Hybrid Cloud Strategy: The Best of Both Worlds

Interactive voice response (IVR) systems have gained a poor reputation. This is largely due to their inability to meet customers at their point of need and make resolution easy.

Legacy IVR's operate on fixed hardware that can take a long time to update. If you want to adjust your strategy or approach, you might be looking at weeks or months for rollout. This can put a real damper on creativity, innovations, and changes to your system.

Why hybrid cloud IVR services are the next step

The move to the cloud has given IVR's the ability to provide experiences worthy of your customers' time. By implementing a hybrid cloud approach, you can incorporate features that improve key performance indicators (KPIs) essential for customer satisfaction.

Moving to the cloud can help your business in a number of different ways. But the most attractive reason for making the move is flexibility. When you leverage an IVR based in the cloud, you have the ability to add and optimize features dynamically based on performance data of what's working and what's not. You can adapt to your customers' changing wants and needs easily while maintaining your bottom line.

Why a hybrid cloud?

Knowing the advantages of a cloud-based contact center is one thing. Making the leap means being sure how it can benefit your business.

It all comes back to flexibility. "Going hybrid" gives you the best of both worlds, allowing you to layer on the right features and functionality, including AI capabilities, without replacing your existing systems. In essence, a hybrid approach creates a bridge to the cloud for organizations with on-premise systems, giving your legacy technology the ability to evolve as your customers' needs do.

A hybrid cloud allows you to continuously improve customer and agent experience. You can integrate tools like AI and automation without dramatically increasing your technology expense. Hybrid cloud IVR is a cost-effective solution for bringing advantages of the cloud to your legacy IVR system by supporting fast-moving digital business transformation.

Improving KPIs with hybrid IVR cloud services

Key performance indicators (KPI's) measure how your call center is functioning. Improvement to these metrics means an improvement to the service you provide your customers.

Hybrid clouds can easily integrate features that increase your call center's efficiency. This has a positive effect on several KPIs.

Abandonment rate

Abandoned calls can be a nightmare for a contact center. Customers usually abandon a call when they have to wait a long time before being connected to an agent. High call volumes increase queue times and, in turn, abandonment rates.

But a hybrid cloud-based IVR can help shoulder the burden of high call volumes. You can easily enhance the predetermined actions your IVR can carry out based on performance data to meet the needs and demands of your customers. With an inflexible legacy system, you're stuck. But with a hybrid cloud approach, your IVR can evolve based on insights and data, giving you a more robust system that leads to fewer abandoned calls.

Average handle time

You can improve average handle time by gathering necessary information from your customers while they wait to connect with an agent. Here, it's all about efficiency. Upon answering your customers' calls, agents will have the information they need to take care of requests and issues more effectively.

In addition, hybrid cloud IVR can leverage speech recognition to increase the amount of valuable information gathered in those pre-connection moments, giving your agents better information about your customers-and how they interact with your IVR-that can improve average handle time

Average time in queue

At any given moment, a cloud-based IVR system has more agents available for connection than its on-premise counterpart. A hybrid cloud can leverage AI-powered virtual agents to serve your customers, giving you even more flexibility without the need to add additional human agents.

With more agents available, your customers spend less time in the queue and more time fulfilling their needs through self-service options.

First contact resolution

Improving first contact resolution rates saves time for your customers, your agents, and especially your bottom line. Your inbound call volume decreases and customer satisfaction skyrockets.

Speech recognition is a rapidly improving field and a hybrid cloud IVR can easily incorporate these new technological advances. Intelligent routing is ultimately powered by speech recognition. By implementing speech recognition, you can better understand what your customers need, meaning you can make sure they're routed correctly the first time. Artificial Intelligence works for your customers, your agents, and your company's bottom line.

Some customer calls do require a human agent with specific technical knowledge, while others require agents with high levels of emotional intelligence. Intelligent routing takes this into account, parsing out those calls that require a more personal touch, and can therefore improve first contact resolution rates.

Customer satisfaction

Customers want a personalized experience and a legacy, on-premise IVR often feels clunky to those using it. But hybrid cloud IVR is purpose-built to be natural and conversational. It leverages natural language processing that makes each interaction feel less robotic and more human.

Hybrid cloud IVR can also incorporate personalized information about your customers. It can draw on past interactions, associate their phone number with account information, or know where they are calling from. This personal touch can improve customer experience to a measurable degree.

Hybrid cloud lets you put customer service front and center

Smart contact centers are putting customer service at the very top of the list of things that matter most. Embracing a hybrid cloud solution allows you to incorporate features that improve the customer experience on the fly based on the needs of your customers and measurable performance data.

Customers' demands are changing, from which communication channels they prefer to the tasks your IVR needs to be able to meet their needs. Hybrid cloud-based contact centers are built to be flexible and can easily add new features to adapt, giving you the ability to enhance your IVR without demanding a complete legacy system overhaul.

Incorporating contact center cloud solutions doesn't need to be a daunting and costly task. By bridging to the cloud, you can gain the advantages your call center needs to provide exceptional customer service.