Poor transparency and low trust give firms cold feet over contact centre modernisation, says NewVoiceMedia

11 October 2011: Businesses across the UK have said computing suppliers are leaving them ‘cloudblind’ by failing to be transparent about the service they provide. New research commissioned by NewVoiceMedia, a global provider of cloud contact centres, revealed firms are getting cold feet over using cloud computing to run areas of their operations like contact centres, because they fear service providers are just not being open enough with them.

With more than a third of the 750 respondents (250 CIOs and 500 customer service directors) highlighting loss of control as a cause for concern when adopting cloud services, it’s unsurprising that a lack of service visibility (42 per cent) and low confidence in suppliers are causing organisations to question whether cloud is right for them, despite the potential benefits of improved productivity, lower costs and improved employee satisfaction in the contact centre.

Jonathan Gale, CEO of NewVoiceMedia, said: “It’s worrying but not surprising, that businesses simply don’t trust their cloud computing suppliers to give them the level of service they are promised. Cloud vendors, particularly in the contact centre space, don’t appear to focus on, or even understand, the importance of the customer experience in building a compelling proposition. The contact centre industry has barely evolved over the past 20 years and cloud computing could hold the key to bringing about a customer service revolution. But if suppliers aren’t doing all they can to give peace of mind to businesses, then we could be waiting years for that change to happen.

“We’ve gone against the grain with the bold step of giving our customers complete visibility of the service they are getting from us. What’s more, we’re putting our money where our mouth is and offering 99.999% availability and uptime as a contractual SLA. So, today we’ve launched a Trust Site that offers our customers a full transparency in our service delivery.  In the unlikely event of a problem that affects the user experience, customers get live visibility of the situation so they know when they will be back to full service availability, and of course, they can keep track of whether we’re keeping to our SLAs which are actually more robust than some on-premise technology. While some cloud businesses may feel this is giving a little too much of the game away, we want our customers to know that we’re maintaining and monitoring their service 24 hours a day and give them real peace of mind so they can focus on running their business,” he said.

Respondents to the survey, which was undertaken by LM Research, also revealed that the ability to work from home was considered to be a more important factor (75 per cent) for improving morale and productivity than a pay rise (70 per cent). With cloud computing enabling such flexible working practices, it’s critical that decision makers are given a level of comfort that prompts them to make the change their business could take advantage of.

Jag Tucker, Global Front Office Support Manager, of global talent measurement company, SHL Group, added, “For a cloud vendor to provide complete visibility of their service availability and performance gives us a huge level of confidence both in the vendor and their service. Making that level of information publicly available requires a significant investment in infrastructure, people and processes, not to mention leadership. This is definitely a case where action speaks louder than words.”

NewVoiceMedia’s Trust Site is available to customers from today and complements the range of cloud-based contact centre services the company provides. The commitment to delivering simpler and more efficient contact centre services transparently and honestly has seen the company provide contact centre services to the likes of SHL Group and Invocas.

“We operate in a sensitive market, supporting people in financial difficulty, so security, performance and reliability are vital elements of our business”, explains David Macmillan, CEO, Invocas.  “We demand the highest standards from our suppliers and welcome the transparency that NewVoiceMedia’s Trust site offers.  It gives us the confidence that the company will deliver the SLAs that we require to serve our customers.”

The Trust Site can be viewed here: http://www.newvoicemedia.com/trust/