When it comes to choosing the right call center software and formulating its architecture, you need to look for a comprehensive system that manages customer information effectively, improves customer service, and enhances productivity within your organization.
With so many different solutions available on the market, the task of searching for the best call center software can be challenging. In order to meet the specific needs of your business, compare features and capabilities between vendors before buying call center software, based on key parameters such as deployment, company size and budget.
The journey towards making the right software decision isn’t always an easy one. But a business assessment done by consulting your team can be a prime point of reference for prospective call center vendors to understand the gaps lying within your organization - and how to address them.
Before you gather key team members to discuss problems and concerns surrounding your call center, knowing which characteristics you need to achieve via a call center solution is very insightful - so you know which capabilities to deploy, and which ones to omit.
So without further ado, here is a list of features and functions to consider when building stellar call center architecture.
1. Interfaces that are user-friendly and intuitive.
The system you choose should be easy for your end users to understand, and get familiar with. In other words, you shouldn’t have to hire a professional to do the work for you. While numerous cloud-based call center vendors offer initial onboarding and training when you purchase a subscription, it could also be an add-on which requires you to pay extra in order to avail the service.
There are plenty of systems on the market that allow you to perform important tasks like creating new queues, changing call flows, and creating voicemail messages without any difficulty. You can also save a lot of time and money by performing the majority of the work on your own.
If your customer service teams are working remotely, ensure you invest in call center tools that help agents serve customers while working from home. User-friendly interfaces become all the more imperative in such cases, as staff members need to mostly depend on their own knowledge in order to navigate programs and get tasks done.
2. Real-time updates and insightful analytics.
Real-time statistics provide immediate feedback for your agents in order to improve their productivity and performance, which in turn takes a lot of pressure away from your management team. Call monitoring capabilities such as barge and whisper further enable managers to listen in on ongoing calls, and offer advice/tips to agents as the call is in progress. Your agents can also make informed decisions and provide better customer service through self-service tools such as automatic sentiment scores of individual users - so they can approach each user in a more mindful and astute manner.
3. Integrations with existing systems.
Your software solution should integrate well with your existing office systems, providing a higher return on your investment. Enterprise software today is intricately connected to every business department in an organization, so that no data can fall through the cracks and silos are eliminated. By maintaining a centralized database (usually in the cloud), enterprise applications are connected via APIs (in the case of third-party programs), or consist of modular components that are dedicated to each business unit (if it’s proprietary software).
This way, data need not be added more than once, and real-time collaboration can enable multiple users to edit a file at the same time. This not only reduces redundancies, but also offers maximum transparency to departments other than one’s own. When it comes to customer experience, Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) solutions integrate a variety of applications that are central to communication, such as VoIP, CRM and call center.
In fact, the role of call center in UCaaS platforms has now become particularly vital, as agents need to interact with customers across numerous communication channels such as email, SMS and even social media, in addition to voice.
4. Call management and administration capabilities, such as IVR and intelligent call routing.
Since most customers want basic information on the fly and without the help of a customer service agent - an IVR retrieves it from your company database (or CRM system), and presents it to the caller in real-time.
Intelligent call routing gives you the ability to prioritize customer calls, matching those calls with your best agents, and creating a more positive customer service experience. Intelligent call routing also increases first call resolution.
5. Scalability.
As your call center continues to grow, you’ll need a system architecture that matches your growing needs. As a result, you need to choose a system that supports your company from its “mom and pop” phase to a large enterprise with scalable software.
6. A vendor partnership that is tech-centric - yet has your business’s best interests at heart.
It's important to ensure that your call center software is up-to-date with the latest call center functionality.
As you discover new ways to use your software, be sure to find a vendor that consistently reinvests in technology, while always being open to adapt to your needs. In the end, you profit and so does your customer.
