Any contact center solution, cloud-based or on premise, requires adequate support to mitigate risk. For continued efficiencies and optimal performance, specific responsibilities need to be fulfilled. Differences in capabilities and care requirements between cloud-based and on premise contact centers cause variation in skill sets needed to fully support each solution. A mistake often made is assuming an organization’s current structure and staff can effectively support a new cloud system. Some roles will overlap with similar support requirements. However, others will require a new set of skills.
Through our vast contact center experience, we have identified key roles, each holding its own subset of responsibilities, necessary to support a cloud-based contact center solution, like Twilio Flex. Our work with several enterprise clients throughout the years has helped us shape and define the core roles which we believe provide optimal operational support. Whether these roles are serviced within your organization, sourced out of house, or through a combination of both by utilizing a hybrid approach, we recommend these 8 essential roles be satisfied to gain the most out of your solution and investment.
8 Essential Roles to Support Cloud-Based Contact Centers
Level 1 Support
A Level 1 role is common across most organizations and solutions. Like an on premise solution, Level 1 acts as the help desk, receiving the first calls from end users. They gather all relevant information, answer inquires, and troubleshoot basic issues. Examples of Level 1 inquires include general feature and functionality questions, document sharing, and simple fixes for documented issues.
Level 2 Support
Personnel in a Level 2 position provide additional layers of troubleshooting and tackle more complex inquires. For example, someone in a Level 2 role could walk the end user through a series of tests, functions, and tasks to uncover an issue. Through review of application logs, they are able to identify the root cause and ultimately resolve issues that reside within the contact center platform. Additionally, Level 2 continuously monitors the health and performance within the contact center platform through proactive monitoring tools.
Level 3 Support
While the Level 1 and Level 2 Support roles for cloud-based contact centers take on similar tasks as a traditional on premise solution, Level 3’s responsibilities shift with the move to the cloud. Level 3 supports all customizations and integrations deployed within the contact center solution. This includes continuous performance and alert monitoring related to custom components. Personnel in this role need a full understanding of solution deployment. They should know where customizations were introduced, how they work, and hold and maintain relevant solution architectural documentation for troubleshooting. Someone in a Level 3 position is responsible to identify any issues related to customization and integrations.
Custom Development Support
A Custom Development Support role is not generally utilized in a traditional contact center setting, due to the lack of customization. Within a cloud solution, the Custom Development Support role is responsible for rectifying issues with custom code as identified by the Level 3. As frequent contact center platform updates and upgrades are released, the Custom Development role ensures compatibility with deployed customizations and upgrades the custom code to fully optimize the integrations as required.
Contact Center Administrator
Contact Center Administrators handle daily administrative tasks such as change requests within the contact center platform. Examples of requests this role encounters include adding and removing agents, password resets, and IVR changes.
Contact Center Operations
The Contact Center Operations role is similar to a traditional System Admin role. However with a customizable, cloud-based solution like Twilio Flex, expert knowledge of cloud-based technologies are necessary. This role manages applying platform updates and upgrades. Additionally, they monitor if integrations and the overall contact center setup is operating efficiently.
Documentation and Training
Keeping internal documents and training material current is essential. As new integrations, improvements, and platform updates occur with your cloud-based contact center solution, keeping employees educated goes a long way. Easy to understand documents ensure end users have the knowledge they need to remain productive and provide enhanced customer care. The Documentation and Training role provides education to end users through quality training and detailed documents.
Vendor Developer Support
Most vendors offer various levels of support options within their licensing agreement. Similar to a typical Manufacturer Support offering that you may be used to, if you opt for a plan, vendor assistance and support will be available to remedy issues within their backend infrastructure and software. They can provide assistance with any platform issues that occurs. This role is fulfilled direct by the vendor.
Choosing the Best Staffing Approach for Your Organization
Sourcing staff for contact center support looks different across organizations. Some completely own operations of these roles with internal staff. Others do not need or want the required skills in house, and choose an expert provider to completely support their contact center solution. A hybrid approach can also be taken. This approach allows organizations to utilize some skills they already have on staff and combine them with experts filling in the gaps, through a partner.
If a hybrid or outsourced model makes sense for your organization, you will want a specialized partner such as Perficient, to leverage a team of contact center experts when needed. Our specialists possess in-depth expertise on contact center solutions day in and day out.
Regardless of your support staffing decision, Perificent can help optimize your contact center solution. Learn more about our expertise with Twilio Flex here.
