Why Contact Center Digital Transformation Has Become a Business-Critical Priority
According to Harvard Business Review, 93% of business leaders agree customer experience will be critical to performance within two years, yet only 15% rate their current approach as very effective.
For many organizations approaching renewal cycles, this gap becomes a business-critical inflection point. Extending legacy contracts often means recommitting to outdated contact center technology that can no longer support modern operational demands—turning renewals into renewal cliffs.
Today’s customers expect seamless, always-on service, and agents need intelligent tools that simplify complexity rather than amplify it. IT leaders now are under pressure to deliver resilience, security, and measurable business outcomes—all while managing shrinking budgets and rising risk profiles.
This brings the decision into sharp focus: continue investing in legacy infrastructure, or embrace a cloud-first approach built for transformation. Leaders aren’t choosing between status quo and innovation—they’re choosing between sustaining pain and enabling progress
Why Transformation Matters Now for Legacy System Environments
Legacy systems are becoming growth barriers
Customer expectations have fully outpaced what traditional telephony and disconnected on-prem systems can deliver. The result is an expanding gap between what organizations want to deliver and what their legacy environments can support.
Here’s what organizations are experiencing as legacy systems hit their limits:
- Loyalty is at risk. Customers no longer tolerate repeating information, inconsistent handoffs, or slow resolution. With 32% willing to leave a brand after one bad experience, every interaction becomes a loyalty test.
- Renewals have become “renewal cliffs.” Extending legacy contracts now means recommitting to rising maintenance fees, inflexible licensing, hardware refresh cycles, and increasing downtime risks.
- Legacy systems are emerging security liabilities. Many CIOs cite aging infrastructure as a top barrier to growth, especially as maintaining end-of-life environments becomes increasingly costly.
- On-prem overhead is no longer sustainable. Maintaining hardware, managing patching, and keeping up with compliance consumes resources that could otherwise fuel innovation.
In contrast, cloud migration improves agility, resilience, and scalability, while reducing operational overhead. Rather than continuing to invest in aging telephony ecosystems, enterprises can use their renewal cycle to modernize CX and unlock new value.
Modernization is no longer a technology update—it is a business-growth decision.
Signs Your Contact Center Is Ready for Cloud Migration and Modernization
When these symptoms show up, your environment is costing more than it gives back
IT leaders must recognize the symptoms of legacy strain long before a renewal date arrives. The following indicators strongly signal it’s time to evaluate cloud-native platforms:- Rising CX issues and customer churn
Customers expect seamless interactions across every channel. Yet many legacy environments still struggle with repeated authentication, siloed data, and uncoordinated handoffs. PwC notes that one in three will leave after a single poor interaction.
Why it matters: CX friction directly erodes loyalty and revenue—turning everyday interactions into churn risks. - Operational pain from fragmented tools
Fragmented tools create “swivel-chair operations,” manual routing, and inconsistent reporting that exhaust both agents and supervisors. Burnout follows—not just for agents and supervisors but for the IT teams holding these systems together—along with rising average handle time and lower first-contact resolution.
Why it matters: Inefficient operations suppress CX outcomes and drive hidden operational costs. - Escalating risk, rising maintenance costs, and difficulty scaling digital channels
The financial stakes are staggering:
• Global data breaches now cost an average of $4.44M.
• Cyberattacks surged 47%, with nearly 2,000 attacks per week globally.
• Meanwhile, 80% of IT budgets in many enterprises are tied up in maintenance—not innovation.
• Expanding into channels such as chat, messaging, automation, or self-service becomes slow and costly on legacy infrastructure.
Why it matters: Technical strain compounds financial and security risk, blocking organizations from scaling efficiently or innovating at the pace customers expect. - Limited visibility into customer journeys
Disparate systems make end-to-end analytics nearly impossible, hindering personalization and strategic decision-making.
Why it matters: Without unified insights, organizations cannot design journeys that strengthen loyalty or optimize performance.
If these challenges feel familiar, your environment is signaling that it is time to explore a cloud-native, AI-powered foundation built for modernization.
How AI-Powered Contact Center Modernization Unlocks Value
Modern CX platforms deliver measurable transformation
AI-powered contact center modernization reshapes how organizations serve customers, support employees, and drive business performance.
AI-powered experience orchestration
This means connecting every customer touchpoint so interactions feel continuous rather than fragmented.
On a unified platform like Genesys Cloud, organizations gain:
- Predictive routing
- Conversational AI and virtual agents
- Automated digital engagement
- Journey analytics and real-time insights
Imagine a customer entering through chat, escalating to voice, and having every step visible to the agent—no repeated questions, no lost context.
According to CMSWire, 81% of contact center executives are investing in agent-enabling AI, while McKinsey reports AI can:
- Increase self-service adoption 2–3×
- Reduce service interactions 40%
- Cut cost-to-serve by 20%+
Agents perform better—and stay longer
Unified workspaces, workforce engagement management (WEM), and automated guidance reduce handling time, eliminate tedious tasks, and improve morale.
Revenue and loyalty gains
Personalization at scale drives 10–15% revenue lift (McKinsey) and strengthens long-term loyalty.
Operational agility and continuous innovation
Cloud-native platforms allow teams to launch new channels faster, scale instantly, and adopt new capabilities without disruption.| What AI-powered CX looks like in action |
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Why the Choice is C1 + Genesys
Modernization requires both the right platform and the right partner. Genesys provides the technology foundation; C1 provides the lifecycle execution and long-term optimization.
Most technology partners deliver a platform. C1 delivers outcomes.
The C1 + Genesys advantage includes:
- Proven migration paths from Avaya and other legacy systems
- Full lifecycle services: assessment → design → migration → management
- 24x7x365 managed services for continuous optimization
- An AI-native, omnichannel Genesys Cloud platform delivering unified voice, digital, WEM, and analytics
- Integration expertise spanning Avaya, Cisco, Microsoft, CRM, and security ecosystems
C1’s approach reduces risk, accelerates time-to-value, and ensures modernization aligns with business outcomes—not just technical requirements. Modernization isn’t a technology project—it’s a growth strategy. C1 + Genesys ensures you don’t just migrate; you transform.
Melissa Rother
Director
Solutions Marketing