5 steps in every successful contact center migration plan

Contact center migration is the process of moving from an on-premise infrastructure to a cloud-based system, including software, data and services. This shift allows companies to offer secure communications for remote teams with less complexity compared to traditional on-premises setups.

A cloud or virtual contact center provides cost savings, scalability and increased reliability, making it an ideal choice for businesses seeking greater efficiency and flexibility. It also supports a remote workforce, streamlining operations and customer engagement.

A successful migration requires a comprehensive plan, including C-suite buy-in, operational changes and employee training. Below are the key steps for a smooth transition.

1. Deploy the BRD contact center migration

As the name suggests, a business requirements document (BRD) describes in detail what is needed for a business or project to succeed. It outlines the goals and objectives of the project, the required expectations during its life cycle and the resources required to realize it.

In the case of a contact center migration, the BRD should include how you plan to perform the migration, along with expected timelines for disruption if you have a phased rollout plan that requires a transition period.

The BRD should outline the things your contact center already does well and how you intend to replicate and improve them after migrating to the cloud. It should include key performance indicators (KPIs) that act as benchmarks and allow stakeholders to evaluate whether the cloud migration process can be considered a success.

While it is important to share this document throughout the organization to gain buy-in from stakeholders and key decision makers, spreading the BRD across the organization will allow you to discover the needs of different departments in terms of equipment, functionality and expectations.

BRD basically exposes the conflicting expectations and forces everyone to deal with the trade-offs you have to make. Running a BRD early in the contact center migration process is critical to uncovering potential issues and opportunities while you have time to remediate.

Keep in mind that this step is intended to be iterative, with lots of communication between relevant stakeholders. You will probably move on to other steps before this document is actually finished, and it will include what you learn along the way.

2. Match the requirements of the type of contact center solution

Before focusing on specific vendors, you should take advantage of the contact center migration opportunity to choose the best possible infrastructure for your business.

UCaaS, CCaaS and CPaaS, which have emerged as the contact center model of choice for implementing cloud communications. However, each of them is related to different communication needs.

UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) is biased towards internal communication within the call center. It combines popular communication methods such as live chat, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), text messaging, social media, file sharing and video conferencing into a single interface or cloud platform.

SEE: Learn the most important things you need to know before you sign a VoIP contract.

By unifying all these different tools, UCaaS provides the simplicity and flexibility of a single solution for inbound communications. For outbound communications, UCaaS also eliminates the need to frequently switch contact center agents between platforms.

As a centralized communications hub, UCaaS is also ideal for a dispersed and remote workforce, providing a central point that keeps the contact center workplace integrated.

CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service) is basically another name for a contact center solution that is hosted in the cloud. It covers all channels: social media, live chat, VoIP phone services, social media. CCaaS typically comes with tools that make CRM integration easy, if not out-of-the-box integrations with popular CRM vendors.

As a hosted service, CCaaS offers secure online communication for remote workers without the complexity of large numbers of VPN users, on-premises vs. cloud security issues, or the need to maintain a PBX 24/7.

Typically, CCaaS is best suited for external communications because it has the capacity for high volumes, both inbound and outbound. Unlike UCaaS, CCaaS is more optimized for a better customer experience, while UCaaS is more adept at internal collaboration and communication.

CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) enables companies to integrate voice, messaging and video directly into their workflows through APIs. Companies can easily integrate these new capabilities into an existing solution.

As a result, building CPaaS functionality into your cloud contact center doesn’t require you to deal with any backend infrastructure. Unlike traditional real-time communications (RTC), CPaaS provides a development framework for building custom RTC functionality without having to do it from scratch.

CPaaS offers features such as two-factor authentication, video conferencing, interactive voice response (IVR), call center chatbots, SMS, and AI capabilities. Cloud contact centers may be particularly interested in CPaaS applications that can help them offer a video-enabled help desk.

SEE: Check out the latest IVR upgrades and call center chatbot examples to learn more.

Overall, the cloud offers plenty of features to optimize contact center performance, but you need to assess your options and choose a platform that aligns with your organization’s goals and business needs.

3. Perform SIT and UAT

Once you have a contact center migration solution in place, you can begin testing to ensure you can implement a full migration without downtime, issues or security outages.

The testing phase of a contact center migration should include some form of System Integration Testing (SIT) and User Acceptance Testing (UAT). SIT focuses on ensuring smooth integration of the new system with existing software and meeting technical requirements. UAT verifies that the system works as expected from the end user’s perspective and is aligned with business needs.

The scope of testing should cover key contact center workflows, system performance, scalability and integration with other platforms such as CRM systems. Stress testing, IVR testing, regulatory compliance and security checks are also necessary to identify potential risks prior to commissioning.

SEE: Discover six ways to automate your call center workflow.

To avoid disrupting traffic, testing is often done in a sandbox or staged environment. The goal is to bring the production environment as close as possible to a replica of a live system. The idea is for features to be tested without affecting overall system performance or uptime.

Along with making sure that the contact center migration is technically sound, you should perform a UAT to ensure that the new contact center system works well for real users before it goes live.

For example, during UAT, agents can test whether it is easy to switch between information and communication channels about customers. Supervisors can also check that reports are providing them with the information they need. UAT ensures that the system is ready for everyday use and will help the business run smoothly.

4. Project implementation and training

Most software implementation plans use a phased delivery strategy, which is ideal for reducing downtime. Plan your move using a release timeline that prioritizes the features you need most. That means migrating them first.

In this step, you may want to use an agile development method for deployment using quick sprints to accelerate delivery. In addition, you may also want to deploy robotic process automation (RPA) agents to help with cross-functional tasks such as data migration. This is often better than having employees perform manual data transfers due to the risk of clerical errors.

To ensure success, you should plan an achievable timeline and train your staff to use the new cloud platform. Training is important to ensure that your call center agents adapt and work competently with the new system. Before they have to start using it, you should make sure they understand the new platform and the new features that come with it. Make sure your knowledge base is updated so agents have a single source of truth to answer their own questions when they encounter unfamiliar issues.

SEE: Learn how to build a knowledge base that agents will actually use.

5. Monitoring and Analysis

The final step of a contact center migration is to evaluate whether your KPIs are being met. This helps with two things: first, it allows you to provide management with feedback on the overall status of the migration, and second, it helps you see if any adjustments need to be made.

In other words, you need to know if the tactical and strategic goals you identified and proposed in your BRD at the start of your cloud migration journey are being met. Even with achieved goals, there is always room for improvement, so continuing the monitoring process can lead to finding new ways to optimize positive outcomes.

In addition to quantifiable statistics, feedback from employees and agents should also be part of the ongoing evaluation and reevaluation of the new system. Although their opinions may be subjective, they still provide an invaluable source of information.