Over the last few decades, call/contact centers have evolved as the most efficient way to provide a satisfying customer experience. With the advancement in technology, customer care has become available 24/7 for call/contact center customers. A large number of companies of all types from finance, eCommerce, construction, manufacturing, retail, and travel to huge healthcare corporations have established call/contact centers to provide the best possible customer experience.
With time customer expectations are also changing. They expect an instant and efficient solution to their queries from the channel that they are most comfortable with. To meet this demand, call/contact centers are becoming modern centers equipped with all the latest technology to serve or interact with customers on whatever channel they prefer. One such technology is the utilization of call center solution.
Yes, if you are looking for a reliable way to convert your call/contact center into a customer engagement and satisfaction center, then you must implement advanced call/contact center software. The computer monitoring software can be utilized to cater to a broad array of customers in a call/contact center.
Features of Call/Contact Center Solution
In order to make the entire call/contact center process smooth and efficient, the call/contact center solution comes with an array of advanced features such as:
- Skill-based call routing: Skill-based call routing is a system in which calls can be routed to the most appropriate agent. It means that the calls are transferred to the agent who has the required set of skills to handle or resolve a particular issue of a customer. Agents can be categorized based on the skills like language, knowledge, expertise, experience, region, demographics, etc. Routing calls to a qualified or most appropriate agent can help companies to serve their customers more efficiently and increase customer satisfaction levels by resolving their issues quickly.
- Automatic Call Distribution (ACD): Call/contact software allows companies to place inbound contacts in a call queue and route the calls to the appropriate agents, thus helps in reducing the waiting time of customers. The ACD feature helps in the systematic and efficient handling of customer calls.
- Conferencing: Conferencing features allow companies to conduct conference calls via softphones or VoIP phones. Conferencing in simple words means multiple callers joining a single call at the same time.
- Whisper: The managers or supervisors can utilize the call whisper feature to train or coach the call/contact center agents related to their conversations with prospects or customers. The tips or hints provided by the management can help agents effectively handle the customer’s queries during a call.
- Progressive and manual Dialer: Progressive dialing is an automated dialing system that is controlled by the agents to reach out to important customers. A manual dialer on the other hand can be used by the agents to type in numbers manually and then dial.
- Call Recording: The software facilitates call recording features using which companies can easily capture audio/video calls. The recordings of the conversations can be kept for future reference or can be used to review purpose, quality control, and training.
- Multi-level IVR system: An IVR (Interactive Voice Response) is an automated phone system that customers usually hear after contacting the customer service center. The system acts as an auto-receptionist that provides self-help options to the customers. This feature can be used to interact with customers 24/7. It is used to greet callers, communicate with them in their choice of language, and guide them via a series of self-service prompts. Its key purpose is to either help callers to find a solution to their query or to route them to an appropriate department or agent for further assistance.
- Call Scripting: The call/contact center software allows supervisors or leads to create call scripts for the agents that they can use while handling a call. This is especially beneficial for new agents as call scripting can help them to handle customer’s calls with ease while ensuring quality and consistency. Call scripting can also be useful to manage the information to be displayed on the agent’s screen.
Two Major Call/Contact Center Trends to Watch In 2021
Due to the growing competition and the availability of a wide number of competitors in the marketplace, providing a superior customer experience has become a major priority of today’s businesses. Various factors like Unified Communications (UC), Softphones, and various other call/contact center solutions are some of the key drivers of innovation in the call/contact center technology. Let’s have a look at some of the key call/contact center trends to watch in 2021:
- Cloud Communication: Though cloud communication is already in trend, we will get to see a huge surge in the adoption of cloud communication for call/contact centers in the coming years. In today’s time, a large number of remote work-force is a part of call/contact centers, which has become a great alternative to traditional on-premise call/contact centers. To satisfy the communication demands of today’s customers, businesses are adopting cloud communication as an integral part of their organization. They are making all possible efforts to modernize their operations and for that, they are adding multiple communication channels to streamline their workflows. This further allows businesses to create flawless communication between the agents and the customers and build a collaborative culture. In all, cloud communication is an excellent option to create traditional office-based call/contact centers with the flexibility to scale and spread out to new locations by hiring local talents.
- Omni-Channel Call/Contact Center Communication: Omnichannel is another major trend that is going to flourish more in the coming years. It is an excellent strategy for call/contact centers that enable voice, video, or chat communications through a single platform. Whether it’s about skill-based routing, queue management, workforce optimization, or providing a personalized experience to the customers, an omnichannel strategy is an excellent way to achieve all these conditions. It would be correct to say that the omnichannel strategy is a must for call/contact centers that want to stay competitive in the future of IoT.
Conclusion:
Always remember that choosing the right system or software can be of great help for today’s businesses. Call/contact center software is definitely the most efficient system that would not only help businesses to reduce their efforts but also improve their productivity and performance.