According to a study by Accenture, price is not the primary reason for customer churn: 66% of respondents stated they have switched companies due to poor customer service. But what makes this number even more relevant is that 82% of these respondents felt the company could have done something to prevent them from switching.

When calling customer service, customers are often already frustrated. So when they have to call multiple times for the same issue, are put on hold for long periods, or have to repeat information to multiple people, it shouldn't be surprising when they turn to the competition.

Your contact center is your customer service front line. It can be one of your most effective tools for retaining customers, increasing loyalty, personalizing the customer experience, and providing a consistent user experience across channels. And that's important as the Internet continues to change the ways your business needs to interact with your customers.

Moving your contact center to the cloud provides a way to quickly and cost-effectively optimize the customer experience. With a cloud-based contact center, you can more easily manage your budget with a pay-as-you-go model that lowers internal support costs and eliminates capital investment for upgrades. Taking a cloud approach also enables you to develop an effective and affordable omni-channel strategy. Now your customers will be able to reach you the way they want, whether by voice, web, email, social media, or video.

The eBook Driving Customer Experience Excellence with Your Contact Center describes how the cloud can transform the way you deliver customer service. Some of the other benefits you get from moving to the cloud include:

• Focus: Your service provider manages your solution, freeing you to dedicate resources to more strategic business initiatives
• Speed: Deploy advanced contact center capabilities in weeks, not months
• Control: Simplify budget management with predictable costs
• Scalability: Dynamically ramp capacity up or down to meet seasonal peaks and valleys
• Innovation: Leverage the latest technology to significantly improve the outcomes of customer issues

Underestimating the role your contact center plays in the success of your business can be detrimental to your bottom line. In fact, 71% of business leaders believe that customer experience is the next corporate battleground (source: Shaws and Ivens). You need every advantage you can get.

With the right cloud contact center solution, you can provide exceptional customer experience and retain valuable customers. And by choosing a Cisco Powered service, your contact center will offer enterprise-class performance and security so you can always be there when your customers need you.

To learn more about the different ways cloud can transform your business, visit Cisco and our partners at Enterprise Connect in Booth 405.