B2C contacts.
Live chat is preferred by 41% of consumers when contacting customer support.

Sources: Marketing Week, Microsoft, Forrester, ICMI, Zoho

Furthermore, according to this report, the global cloud-based contact center market is expected to grow at a CAGR (Compounded Annual Growth Rate) of 25.8% to reach USD 36.1 billion by 2025 from USD 11.5 billion in 2020. The prime reasons behind this are the enhanced reliability, security, and scalability that help businesses exceed expectations.

2. Ability to scale

Cloud contact centers come with several state-of-the-art capabilities like the flexibility to scale operations based on unique business requirements. For example, consider a scenario wherein your business has a sudden requirement of infrastructural resources due to an unexpected spike in the inflow of calls.

Equipped with a cloud contact center, all you will need to do is inform your cloud services provider and then rest assured that your infrastructure will scale up within minutes. The best part? This capability to scale up comes as a pay-as-you-use model.

So, you only need to invest in additional resources as long as the increased demand lasts and can conveniently scale down later. This ensures a cost-effective yet competent manner of using resources by eliminating wastage of infrastructural capacity.

3. Equipped with features for better productivity

Cloud-hosted contact centers come with numerous next-gen features like auto-diallers, IVRs (Interactive Voice Response) systems, auto-attendant systems, and monitoring tools.

Auto diallers improve agent productivity while facilitating inbound and outbound calls. IVR systems direct the customers to the desired department. And monitoring tools enable business owners to gauge the performance of their workflows and in-house agents.

Check out these statistics to know more about the importance of these features:

Reports suggest that the use of auto-diallers contributes towards enhanced productivity, about 200 to 300% more when compared to the use of manual dialling in an hour.
The first impression of an auto attendant on a consumer plays an important role. Reports say that the phone is the preferred medium to contact a business for 48% of respondents.

Wrapping up

Undoubtedly, cloud-hosted contact centers are here to stay and help businesses reach greater heights. They offer a wide array of benefits like cost-effectiveness, state-of-the-art features, and easy accessibility, as we discussed above.

Hopefully, these statistics and points will reiterate the importance of cloud-hosted contact centers and why they are a must-have for current-day businesses.