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What You Need to Know About Supporting Technology in a CCaaS Implementation Project

October 4, 2021
Organizations struggling with outdated technology and cumbersome processes must undergo radical technological changes and re-engineer their processes, if they want to be competitive, cut costs, and work efficiently. This competitive, data-driven market has created an environment where companies can’t afford to fail. One answer is choosing the right CCaaS, Contact Center as a Service. Because your call center team is the face of your organization and the first thing customers interact with, it is pertinent to have an exceptional team and technology programs to offer best-in-class service.
 

Defining CCaaS and its benefits CCaaS is a cloud-based technology offering that helps businesses manage and maintain customer contact experiences. It does away with traditional call centers helping to streamline processes. It’s a major technological reform for call centers and requires many steps and resources to implement. Trying to use new technology without addressing the antiquated processes (steps and tasks) will cause an unsuccessful implementation. Before beginning, you should discuss supporting technology such as CRM systems, document repositories, and scheduling assistance stacked into your new upgrade.

 

CCaaS adoption aims to enhance consumer experiences while offering capabilities to the internal business, such as AI-driven data, reporting, and exceptional customer experience with modern features and capabilities. The key to implementation success is considering people, processes, and augmented technology as essential components of this technological reform.

 

A change starts with a need and begins with people.

Once a company has realized the need for change, whether small or large, the next step is getting the employees onboard. It can be a challenge to retrain employees, build their capacity, and prepare them for new software and systems, but they will be the reason if it becomes a successful migration. It’s recommended to work with an expert to save you time, money and help you train your employees for the new simplified workflows, platforms, and expectations. It’s great when done right.

 

The Processes – In a business reform

By understanding the data, support systems, and the agent’s actual processes, it’ll help you to address the root cause of these business issues. A process map is a helpful tool, often used by business operations professionals, that makes it easier to understand the current processes and helps drill down which systems serve what purpose, shows the manual workarounds, and points out the vulnerabilities.

 

This is a valuable aspect of technological reform, and how process mapping can answer many questions about why the business is experiencing these symptoms.

 

Supporting technology is a must.

 

An organization should augment its current IT infrastructure and software to make employees comfortable with newly implemented software. It’s also important to consider the supporting technology you select that will work in tandem with your new CCaaS like your Customer Relationship Management system or CRM, appointment setting tools, document management systems, and any other related software that will support your team in doing their jobs.

 

Increase your odds of a successful migration to CCaaS.

 

A business cannot start an effective change initiative if it cannot identify the need at the right time. False starts, otherwise known as failed executions, account for more than 50% of an unsuccessful project. This happens when the organization isn’t ready for such an initiative, hasn’t hired an expert to help plan and execute it, and isn’t willing to adopt the project in its entirety. These failures can cost hundreds if not millions of dollars and could cost leadership their jobs if not planned and implemented correctly.

 

In my experience, choosing the right CCaaS solution, along with the appropriate supporting technology, cuts your chances of an unsuccessful rollout by half. Remember, processes need to be re-engineered to make sense with the technology upgrade.

 

Behind the scenes vs. what the customer sees

 

During the migration to CCaaS, minimal disruption to the business and its customers is best. Why? Well, you never want your customer to feel the difference of any adjustment in your business, even if it will benefit them in the end. This requires careful planning, implementation, testing, and launching of all supporting systems involved with expert precision. After it’s finished, you can share the news to your customers about the upgrade you’ve made, if you so choose.

 

Our overall takeaway

 

Business operations experts provide the right guidance from evaluating the need for a change, the right programs, and services to creating sustainable change.

The following questions may help you assess your strategy for a successful CCaaS upgrade:

 
  1. Is the existing technology compatible with the newly implemented software?

  2. Do we have accurate data to manage our results and customer experience (CX)?

  3. Is our current IT infrastructure able to support a growth model of business?

  4. What kind of supporting technology do we need to be successful?

  5. Have we assessed our technology stack to ensure it still makes sense for our business?

  6. Are there any technologies that we currently use that we have outgrown or are no longer able to support our future state?

About the Author:

Cornerstone Paradigm Consulting, LLC  is an industry-agnostic business operation consulting that goes beyond the symptoms to get to the root cause of business issues.