The lockdown forced contact centres to adapt to WFH policies, while also meeting a massive surge in demand. To accomplish both objectives at the same time, contact centres had to make a lot of changes to their infrastructure. While quick changes allowed contact centres to adapt, it also opened up their infrastructure to a host of problems that will compromise performance and security, unless addressed immediately. What are these issues? Is there a solution? We address the challenges contact centres face in a post-COVID-19 world and what can be done about it.
The lockdown, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, placed significant pressure on contact centres. Besides the surge in demand, the lockdown forced contact centres to adjust their infrastructure and the shift to work from home (WFH) forced contact centres to repurpose their infrastructure.
The pressure to expand their capacity to meet the surge in demand, as well as adjust infrastructure, placed enormous pressure on contact centres to alter their systems and do so in a short amount of time.
Now, as we prepare to deal with a post-lockdown world, contact centres find themselves dealing with a new set of problems. The first is dealing with the fallout from making so many changes to their systems, in a short space of time, which has lead to all sorts of performance and compliance problems.
Furthermore, contact centres now face an uncertain time - mainly, what is the best way to handle a post-lockdown world? Do they stick with the WFH model that they had to adapt so quickly? Or do they adopt a new hybrid working model?
The need to tackle several problems highlights the importance of cloud audit solutions with change record capabilities.
Challenges in a Post COVID-19 world
While many contact centres have adapted relatively well, they had to deal with issues in different areas, like compliance and visibility. Problems in these areas have spilt over to compromise the CX experience for most customers. Read an article, and you will hear about low call quality, and difficulty in gaining access to customer agents. For contact centres, this translates into a lower first call response rate (FCR) and an increase in average call times.
Compliance is a particularly concerning issue for most contact centres. Failure to abide by PCI DSS, GDPR, HIPPA, ECPA, PIPEDA and EFTA regulations can lead to fines and penalties, not to mention, loss of consumer confidence.
Contact centre problems arise because changes were made without the means to track them. When that happens, it becomes difficult to ascertain whether contact centres are complying with regulations. The lack of a change record also escalates the problem because if a change is made, it becomes difficult to ascertain what the cause was and how to undo it.
The absence of a change record makes a cloud audit much harder to execute because there is no record of alterations made to the system.
While there are many issues that cause compliance problems the lack of a change record, makes it difficult to resolve these changes quickly.
Maintaining a record of changes - Why is it so important?
Change records refer to the ability of a contact centre to track any and all changes made to the CX infrastructure. It’s a valuable asset to have because configuration information is incredibly complex. If there is a problem, engineers often have to dive into the information to resolve the problem.
When considering the current situation, resorting to manual methods to resolve an issue becomes impractical. Furthermore, when there is no change record, it implies that there is little visibility into who is making the changes, which is a problem when you consider that the vast majority of the contact centre workforce works remotely.
Maintaining a change record can resolve many of these problems. A change record allows CX engineers to monitor changes and regulate access to CX infrastructure. With this oversight, engineers know who is making changes to the system and the type of changes made. With this knowledge, they can prevent business users from making unwarranted changes to the system.
A change record makes a cloud audit more efficient and accurate because CX engineers have access to a repository of information. Less time spent on a cloud audit means reducing system downtimes.
Furthermore, with a change record, it becomes much easier to ensure compliance because there is a record of all changes made to the system.
However, the biggest benefit of maintaining a change record is the ability to rollback changes. With this option, CX engineers can simply undo the changes at any time. This is helpful because if a recent change causes a huge problem, engineers can simply rollback to a prior state and undo the problem.
How to maintain a record of changes
Maintaining a change record is crucial for cloud auditing and compliance. A change record can make the auditing process much easier for CX engineers, making it easier to resolve issues. When this happens, service quality will improve, due to shorter troubleshooting times and better MTTR rates. It also ensures compliance with regulation due to better visibility and transparency in the system.
However, what is the best way to maintain a change record? By investing in a cloud auditsolution. Investing in a solution for cloud auditing improves compliancy and ensures transparency across the board, which is essential for contact centres following WFH policies.
How can you make your agile cloud migration strategy successful?
The CX industry is changing, and contact centres need to be ready. Once, it was not uncommon for a contact centre to stick with a single CX platform for at least 7 to 9 years. However, that time has changed, and now, we see contact centres switching platforms well within that period. There are several business reasons for the accelerated rate of migration, but one of them is that the needs of contact centres constantly evolve and often migrate to a different platform to meet these needs. Given this shift, it is more important than ever to have an agile cloud migration strategy.
5 Benefits Of eLearning For Students
We see a significant shift from the traditional chalk-and-board teaching to more innovative learning methods, like e-learning. This learning method has become more popular due to the pandemic but has been gradually gaining momentum and traction over the years with institutions adopting a combined approach to optimise learning. Convenience and accessibility are the cornerstones that make up the benefits of elearning. Elearning has also proven to be a great tool in improving active learning because of its role in increasing retention and concentration. Making elearning even more desirable would be the enhanced interaction and access to updated content that ensures a superior experience.
What matters in CX transformation? The importance of assessing CX requirements pre-migration
CX transformation or CX migration is the process of shifting data and platforms to a different cloud environment. If not planned properly, contact centres will be dealing with ad-hoc issues that will negate any gains expected from cloud migration. Why is pre-migration so important? That is the focus of this article.
