Consumers today have high expectations. They want to connect with companies at all times of the day and night. Not only that, but they also prefer a choice in how and when they do that. This is why buying and using  the right contact centre solution is imperative for helping you meet these ever-increasing standards. There are three different models of call centre solutions available: cloud-based, on-premise and a hybrid of the two. Below, we outline all three. Continue reading to find out more. The Cloud

A cloud-based contact centre is a web-hosted solution typically used by more extensive and growing organisations ? companies in need of multiple communications channels including call routing, SMS messaging, email, social media messenger chats, phone calls and analytics. A cloud-based system typically integrates all the above communications channels so that you and your agents can access them all from one centralised system (no matter where they're located). This ensures call centre agents can communicate with clients quickly and efficiently, regardless of the communication channel used.. To get up and running with a cloud-based communications solution, an organisation just needs phones and computers to access the system. On-Premise Solutions

An on-premise call centre is practically the complete opposite of a cloud-based contact centre. An on-premise solution is where all the software and hardware you need to run your communications system is physically located on your organisation?s premises. In such a case, you'll need to employ IT and technical staff to install, maintain and upgrade the equipment and software. On-premise call centres are often tailored to the specific needs of an organisation. They can be expensive and time-consuming to install and maintain; not to mention, they also tend to go out of date quickly  and you have to invest in additional software to monitor and analyse the behaviour of your consumers'.

A Hybrid Solution

Given the various pros and cons associated with both cloud-based and on-premise contact centre software, many organisations understand that their most cost-effective and flexible option is a hybrid solution.

The benefits of this all-in-one approach are as follows:

Interaction and flexibility With cloud-based functionality at your disposal, you can offer customers a choice of communication channels ? voice, SMS, chat, social networks, email, etc. As such, organisations can be more agile and scale its customer care operations as when there's a demand.

Information and planning Using the analytics and insights generated by your contact centre software, your organisation has access to the real-time data it needs to be as effective and efficient as possible; for example, call recording, reports and statistics, the number of calls answered/waiting per agent, the number of available agents and the number of abandoned calls/people on hold. Using this data, your organisation can plan its resources and scale accordingly.

Efficiency Rather than spending money on a server/hardware, using a combination of cloud-based call centre software and in-situ agents, an organisation can reduce its spending and simultaneously  boost efficiency

To Sum Up

Using an integrated hybrid approach to customer care is a way of always keeping the lines of communication open with consumers. It means the door is still open. Call centre software combined with on-premise staff, phones and computers is the perfect solution for greater flexibility, information and efficiency.