Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity for Contact Centers

People don't talk enough about disaster recovery in a Contact Center. Now, don't take this the wrong way: cloud or not, there's plenty of business continuity solutions available for these centers, and businesses everywhere take advantage of them. However, there's plenty who do not, and a strong disaster recovery solution is one of many things offered by a cloud-based Contact Center.

What is disaster recovery and business continuity?

According to FEMA, forty percent of businesses don't reopen after a disaster. Another twenty-five percent fail within a year afterwards. Those are some pretty scary statistics, and if you haven't taken the right steps to ensure your business continuity, it's a statistic you and your business could very well end up being a part of.

Disaster recovery entails how a business recovers following a disaster. This can be anything from a system failure, to a fire, to a power outage. The better your disaster recovery, the better your business continuity. Business continuity is a measure of how long it takes for your business to recover from accidents and downtime, and with the right solution you can be back on your feet in a matter of a few days, or less.

Disaster recovery and business continuity are both major concerns for any business and contact centers are affected by them, too.

How does the cloud make these things better?

Simple, actually. The cloud places all of your data and most of your computing tasks on external servers. This means that in the event of an accident, you can get back up and running as soon as you have computers that can connect to the Internet, because none of your data went anywhere. Data centers offer superior redundancy and fault protection, too, meaning you're unlikely to experience downtime on that end- and even if you do, chances are there's another to pick up the slack for you.

Basically, the cloud ensures the best possible business continuity and disaster recovery. This is one of many reasons that it's so popular in the world of business right now, but there's more benefits, too.

What other benefits can I expect from a cloud contact center?

Cloud-based contact centers offer a wide variety of benefits, thanks to the power of the cloud as a platform. These benefits include:

• Access your contact center from any location. Because of how the cloud works, your data is accessible from anywhere.
  
  
• Quickly add and remove agents. You're using a cloud contact center, so a lot of important tasks can be done through software. This includes adding and removing agents.
  
  
• Unified Communications. Fax, Email, SMS, IM, Voice, Video...the cloud can do it all, often in the same application or same few applications.
  
  
• Less reliance on on-site hardware and support. You don't need to worry about a lot of on-site hardware purchases and maintenance, since your server is hosted elsewhere. All you need to worry about is doing your business and having a proper network setup at your location.
  
  
• Reduce capital expenditures (CAPEX). Finally, you can enjoy the benefits of a reduced capital expenditures. In layman's terms, this means you're paying less, because cloud solutions are generally a lot cheaper, and don't require you to invest in expensive extra hardware.

Where can I learn more?

Of course, that's not all there is to know about cloud contact centers and other similar topics. To learn more about Disaster Recovery in the Contact Center, read RingCentral's full whitepaper on the topic! It expands greatly on the points made in this article.

To learn more about RingCentral, Google Apps and other cloud solutions, peruse our blog for more informative posts like these. If you're located in or around Austin, Texas, you're also welcome to contact us for a free consultation.