Requesting funding is rarely easy, especially when you’re implementing completely new technology. But the secret to success is simpler than you think—it’s all in the delivery.

“By just building out the right business case for our executive leadership team, we were able to really easily gain their buy-in to move forward. Once they saw the technology improvements, the new capabilities, the flexibility, and then also the reduction in cost, it was a pretty easy sell, from our perspective.”

– Nicole Thomas, AVP of Coca-Cola Business Services in North America

By moving to a cloud-based solution, Coca-Cola Business Services in North America was able to project—and achieve—a 50% reduction in TCO while delivering a better, more connected customer experience.

In this third blog in our seven-part series on customer experience migration, we examine the secret to gaining internal buy-in and funding for a migration or modernization project. Here are the five primary success factors you should understand and apply to build the strongest business case.

1. Determine your business and operational priorities – The what

One of the main reasons companies choose to modernize is to achieve greater business agility. And embracing cloud-based services is the best way to do that. Capacity adjustments become easier during peak service periods. And you can scale up or down, as needed, in real-time—something that legacy, on-premises technologies simply can’t do.

Expense management is another goal. Keeping antiquated legacy systems on life support is costly; don’t be held hostage by legacy systems that cost more but deliver less. Moving to a cloud-based or hybrid solution increases financial flexibility by converting some capital expenses into recurring operating costs.

The ability to deliver world-class, connected experiences that benefit your customers, agents and the business is another important reason to modernize. Today’s customers expect to reach assistance on the channel or channels of their choice—and they want it to be a frictionless experience. Agents can deliver better service outcomes if they can engage customers with more background and context, which improves efficiency and job satisfaction. The result is happier customers and agents and, ultimately, better business outcomes.

2. Identify business stakeholders and understand their needs – The who

To validate and evolve your business goals, you need to engage the right people. Customer care is no longer a siloed, baseline business requirement. Customer experience has become a strategic way for businesses to achieve success in other areas: increasing Net Promoter Score (NPS), lowering employee retention, and improving revenue by delivering new sales opportunities and possibly even creating new funding sources.

It’s critical to engage both IT and business decision makers early in the process. By partnering to understand and outline business needs, you can establish a broader plan for delivering a truly strategic business solution.

Once you’ve collectively defined your business goals, you’re ready to build out your business case.

3. Outline why a customer experience transformation is essential to continued business success – The why

By understanding the “who” and “what,” you can build out a more compelling story—the “why” outlines a comprehensive business case for meeting your established business objectives. This would include elements like:

  • Improving business metrics like NPS, customer satisfaction scores, and customer retention and lifetime value
  • Gaining operational efficiencies, such as vendor consolidation and simplified solution management
  • Maximizing financial benefits like reducing TCO and capital expenses
  • Establishing a competitive advantage
  • Generating new revenue streams by enabling up-sell opportunities
  • Improving employee satisfaction and retention

Outline realistic goals, budgets, and technology requirements and then assemble the right technology solution.

4. Determine how to achieve your outlined goals – The how

Once you’ve identified internal stakeholders and business priorities, it’s time to determine the technology required to make it all happen.

First, consider your deployment preference: on-premises, cloud or hybrid. If you want to eliminate capital expenses and increase business agility, opt for a cloud-based solution. To meet more custom needs or regulatory concerns, a hybrid approach might be a better option.

Then determine whether you want to migrate your platform and add new features and capabilities all at once, or if you’d prefer to take a phased approach like Vodafone Germany. The telco transitioned to a new, more flexible and future-ready platform in 2010 and have incrementally realized its omnichannel vision for digital, mobile-first and social media.

Next, evaluate vendor solutions and keep in mind that it can be just as important (if not more important) to assess the company’s long-term stability as it is to assess the technology’s reliability. In today’s turbulent marketplace, technology laggards or industry newcomers can be a risky choice—and that can put future support in jeopardy.

Now let’s talk timing.

5. Establish the best time to propose change – The when

Determine external pressures that exist and could influence your need for change and affect your timeline. Coca-Cola, for example, wanted to avoid looming maintenance renewal costs on their outdated legacy system. For this reason, it had a target completion date and required a complete platform migration within just five months. Other external factors could include legacy products approaching end-of-support or requiring expensive upgrades that deliver little to no business value.

Next, consider internal motivators, such as budget cycles or seasonal spikes in business. With budget cycles, you might want to take a phased approach where portions of the project costs could be spread across multiple months, quarters or even years.

The Time Is Now

You’re not alone—many companies have shared your concerns about relying on outdated contact center technology. And many have made a positive impact on their business by modernizing.

If you’re ready to take the first step toward a business transformation, join Genesys and Frost & Sullivan later this month for the  Virtual summit: Contact center modernization and the dangers of standing still. And be sure to check out the entire CX Migration Secrets blog series here.