For several years now, cloud migration has been a hot topic across multiple industries, offering the promise of greater flexibility, scalability, and security at greatly reduced costs to companies. These tremendous benefits took the contact center industry by storm, resulting in a booming trend for the adoption of cloud-based contact center solutions. According to Gartner, the global market for public cloud services is expected to reach 331 billion dollars in 2022, an increase of 17.3% compared to 2020. Gartner adds that in 2022, CCaaS licenses will equip more than 49% of the advisors installed in contact centers. In addition, according to a study by MarketsandMarkets, the cloud data migration market is expected to reach 32.5 billion dollars by 2022, an annual compounded growth of 23.5% between 2016 and 2022. As for current cloud adoption, MarketsandMarkets predicts that the cloud unified communications platforms (CCaaS) market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 15.5% between 2019 and 2024, reaching 8.8 billion dollars by 2024: a bright future for the cloud, therefore!
If cloud migration continues to grow at an exceptional rate, the simple reason is that companies are truly satisfied with the benefits and the results. In industries varying from telecom to media to retail and financial institutions, cloud solutions enable companies to offer superior customer service at lower costs. The solutions are quick to implement and easy to use, providing companies with data and processing capabilities on an on-demand basis for greater flexibility, scalability and streamlined processes. Features such as prioritized callbacks, ACD, and IVR save agents time, allowing them to handle more interactions with greater efficiency.
Hosted solutions also unite agents across multiple contact centers who may be working remotely, making it possible for contact centers to provide real-time, 24/7 customer service. Hosted solutions have also made cloud services less costly and easier to upgrade, enabling businesses to integrate platforms and lower costs by paying based on a consumption model, enjoy free trials before long-term commitment, and avoid major expenses such as vendor licenses or upfront investment in costly infrastructure. A hybrid cloud solution has also proven the perfect option for businesses that wish to secure sensitive data in a private cloud and store less sensitive data in a public cloud at similarly low costs.
And just how do companies feel about their cloud solutions? Overwhelmingly, they have shown tremendous satisfaction :
Moreover, a Cloud-Based Contact Center Infrastructure Market report revealed that over 90% of companies are satisfied with their cloud solutions, citing reasons such as improved reliability and availability of increasingly sophisticated solutions. A global contact center benchmarking report from Dimension Data also found that nearly 90% of contact centers that deployed hosted/cloud solutions experienced lowered costs, 90% cited improved flexibility, and 88% cited access to new functionality.
The statistics overwhelmingly show that cloud migration will continue to grow at a rapid pace. According to a Frost & Sullivan Survey, global spending on cloud-based unified communications services (UCaaS) is expected to reach 72.7 billion dollars by 2024. A trend confirmed by Synergy Research Group, who states that global spending on public cloud services exceeded 200 billion dollars in 2019, and is expected to continue increasing in the coming years.
While cost savings are a driving factor, many brands are also recognizing the importance of customer experience as a key differentiator among competitors, making the many benefits of cloud solutions essential to providing the rich customer experiences that win long-term customer loyalty. Enhanced agent efficiency, advanced self-service options, and sophisticated analytics and reporting are making cloud solutions the optimal choice for creating great modern customer experiences and a key player in the future of contact centers.
