According to Call Centre Helper, almost half of the UK’s contact centres are not currently considering a move to the cloud and hosted technology – despite the potential for hosted services to deliver a bigger return on investment, greater resilience, and new levels of flexibility.
There are several things that hold contact centres back from switching to a hosted dialler. These include uncertainty around the reliability of the cloud, worries about data security, and reluctance to hand critical infrastructure to a third party. What these have in common is that, in every instance, contact centres are being asked to put their trust in an external service provider.
So what can service providers do to build your trust? How can you move to the cloud with confidence and unlock the big benefits of hosted services without the stress or uncertainty?
Here are some fundamental tips on finding a hosted dialler provider you can trust with your infrastructure, your data, and your business.
Check who really owns the infrastructure and provides the service
For a hosted dialler to deliver crystal-clear calls, support a growing team of agents, and consistently be available, the underlying network infrastructure needs to be carefully managed and intelligently designed. However, this isn’t always in the hands of the people that appear to be providing your hosted dialler service.
In many cases, service providers will outsource their network management to a third-party, or depend on an infrastructure that’s owned and operated by another company. As a result, you won’t just have to put your faith in your immediate supplier, but also a whole range of different companies along the supply chain.
The more ownership your hosted dialler provider has over its network infrastructure, the more they can control in the day-to-day running of your service.
Look for technical expertise in-house
It is essential that your service provider has diverse technical expertise in-house, not just outsourced support that’s provided by an independent company. The right service provider will be able to handle everything from ongoing monitoring to troubleshooting and bespoke development of certain features.
However, even the presence of in-house expertise is not enough to really build trust. Before you choose a team to provide your hosted dialler, make sure you will actually be able to reach the people with the knowledge you might require. This is often something you’ll spot very early in the process of getting to know a service provider – and should be backed by robust service level agreements that guarantee an effective response to requests for support.
If the team is made up of people who understand the technology they’re working with, you can be confident they’ve considered key areas like security and resilience.
Existing clients on every scale
Finally, it’s always a good idea to look at the existing contact centres that already use your shortlisted hosted dialler service. Ask to be put in contact with similar contact centres to your own to hear about the service first-hand.
As you look at existing client lists and references, prioritise breadth above all else. The right service provider will deal with small startups – the people that typically need more technical help – and much larger organisations with rigid compliance obligations and internal scrutiny.
If your service provider can deliver a service that meets the exacting standard of well-known, large-scale contact centres, they can be trusted to do the same for you.
It is essential that your service provider has diverse technical expertise in-house, not just outsourced support that’s provided by an independent company. The right service provider will be able to handle everything from ongoing monitoring to troubleshooting and bespoke development of certain features.
It’s not your job to build trust
By looking into the underlying network infrastructure, checking for internal expertise, and assessing existing clients, you can quickly decide which hosted dialler providers you can trust to keep you up-and-running.
However, above all else, remember that it is not your job to extract trust from your service provider. The right team will be keen to answer your questions, hear your concerns about cloud adoption, and guide you through the entire process to put your mind at ease.
What’s holding you back from a hosted dialler?
Tell us at https://www.hostcomm.co.uk/company/contact.
