The right contact center solution can mean different things in different environments. You know that your call center has specific challenges. Some of those challenges only occur within your industry, while others occur only within your company. There is a right contact center solution for your environment, but you have to effectively identify your environment and your culture to determine the best fit that will deliver the most value.

Contact Center Solution – Should It Be in the Cloud?

Should your contact center software be cloud-based? This is a question that is being asked by countless others operating in your space as the drive for cloud computing continues to increase. Perhaps you have been able to quantify the benefits of moving to the cloud, but you just aren’t sure what the first step should be. The good news is that the right contact center solution can help you to easily migrate to the cloud at a pace that works for your company and your contact center. Providers in the space often offer hybrid solutions that you to keep one foot on the ground and the other in the cloud for maximum effectiveness.

Contact Center Solution – What Are My Needs?

If you can’t readily answer this question, you need to determine your needs before you try to select a contact center solution that will work for your environment. Get a good feel for the culture of your organization. Most importantly, how do your users deal with change? Can you implement a new contact center solution and expect that it will readily be adopted by all users? Is your culture one in which new technology platforms take a while to be fully streamlined into the process? If so, it may not make sense to implement a full contact center solution, but focus more on the cloud where you can pick and choose your features.

Training is Critical for the Contact Center Solution

There is nothing quite as defeating as investing heavily in a contact center solution and find that your agents and your managers won’t use it. This is where change management and effective training play a significant role in your process. You have to drive the effective change from the top down, but you also have to communicate to your users that the solution provides them with value as well. Perhaps you picked a contact center solution that streamlines a manual process for your agents; or maybe the solution makes the manager’s job much easier. Whatever the benefit is for the users, they need to see that benefit and its value. Then, proper training must be employed as any user who doesn’t understand the contact center solution is sure to reject it.

Vendors can play an important role in the process of determining the best contact center solution, but don’t make the mistake of calling that provider before you do your homework. You’ll save considerable time, resources and headaches by understanding your needs, identifying the proper change management methods and right-fitting the contact center solution according to your unique environment. When this is your focus, your agents will thank you.