The complete lowdown on call centre software!
The complete lowdown on call centre software
Despite the rise of digital communication channels, the phone remains a powerful tool for customer service. Customers often find phone calls reassuring, especially for complex issues requiring immediate attention. This enduring preference highlights the importance of optimizing your phone-based customer service. Let’s explore how contact center solutions can elevate your phone support to new heights.
What is call centre software?
Definition
Call centre software is a software package that is used for handling phone calls. It allows you to deal with incoming calls, outgoing calls, and call campaigns.
In concrete terms, it is a technological solution designed to manage activity and improve the efficiency of telephone call processing. All the features are gathered on a single interface, designed for each user: operator, supervisor and administrator.
The ultimate goal is to deliver an exceptional customer experience and increase team productivity. .
From call centre software to contact centre software
Today’s consumers’ expectations are constantly evolving, but one trend is taking root: email, chat, SMS… They use multiple contact channels throughout their customer journey and want to use each of them at a time that works best for them.
As a result, an increasing number of call centre software packages are evolving into omnichannel contact centre packages, to provide an even smoother experience for customers.
What are the different uses for call centre software?
The goal of call centre software is to make it easier to manage and track incoming and outgoing phone calls. All types of companies can use call centre software, provided they receive a significant volume of calls and feel the need to manage them better.
Below are two examples of effective use of call centre software.
Customer Service
Customer service staff need powerful call centre software to deal with complaints and very specific requests. This will enable them to provide personalised and prompt customer experience, and appropriate responses.
Telesales, telemarketing and teleprospecting
Telephone prospecting is a daily activity for telesales, telemarketing and teleprospecting staff. They therefore need an effective tool for carrying out outbound call campaigns without wasting time on tasks with low added value.
3 criteria to consider when choosing your call centre software
Criterion n°1: choose a software package that contains the essential features for a call centre
Call centre software has many smart features that will simplify management of your inbound and outbound calls.
The first feature that may be useful to you is intelligent distribution of calls, more commonly called “ACD” (Automatic Call Distribution): it will allow you to distribute your incoming calls according to your needs and constraints. In concrete terms, the system receives incoming calls and transfers them to the right advisor according to your predefined criteria.
For example, intelligent routing will pass the call to the most competent agent for a specific request. You can also distribute calls depending on your opening hours or as dictated by the interactive voice server menu (“for parcel tracking, press 1”).
What are the benefits? Providing your customers with an appropriate and prompt response, and therefore increasing overall satisfaction.
The primary purpose of the IVR is to help you dispatch incoming calls according to choices made by voice or via the telephone keypad.
However, today you can go much further with this “smart” technology, opening up a whole new world of possibilities. Thanks to IVR, you will be able to direct calls to the right resources, personalise the caller’s journey or accompany customers towards more autonomy (self-care).
What are the benefits? Allocating your resources to higher value-added tasks and providing a smooth path that is adapted to your needs.
Do you mostly make outgoing calls? Then the auto-dialler is bound to become your favourite feature! It allows you to automatically dial phone numbers from a database or a predefined list.
It is the ideal tool to enable your teams to carry out effective outbound campaigns and naturally increase call volume. The icing on the cake? Your staff will spend less time on tasks with low added value.
What are the benefits? Increased team productivity through significant time savings.
Activity measurement functionality is also essential for assessing service levels and staff performance. Easy-to-use dashboards and scheduled reports will allow you to monitor the relevant KPIs for your call centre and use quantitative and qualitative data to fine-tune your action plans.
Quality of service, waiting times per time slot, number of calls… Analysing these statistics is helpful for monitoring the performance of your customer journey and adjusting your strategy.
What are the benefits? Having a clear vision of your business so you can make the best decisions on a daily basis.
Creating a climate of mutual support and training your staff has become essential to boost their motivation and improve their productivity. Monitoring tools will help you manage your call centre activity and the performance of your advisors, either on site or remotely.
In concrete terms, they will allow you to monitor your advisors’ communication more effectively and to support them in dealing with difficult calls, so you can be sure of the quality of your call centre. or example, you can record and assess calls easily, see real-time statistics in the blink of an eye, or enable discreet listening with just a few clicks.
What are the benefits? Live supervision of your call centre activity and your operators.
A final essential feature is the integration between call centre software and your existing business tools, such as CRM for example. These days there are manyAPIs, web services and webhooks that allow you to connect the two solutions easily.
In addition, this will make it possible to use the data from the CRM to facilitate the customer journey (preferred agent, customer status, etc.).
What are the benefits? Creating synergy between your business tools and facilitating your daily management.
Criterion n°2: Pick a call centre solution that suits your needs (cloud vs on-premise)
In the call centre software market, companies can choose between two types of solution: on-premise or cloud-based.
Historically, the on-site version was largely dominant. It is a system that forces companies to install very expensive equipment and routing servers directly on their premises. Quickly obsolete hardware, long implementation times, local equipment failure, complex to extend the system to other sites… This model’s limitations are becoming increasingly apparent.
Today, companies aspire to more flexibility and speed and have new ways of working. The on-premise model is making way for cloud-hosted call centre solutions.
The benefits of cloud software are multiple:
Is your business spread over several sites and/or do your operators regularly work remotely?
A 100% cloud call centre software works wherever you are, at home or on the other side of the world. No hardware or software installation is required, just a good internet connection.
Also, the work interface is the same whether you are at the office or working remotely. Operators can therefore have access to all the features, and supervisors can monitor activity in real time and remotely.
In addition to being a solution that is perfectly suited to new ways of working, cloud-hosted call centre software will make life easier by providing you with flexibility and agility.
As for implementation, this type of solution is deployed in just a few minutes.
There are no ongoing maintenance costs, and administration is much simpler. You can adjust the call centre’s capacity at any time or manage operators’ skills with just a few clicks.
A cloud call centre solution is first and foremost scalable. It adapts to your needs in particular by guaranteeing easy and fluid integration with all your business tools or your CRM. These will save you precious time by unifying all your interfaces.
Using APIs, Web Services and other dedicated connectors, you can, for example, access a customer’s conversation history or interface the call centre software with your IS environment. This allows your advisors to work efficiently and seamlessly and, ultimately, helps deliver a quality customer experience.
Opting for a 100% cloud-based call centre solution also has a significant cost benefit. These solutions have been designed for companies who are looking for flexibility, not a long-term commitment. Rates depend on usage, and subscriptions (monthly or annual) are adjustable at any time depending on the workload.
Criterion n°3: choose a software editor who will provide ongoing support
Finally, choosing your future call centre software means choosing a long-term partner who will support you with all your issues.
Behind every call centre software package, you will find dedicated staff to support you during the analysis phase and implementation of the solution. However, their mission is also to help you on a daily basis, in the management and development of your customer relationship.
Choose a software publisher with whom you can build a relationship of trust and proximity and who will help you grow your business over time.
Choosing call centre software is an important decision. Now you know everything you need to know, and you hold all the keys to choosing call centre software that will meet your needs!
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