Over recent years, growing customer expectations have led call centers to adapt their customer service model to stay up-to-date with new trends. In the age of technology, finding the best software for your call center can help promote growth, offer an improved customer experience, and give you a significant edge over competitors.
With that in mind, here’s what to look for when choosing the best software for your call center.
Interactive voice response
IVR (short for “interactive voice response”) interacts with customers using pre-recorded voice prompts through a computer application. Utilizing IVR eliminates the need to answer monotonous calls, which allows agents to devote their attention to more important issues, like helping individual customers. It saves time by automatically routing customer calls based on dual-tone-multi-frequency responses on the phone keyboard.
While most customers prefer options for self-service, they tend to avoid old, outdated IVR systems. Bright Pattern offers natural processing and next-gen IVRs to create a seamless and modern self-service experience for customers. Next-gen IVRs gather data from customers, enabling each customer to utilize interaction histories to route them as needed. Essentially, IVR allows customers to find answers quickly and solve simple issues in a completely self-service mode.
In addition to offering self-service options, IVR systems provide a built-in knowledge base to track performance throughout call centers. IVR features include data collection, as well as reporting, routing, and coaching to improve agent performance.
Artificial intelligence
Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into your customer service model can boost customer satisfaction and agent productivity. Although web chat was the fastest growing channel in 2017, chatbots were only used by two percent of all businesses. The use of chatbots has grown rapidly over the last two years, with chatbots playing a significant role in customer service today.
According to recent data from Spiceworks, 40 percent of all large businesses are planning to integrate chatbots by the end of 2019. Since chatbots are inexpensive and available to help customers at any time, they’re a great addition to any customer service model. However, although digital channels can help customers with simple issues, providing human interaction to solve complex issues is still important.
Quality management tools
Since customer analytics are paramount to the success of your call center, being able to predict growing customer expectations will give you an advantage over competition. Call center software allows agents to view tickets in context. In other words, agents can see previous activities, recordings, and notes associated with each contact during a call.
The ability to view tickets in context significantly improves agent productivity by enabling them to view each customer’s issues. A “screen pop” feature shows agents relevant information, including contact details and forms, to increase efficiency. This eliminates the need for agents to search through data, and customers won’t have to worry about repeating information from previous calls.
Tracking customer data can also benefit your call center by highlighting areas that need improvements. Potential issues in agents’ approaches to customer service can be quickly solved by viewing data on customer feedback, hold times, and calls resolved. Priority customers can be informed of special deals and discounts, while at-risk customers can be retained.
Customer satisfaction is the key to the success of any business, so it’s necessary to maintain an up-to-date approach to customer service. The right software provides the tools needed to improve customer experience and increase agent productivity by integrating digital channels and utilizing data tracking features.
All in all, investing in the right call center software can have a major impact on the success and growth of your call center.