In the minds of companies that rely on IVR there’s still resistance and uncertainty about the wisdom of moving to the cloud. There are still quite a few of you that worry about whether IVR in the cloud is a smart thing to do.

Let’s take a minute and break down some misconceptions.

Loss of Control

There’s a concern that the cloud forces you to relinquish control over your IVR. The worry is that it’s going to be a struggle to make changes to the system: even simple changes like adding, modifying or removing a menu. Not so—at least not with Metaphor IVR+. Your customized portal gives you access to every element of your IVR so you can change menus, add or modify call handling and business rules, and define custom analytics and reporting.

Loss of Visibility

Often, when people think “cloud” they think “cloudy”: as in obscure, dark, hard to see. They worry that their critical data—system performance, call patterns, agent activities—will be difficult to view and to analyze. Not so again. With Metaphor IVR+ you can dig even deeper than before, and perform more accurate performance analysis and forecasting. (Don’t let me forget to remind you that strategic planning is always stronger when it’s done within the omnichannel.)

Loss of Performance

Performance is really the at heart of the resistance: will a Cloud system perform as well or better than an on premise system. Let me take a few seconds to show just some of the ways the answer is definitely yes

Uninterrupted Availability

On the ground, ensuring uninterrupted availability means chronic capital and operational costs. In the cloud, they’re part of what you pay for, guaranteed by stringent SLAs, and managed by round the clock staff. That’s especially important as you grow: scalability without disruption becomes effortless, and nearly infinite, in the cloud.

Omni-Channel Integration in the Cloud

The cloud excels at omnichannel integration: there’s no comparison when it comes to the simplicity of connecting your other business systems, your other commerce channels, and more, together. No new installations, no system upgrades, refreshes, or rip and replace. Instead, the omnichannel infrastructure is all there, waiting to be used. All you need to do is switch it on.

Financial Performance

On the capital equipment side, the arguments are well known: no capital costs, no ongoing staffing to maintain the equipment as it grows, no continual facility issues (in terms of both space and environmental controls), no tiered supports costs, and more. Instead, you pay a simple, predictable monthly fee to host your IVR within a tier 1 infrastructure.

Return on Investment

In the end, the ROI analysis of going to cloud is one of the easiest to perform. We’ll be glad to share with you our criteria, guide you through the modeling phase using your real data, and help you understand the full value—and performance—of bringing your IVR into the cloud.