A Vision of the Cloud, from a Visionary CEO

THE FUTURE OF THE CLOUD

A Vision of the Cloud, from a Visionary CEO

By TMCnet Special Guest
Jason Alley, Solutions Marketing Manager, Interactive Intelligence
  |  February 20, 2014

Interactive Intelligence CEO Don Brown makes that claim in a new Movers & Shakers video from Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert). In his appearance on camera, he talks about how the cloud is poised to reshape the customer experience boldly — and he’s right.

"People's modes for social interaction are very different today, which has changed their customer service expectations," Don says. "The cloud is playing a vital role in this change because it enables companies to offer customers new communications options more easily, such as Web chat, text messaging, and video.”

This is multichannel, courtesy of the cloud. Especially for companies whose outmoded on-premises systems still limit them and their customers to one-dimensional service channels.

The cloud will provide access to an increasing amount of intelligent and predictive information. Companies can use this information and other “intuitive new tools from the cloud to create a customer service experience that today they can only dream of.”

Justin Santos is a senior consultant for The Customer Experience Company says this:

“What we are seeing is that cloud computing mixed with cheaper devices, better connectivity, and a more socially engaged market, is driving changes in behavior and increasing the power of disruptive innovations. Where this is a physical product or a service such as a financial product, you can go from needs awareness to fulfillment via your smartphone and the cloud almost instantly. Your customers expect to be able to do the same thing. They don’t care how hard it is for you because, if you don’t meet their expectations, your competitor is only one click away.

As relevant as the cloud has become to the customer experience already, its relevance is still growing. Expectations from customers are changing continually and faster than ever, and delivering what customers expect won’t always be possible using traditional communications methods. Nor will it always be viable financially.

Viewing the cloud of the future as our CEO does, it will be more nimble, powerful and functional in what it can do, and in what businesses can do to service their customers. Multichannel options will be the norm. Remote agents will become more commonplace, all over the world. Big data and analytics won’t just drive changes in customer behavior, they’ll redefine it. Mobile apps will be more intelligent, and “live.” And inventive cloud resources like Salesforce will be even more inventive.

Cost-wise, cloud innovations will continue to become more affordable by way of their fixed costs and packaged offerings, and businesses of all kinds will buy them from companies who specialize in developing and maintaining such innovations. Call it economy of scale. Or as Don says in the Frost & Sullivan video, the value of the cloud will continue to come in many forms. “Combined with the benefit of offloading IT staff from the daily grind of things like server updates so they can focus on projects that directly impact the customer experience, the cloud is by far the most impactful technology trend today."

For the customer experience of the future, the cloud will interweave the consumer and all of their devices with your contact center, subject matter experts, remote agents and workers, business partners, suppliers, and business systems more tightly than ever.


To view the Frost & Sullivan Movers & Shakers video, visit http://www.inin.com/about/Pages/default.aspx.




Edited by Stefania Viscusi
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