The popularity of the cloud and cloud solutions for improving operational efficiency is a given in today’s day and age, with the sheer amount of capabilities it can offer. The same is true for contact center solutions. The past couple of years in particular have really hammered on the importance and utility of fully-fledged cloud contact centers.
During a recent interview about contact center trends in 2024, AudioCodes’s EMEA Sales Director for Contact Center, Peter Broeckx spoke about the popularity of cloud migration in particular.
CX trends to look out for in 2024
Apart from the obvious—cloud migration—some of the hottest CX trends to watch out for in 2024 are omnichannel transformations, click-to-call and click-to-chat functionality, generative AI, proactive customer service, and workforce engagement management, among others.
A lot is happening in the contact center space right now. The remote work conditions that the pandemic promoted and the general technological advancements around work-from-home have made online communication the norm.
With technologies like the cloud and generative AI entering the contact center space, the market is going through a tectonic shift.
This has also resulted in a ton of new products and solutions that address all aspects of contact center operations popping up, increasing competition and encouraging innovation in the landscape.
CCaaS migration: The hottest CX trend in 2024?
The value of the cloud is indisputable. The flexibility, scalability, and convenience it provides simply cannot be matched by on-premise contact center operations—and many more industry operators are recognizing this as time goes on.
Over the last year, CCaaS migration efforts have grown significantly. While it was mostly smaller enterprises that were taking advantage of cloud contact centers in earlier years due to capacity limitations, the technology has evolved significantly and larger enterprises have now been seen to take steps towards total cloud migration.
This shift in mindset can be attributed to the two key changes in the industry detailed below:
For one, cloud contact center solutions are becoming more comprehensive and their ability to deliver above and beyond the capacity of on-premise contact centers has improved significantly over the years. The integration capabilities of cloud solutions have also ramped up, improving their utility even more.
On the other hand, CX platform vendors are either shifting their focus more toward cloud solutions or, in some cases, even discontinuing their on-premise contact center solution offerings. Genesys is a prime example of this shift.
So, the generally positive attitude towards cloud contact centers coupled with the decreasing support for on-premise contact centers are moving industry operators towards cloud solutions at a rapidly increasing rate.
Where do hybrid contact centers stand in this shift?
Hybrid contact centers will also play a role in this shift. One of the biggest reasons for this will be the inability of businesses to shift to a full cloud environment due to country-specific restrictions.
Certain countries place regulatory restrictions on cloud operations, and some countries simply do not have the infrastructure or cybersecurity prowess to help organisations ensure security in a cloud environment.
This might discourage businesses from operating in these countries, and they might opt to go for a hybrid solution where some of their operations are done within the cloud while the usual on-premise operations also continue parallelly.
The future of CX is in the cloud. Is your contact center set for growth?
At the end of 2022, 30% of contact centers were on the cloud—by conservative estimates, this will be in the high 60% range by 2025.
As cloud solutions become more functional and more businesses recognize their value, CCaaS migration is becoming more commonplace. It is a world of “adapt or fall behind” out there, and businesses will do well to keep this in mind as we move towards 2024.