Be it a local pizza shop or a national consultant, small businesses face some enormous challenges when trying to compete in today’s Internet-flattened, highly competitive marketplace. It’s no wonder they’re taking advantage of all the opportunities afforded by moving to the cloud. Since 42 percent of 9.6 billion SMBs have no IT department, the number of small businesses moving to the cloud has steadily increased over the last four years, with the biggest jump – a 35 percent increase over the prior year – taking place in 2012.
Reach also shows that 42 percent of SMBs have been able to reduce their IT workload as a result of moving core solutions to the cloud, including, among other strategies, shifting to a cloud contact center. And, more than one-third – 38 percent – enjoy the benefit of recieving new features faster when moving to the cloud, which, of course, enables them to compete smarter and more effectively.
Furthermore, in a recent survey by CreditDonkey.com, consumers said that small businesses generally deliver better customer service than larger companies; however, they are not willing to pay extra for it. SMBs need to find ways to cut costs without cutting service, and deploying a cloud contact center is one way to meet both of those goals.
Respondents also said that small businesses are better at anticipating their needs than big businesses (71 percent compared to 41.8 percent), following up (68 percent to 30.5 percent) and consistently saying thank you (96.9 percent compared to 80.8 percent). Needless to say, SMBs have a clear advantage over large companies when it comes to satisfying customers; they simply need to find ways to keep costs down.
With a cloud contact center, small businesses can level the playing field against larger companies by being able to automatically capture and route inbound and outbound customer interactions across multiple channels through a single user interface. As small businesses continue to seek innovative ways to provide more for their customers while spending less, we will see more SMBs shift to all that the cloud provides.
