Beyond the Cloud: How Cloudlinx is Shaping the Future of Contact Centers

In 2024, within the modern American contact cener, the lack of technical expertise and practical experience in managing complex vendor selections paired with next to zero standardization of offerings make many contact center decision makers less confident about adopting the new CX technologies like AI and Cloud.

The reason: CX leadership of a typical contact center have spent their working life in the customer success space driving operational excellence for their clients and not in the high-end technology solutioning, contract negotiations and vendor selection spaces.  This is a different world and one that can take their eye of the goal of servicing clients for a long period of time. 

But this is not all.

Blend this lack of overall expertise with a hyperactive Cloud and AI market, and you have CX professionals overwhelmed by a win-at-all sales process that is unforgiving in its impact to the business they serve and to their careers. All because numerous new tech startups aggressively pursue market share at all costs and force a sales process on CX leaders that is a distraction to their day, cumbersome and at times, intentionally dishonest either through omission on the sales rep’s part or lack of understanding about the client’s true needs.  

Additionally, legacy systems like Genesys, Cisco, and Avaya started ending support for their customers premises-based solutions or have no clear strategy.. This resulted in a forced and rushed migration to new cloud-based solutions, and numerous smaller US-based contact centers are simply not ready for this decision.  This will and has resulted in a great deal of bad technology purchases, to the chagrin of no one on the side of these technology companies.

Kevin Sheehan, one of the founders of CX Technology Advisory Cloudlinx says, “Our organization is one of the few truly agnostic practice leaders in 2024 with over a decade of real experience helping smaller contact centers make the right technology investments and keeping them from investing in the wrong software or taking on too much technology adoption before their agents and processes are ready.”

Since starting the firm in 2014, Cloudlinx has followed the philosophy of putting the needs of the ‘Agents First’ when it comes to investing in technology.

This has resulted in Cloudlinx managing a large portfolio of global contact centers that have successfully migrated to cloud-based environments under the Cloudlinx agnostic approach.  Since their inception their philosophy has always emphasized making informed and measured selections; choosing vendors only when they have been thoroughly and comprehensively vetted to ensure the needs of their agents can be realized using these new tools.

This has empowered agents while simultaneously delivering a greater experience for their customers.  Cloudlinx works closely with their clients to ensure that the intended ROI to the business is realized while driving these transformational projects.  The success the Cloudlinx clients’ are realizing has been so profound that in 2023, Cloudlinx celebrated its debut on the Inc 5000 list of the Fastest-Growing Companies in America, in the top 30% of private companies.

TALKING TRENDS:

Talking about the trends that can impact Cloudlinx as a Contact Center Solution provider and a few themes will show consistently within that discussion.  How companies can leverage these trends falls to the envisioning of Cloudlinx CX Solutionist & CEO Kevin Sheehan who says that “there are three current trends that Cloudlinx consistently sees and that our clients are concerned with and looking to capitalize on.” 

The first trend relates to smaller contact centers that are being caught off guard and forced to migrate to the cloud without much process for doing so or the ability to maximize change management strategies for the agents.  This has potential to force a low shelf life for smaller contact centers (a typical Cloudlinx client is from 50 to 1000 agents) technology decisions and an amazing lack of orchestration within their new environments.

Utilizing a major technology for less than three years is clearly detrimental to the business.  The technologies managers ran to in the new ‘work at home’ environment resulted in many over-purchases supported by poor vendors are now being reexamined. This management burden is something that Cloudlinx sees all the time. 

The second trend they are seeing is that major organizations' C-suites are turning to their CX leadership for guidance on, not only, the latest offerings in “revolutionary and game-changing” new technologies like Artificial Intelligence and others, and not their Information Technology departments.  The C-suite wants to know what the technology is, how they can operationalize it and how the CX leaders plan to reduce costs to the business by potentially cramming a “solution” into their CX Tech Stack. Cloudlinx CX Tech Practice Leader, Frank Wassenbergh says “One of the bigger fallouts of the great cloud migration of 2020 is that Contact Center leaders are now being looked to as more adjunct technology officers for their organizations in addition to overseeing the agents and overall customer experience and I am not sure if that is fair to them.” 

The third trend is Virtual Reality's impact on the contact center space. Cloudlinx has already been approached to find platforms and to build proof-of-concept VR applications for BPOs and contact centers that can enhance how their clients engage with their customers.

It is clear that CX professionals must be able to stay ahead of future technology adoption trends, as they now see the direct impact these technologies will have on their agents and customers.  Cloudlinx, and their approach to the space, has ensured that their clients have strong and reliable answers for the organization’s virtual reality strategy or where they can start using AI effectively in their current environment. Their agent-first approach continues to drive innovation and to educate their clients on how to innovate properly.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Sheehan says that “Digital Transformation is CX industry jargon which has different definitions for each contact center manager they have partnered over the years who is looking to redo their processes & supporting technology with a top-down tech refresh or “simply” through the additional of a new tool.”

He further says that when Cloudlinx discusses with a client how a digital transformation can elevate their agent and customer experiences, it is principally regarding which legacy customer communication technologies or processes can be moved into a cloud application or enhanced with Ai.

With a disruptive approach to these software companies' normally aggressive sales process, Cloudlinx’s role is to take the unique requirements the contact center has post a comprehensive and truly independent analysis of agents, managers, and customers and then level-setting defined expectations from the qualified cloud vendors.

When a new technology is being considered, Cloudlinx knows the right questions to ask, the right way to structure a demonstration to drive quantitative analysis so their clients can properly and fairly compare features value & to score their features framed by the company’s analysis of what the agents will actually use and how the experience will enhance their own clients’ experiences with their contact center. 

Citing the case studies across a dozen industry verticals such as finance, insurance, healthcare, retail, industrial & manufacturing, the Cloudlinx team is able to show how they have helped their clients achieve what they wanted with lesser cost and doubling the capabilities; all while maintaining compliance requirements & driving operational excellence across the board. 

Cloudlinx has carved out a successful practice within an underserved market. Contact centers don’t typically get the attention needed to tackle a cloud migration or AI deployment as a stand-alone or group project the first time.  Partnering with Cloudlinx has improved their chances for success.

COO Michael Galeotafiors says, “We have built a niche market by working with these smaller Call Centers, filling the much-needed gap. In most instances, smaller contact centers need even more outside guidance as they have limited internal resources to manage the migration. We fulfill both those needs at a much lower cost and at a higher level of touch than any other firm can.”

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

When Cloudlinx looks to their future and how best to serve their clients there are three characteristics that always show up and that seem to resonate with current and future clients. The first is that clients will continue to see value in their 20 years’ technology experience and 10 years dedicated in the CX technology space.  This is a rare blend that is available to clients and one that can be leveraged ahead of even the biggest consulting firms. 

The second is that they are 100% self-funded and have zero outside investors.  This means they can take on the clients that make sense for them and that they do not have to take on more clients than they can, merely to achieve an artificial quota or growth number.

Lastly, there is a definable track-record of success fueled by a passion for their niche.  “People trust us, and they trust that we are on their side.” says Frank Wassenbergh.  “They know that we will be there in five years to support them, and that our team will be the same.” 

This past year Cloudlinx achieved a huge milestone and completed its first Virtual Reality custom application build for what it believes to be the future state of CX, where customers, BPOs, and brands use Virtual Reality to connect with customers on a much more impactful way. This is just one example of how organizations like Cloudlinx are working to make sure their clients are strategically prepared to adapt to however technology will impact the modern customer experience.