Desmond Tutu once said “… there is only one way to eat an elephant: one bite at a time.” He meant that overwhelming and seemingly impossible tasks in life can be accomplished by gradually taking small steps. Evolving to the cloud should take a similar, staged approach — and it shouldn’t wait. A cloud evolution is critical for companies with on-premises contact centers that want to remain competitive.

Operating with on-premises systems means you’re tied to outdated ways of doing business. And they make it difficult — if not impossible — to drive impactful change.

Companies that run on cloud can more easily address customer expectations for faster, more personalized service. A cloud contact center also gives companies immediate access to rich data across all channels and access to the power of machine learning, which allows them to predict the next-best action for any interaction. And once you know your customers’ preferences and can predict what they want — often before they tell you — you build trust and customer loyalty.

According to “The State of Customer Experience” report, personalization is a major differentiator. It enables organizations to increase customer value in the short and long term – and they can grow revenue and reach. More than 80% of the consumers surveyed say they’d purchase additional items for companies that consistently personalize the customer experience (CX).

Take a Bite Out of Cloud

Evolving your business and moving to the cloud is a process. You won’t reach the end goal successfully by tackling all the pieces at once. With a trusted partner who understands your needs now and what you plan for the future, you can take the guesswork out of your cloud contact center evolution. Working as a team means you can reduce risks and complexity, accelerate time to value and personalize your plan.

Mapping out the phases for a cloud CX evolution involves planning your roadmap, developing your business case and then building consensus among key stakeholders. They key is to break through barriers and convince stakeholders of the value, viability and urgency of evolving to a cloud contact center. Developing a compelling business case for the cloud is critical. These strategies will help you and your team.

Consider these strategies for outlining your journey to the cloud and building a strong business case for stakeholders.

  1. Focus on consensus: Get everyone on board from the start, including your peers, as you begin to build your business case.
  2. Calculate the full TCO: Reframe your thinking to include total cost of operation, not just ownership. This extends beyond obvious pieces, such as licensing costs, and broadens the scope to longer-term tertiary costs.
  3. Outline the benefits and the full ROI: Transform KPI improvements into concrete returns, such as revenue and resources. And show how a cloud CX transformation can set your company up for innovations and growth in the future.
  4. Practice the art of the practical: Share implementation details and be ready to demonstrate viability.
  5. Tell a good story: Clearly explain — with data points and use cases from similar companies — how your company will transform.

Get Ready to Create Your Cloud Success

To succeed along every step, find a partner who can help you create that clear roadmap for your cloud evolution. Genesys can help support your team and build confidence around new processes and ways of thinking.

Our phased Walk, Run, Fly approach can make your journey to the cloud more predictable. Here’s how it works.

Walk – Use an agile implementation approach that’s based on your unique business needs and goals. This way you can start by moving fundamental contact center services to the cloud.

Run – Begin to enhance and optimize your services when you’re ready to extend your customer reach. For example, this empowers you to integrate multiple channels and proactively reach out to customers as events occur.

Fly – Add sophisticated technologies to drive differentiation; apply data and machine learning to deliver a personalized end-to-end customer experience. Incorporate features like speech and text analytics to shape customer dialogues as well as sales and marketing efforts.

In this video, Brian Bischoff and I share our views on CX Evolution – and how Genesys can better support you throughout the transformation.

 

Wherever you are in the journey to the cloud, Genesys is committed to supporting you along every step — one bite at a time. For other helpful resources, visit the new CX Evolution Portal to access the tools you need to build roadmaps, connect with peers and learn from others.