What is a Contact Center? A Complete Guide to Contact Center Technology

1. Optimize and Improve Customer Service

Cloud contact center software takes the friction out of customer communications and helps agents manage relationships. This software can:

• Route incoming calls from a voice option menu where customers pre-select budget, region, or property type.
• Customize contact formats to accommodate people who prefer text messaging.
• Allow customers to schedule queue call backs when the agent is ready to speak with them to minimize time on hold.
• Set up ring groups in the office so multiple phones can ring if there is no answer from the designated recipient.
• Provide missed call information so agents know if a current or prospective customer tried to reach them.

Cloud contact centers enable agents to talk to more customers, deliver more personalized service, and ensure that every call gets the customer closer to a new home. Customers will remember the excellent service provided and will let others know, leading to more business. These contact center benefits underscore the findings of our research on what businesses expect when deploying new contact center software for their small business:

• 62% of survey respondents expect an improvement in customer relationships.
• 55% of respondents anticipate improved efficiency.
• 52% expect increased revenue.

These kinds of interactions can have a profound impact on customer satisfaction, especially for small businesses in competitive markets. Anticipating a customer’s pain points, like hold times and missed calls, and applying technology to ease the strain can position smaller companies as caring and responsive. Contact center solutions help manage resources, reputation, and are simply better for business.

2. Understand Agent Performance

Cloud contact center software has the capability to:

• Monitor call-flow metrics such as customers in queue, average speed to answer, and average talk time.
• Gives a real-time view of agents’ activities, allowing in-depth reporting on their effectiveness.
• Records calls and provides transcriptions to review best practices and examples from stronger insurance reps.
• Sends SMS messages to those callers who hung up prior to speaking to an agent and sends a link to the FAQ section of their website.
• Scales with the company’s business and adapts to seasonal needs.

Supervisors can take advantage of features like “listen” and “whisper” to help train agents whose performance lagged, based on the latest analytics reports. The reporting tools ensure agents know who is spending too long on the phone without resolving queries or closing tickets. And analytics reveal the strongest (and weakest) performers, creating opportunities to improve customer service.

Our research reveals that businesses can do a lot more to manage the performance of contact center employees. Of the respondents:

• 53% review business metrics regularly.
• 40% hold regular coaching sessions.
• 35% use agent analytic tools.
• 27% listen to calls.
• 18% do not manage performance.

Every call is a chance to nurture repeat sales or drive customers away. Contact center software gives managers and supervisors grouped, transparent, segmented analytics, and brand-new reporting capabilities for actionable insights. All of which can help improve customer satisfaction and increase revenue generation.

3. Improve Outbound Calling for Sales Team

Cloud-based contact centers have specific provisions for outbound calling. These include:

• Outbound auto dialer that eliminates manual processes of finding and typing in phone numbers.
• Agents can pre-record messages and deliver them automatically to prospects and customers if the call goes to voicemail.
• Agents can flip from SMS chat to voice if the lead turns warm.

Our research revealed that autodialing can allow for substantially more calls by salespeople every day. More than one-third of those using contact center solutions had implemented the technology, but still nearly two-thirds of business leaders surveyed have not used this tool to improve agent efficiency and productivity. Sales, as any practitioner of the art will attest, is a numbers game. Talking to more people drives more results. Autodialing is one way to free up salespeople, so they spend more time selling and less time making phone calls.

4. Improve Productivity

Cloud-based contact centers with a rich portfolio of tools can help support hybrid workers both remote and in the office. Contact center software provides:

• Connectivity for all employees whether it be on their smartphones, tablets, or PCs. Buying and supporting data center hardware is unnecessary.
• Low bandwidth requirements and high reliability with 99.999% uptime means that workers in the office or at home on lower strength broadband can still perform their required tasks.
• CCaaS softphone capabilities with easily accessible features and a secure login. Staff can work from anywhere without transporting equipment back and forth.
• Seamless integration with leading unified communications (UC) and customer relationship management (CRM) platforms so all customer data is accessible and viewable through one pane of glass.

This makes it much easier to implement flexible schedules and support remote workers because they have a powerful contact center platform. Staff can report higher job satisfaction while their supervisors document productivity improvements. This makes it easier to hire good people, who are less likely to bolt to the competition. Employee turnover declines, making it easier to project salary costs over longer periods of time. The survey of business leaders reflects the desirability of easy-to-use, cloud-based software:

• 91% report that fast deployment is critical or very important.
• 84% say ease of deployment with minimal technical skill is important.

Of course, some jobs are more suitable for remote work than others. But employers hiring people who can succeed anywhere, if they have an internet-connected device, will almost certainly attract and retain better talent for the future.