Call Center Software is used by businesses to manage and support communication with their customers and vendors. Whether it’s a massive customer service operation with multiple call centers and thousands of agents, or a small mom and pop business where the customer service department is whoever answers the phone, a properly fitted call center software platform can be beneficial. Regardless of the company size the end goal of each customer/vendor communication should be to present a professional image of the brand and effectively assist the customer.
Enterprise level call center software functionality
There is an old adage in the customer service industry that the customer should be able to hear the phone representative smile. That’s right, “hear” them smile. What that means is that the rep’s overall attitude towards the job, the customer and the company can be picked up over the phone. One way to meet this goal is to give them the right tools to do their jobs. That’s where Contact Center Software comes in. Below is a breakdown of some essential tools for both enterprise and Small & Medium Business (SMB) call centers.
Voice
The foundation of a great call canter experience is high grade voice quality. Without that, all of the extra bells and whistles are wasted. Voice quality is a factor of bandwidth, service provider and supporting infrastructure.
Caller information
A personal pet peeve of mine is when I have to repeat my identifying information and why I am calling to each representative that I am forwarded to. Good Contact Center software carries the customer information from one rep to another.
Additionally, agents will shorten call times and provide a more pleasant customer experience by eliminating the repetition of information between subsequent contacts and transferred calls.
By integrating your call center software with your Customer relationship management (CRM) database, simply knowing the number your customer is calling from can bring up information about the customer and prospect data including buying history, support tickets and all previous interactions with your company.
Agent efficiency
Efficient calls are dependent upon the call center’s ability to direct calls to the right representative. Effective call center management applications should include the ability to route calls to the appropriate representative based on various options like language, knowledge, experience, etc. This is accomplished using data from Interactive Voice Response (IVR) capabilities, CRM and other sources to deliver great customer experiences.
IVRs can respond with prerecorded or dynamically generated audio to further engage with the customer and either respond to their inquiry or route their call to the representative who best can.
Often confused with an auto attendant, the purpose of an IVR is to take the customer’s input, process it, and return a result, whereas an auto attendant simply routes calls.
A more comprehensive IVR can even help answer your customer’s inquiries without the need for a representative at all (for example, checking their account balance). They do this by operating on a strategically developed call flow that’s continuously refined based on your customer’s interactions with it. This often means that your customers will receive a faster response and you can reduce the number of representatives required at any given time.
Most call center phone systems and software include some sort of IVR capabilities as a standard feature, allowing you to easily record your own greeting or to choose from prerecorded options.
Metrics, Reporting and Training
In business, it is said that if something is worth doing then it’s also worth measuring. And the best way to improve and optimize the effectiveness of your customer service call center is to collect comprehensive metrics, evaluate them, and adjust your service delivery to meet any changes.
Call center phone systems have the ability to collect these metrics and generate reports on them. This can help you monitor your call center staff’s performance, understand why and when your customers are calling, and better forecast your staffing needs so that you have enough representatives available to manage the call volume but not so many that some are sitting idle.
The metrics that your call center’s phone system’s provide should include a minimum of call volume, call length, call abandonment, hold time, and customer satisfaction for each individual representative and the call center as a whole.
These metrics will help inform any decisions you make, form the basis of employee performance evaluations, and help you to learn from the better representatives to help coach those who may be underperforming. They can also arm you with quantitative justification in case you have to take any unfortunate disciplinary actions.
The Bottom Line
Call center systems and technology can be bought as standalone software, part of your overall phone system service or even as a cloud service. There are plenty of companies lining up to be your Call Center Service Solution provider. Where they differ is in the functionality they offer, how it is implemented and how they support it after the sale. As we here at Teledata Select always say, understand your business first then set up the technology to support and grow with it.
Teledata Select offers a whole range of services that will help you meet your business goals. Starting with a complimentary review of your current telecommunication bills to identify errors and find opportunities for savings, better service and more functionality. We also offer project management for new service implementation and infrastructure installs, including fiber and low voltage cabling. Call us at 404-257-1502 to discuss your current Telecom Service Solution and what you would like to get out of it. Or send us a note via This Link to start a no obligation discussion of your specific business technology needs.
Don Miller is a PMP certified Project Manager located in Charlotte, NC. He has come to Teledata Select via Seattle, New York and Washington DC. His experience running small to multi-million dollar projects in the Banking, Software, Telecommunications and Insurance Industries across the US has given him a wide range of business experience.
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