The cloud presents amazing opportunities for small businesses. It allows them to focus on the business, rather than worry about supporting new infrastructure. Cloud-based solutions give small- and mid-sized contact centers access to enterprise-quality, highly sophisticated and feature-rich capabilities at prices they can afford. Ultimately, companies pay only for what they need and can scale up and down on demand.

Despite its increasing use and acceptance in the market, many still have misconceptions and misunderstandings about the risks and benefits of cloud. So, what’s the truth? Let’s debunk the three most common myths about cloud.

Myth #1: Cloud Security Isn’t As Robust As On-Premises Solutions

The reality is, and security experts confirm this, most security breaches occur because of unauthorized physical access to on-premises systems. The best cloud contact center providers can keep valuable internal and external communications as secure as you want and need. In fact, enterprise-grade security at a cloud provider’s data center is more robust than what many organizations could ever achieve on their own.

Myth #2: Moving to the Cloud Is Too Disruptive

One of the biggest cloud concerns for call center managers is an interruption in service or downtime. That’s a valid concern; however, the best cloud contact center solutions are purpose-built in the cloud. And that’s completely different than adapting an on-premises solution to the cloud. Ultimately, cloud-built solutions enable faster deployment and faster adoption because they use intuitive web-based interfaces that are familiar and easy to learn.

Myth #3: Cloud Has Hidden Costs

With cloud solutions, companies know exactly how much it costs to cover every user, every month. Adding features is easy and cost-effective—there’s no expensive downtime or need for staff resources. You just sign up for the new capabilities and get started. And because support is included in the monthly fee, users get immediate help from the provider.

Get Ready to Dive Into the Cloud  

What should a small- to mid-sized call center that’s cloud-curious do next? The first step is to consider cloud costs and ROI. Long-term service agreements aren’t optimal for small contact centers. Market dynamics are different for these firms than they are for larger organizations; small contact centers need speed, flexibility, and scalability. Therefore, ROI doesn’t materialize as quickly with long-term contracts. The ideal situation is a simple, annual contract or a monthly subscription.

Cloud-based solutions make it simple to add or remove users with a single mouse click to accommodate employee fluctuations. Companies also can add agents, as needed, for peak periods—hours, days or months—and then turn off those services when usage wanes.

Cloud gives small contact centers a powerful, yet simple solution. It’s easy to deploy, manage and use—and it gives you great features without the headaches of complex applications. The right cloud contact center is an effective tool for tracking customer interactions and meeting your needs.

Look for the following capabilities when evaluating a cloud contact center solution:

  • Ease-of-use features for rapid deployment
  • Point-and-click configuration for features like routing plans
  • Policy managers for multimodal communications
  • Easy signup
  • Simple telco connectivity
  • Painless IT integration
  • A zero-client footprint web interface
  • Built-in best practices

Take a deep dive into cloud capabilities with our eBook: The Truth About Cloud in Small Contact Centers.  You can also attend our webinar Myth or Truth? Clouds Misperceptions are Vaporizing.