If you’re running a call center, you are familiar with how crucial call center technology is in improving customer experience. Without the right tools and technology foundation to support the call center infrastructure, your call center is incapable. Let’s discuss a little bit more about call center technology in contemporary call centers.
What is Call Center Technology?
Every Call Center requires the right technology to power principal operations, boost customer experience and cut expenses. This is what encompasses call center technology in a call center – what makes up and complements the underlying infrastructure.
Difference Between Call Center Technology and Call Center Infrastructure
Most people can’t differentiate between call center technology and call center infrastructure. While they are very alike in nature, and are often used interchangeably. In this article, we are going to try and define both terms as well as point out how dissimilar they are.
Call Center Infrastructure refers to the set of software, hardware, and network components enabling a call center to operate effectively, like LAN Network and VOIP Telephony. In contrast, call center technology typically refers to the numerous sets of technologies employed to enhance customer experience and operations in a call center, like automatic call distributor, intelligent contact center routing and so on.
Technology Essentials in a Call Center
When it comes to call center technologies, the following are some important technologies you must have in your call center:
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
With a call center, your staff are going to come into contact with a wide variety of callers. Managing them effectively with a CRM tool is one of the best ways to engage with customers on a regular basis. Some of you may ask why? This is because your marketing & operations teams are going to require to access the contact data on a daily basis.
If you’re searching for the most effective CRM to handle your customer experience, then one that has a fully-encompassing 360-degree customer view to gain a complete view of all customer engagements is preferable.
Automatic Call Distributor (ACD)
Automatic Call Distributor, or ACD, handles all the incoming calls that a call center gets and initiate pre-set rules to forward it to the most suitable agent. The most progressive form of modern contact center routing is Intelligent skills-based routing.
Call Center Routing can significantly improve first call response, or the rate at which questions are responded the first time. According to SQM Group, a 1% improvement in first Call Response converts to $276,000 in yearly operational savings for the typical call center.
Predictive Dialer
A predictive dialer is used for automating outbound calls, where a system automatically dials a distinct set of numbers while calculating which call center agent will be available to receive the call when it successfully connects. This is one aspect of the call center dialer technology.
Computer Telephony Integration (CTI)
Computer Telephony Integration, or CTI, enables call center staff to manage their call dialing without having to handle physical telephones. There are many benefits of using computer telephony integration in a call center.
Self Service
Nowadays, customers aren’t looking for assistance with their issues, they want to find solutions for their problems themselves. With the support of intelligent self-service options like artificial intelligence IVR or chatbots, customers can solve their problems easily without much effort.
According to The Harris Poll, almost 50% of customers with texting capabilities would favor pressing a button to start a text conversation instantly, rather than waiting on hold to talk with an agent.
Case Management
A case management system is used to professionally manage customer inquiries via ticket management system to log the problem at each stage along the progress in real-time. Having a customer experience platform with integrated case management system can hugely enhance customer satisfaction in a call center.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Big Data are all hot topics in the call center industry. Besides that, AI can also be used to enhance customer experience. Possessing the capacity to extract beneficial business intelligence from big sets of data instantaneous can offer crucial insights for customer experience perfection. Social Media Sentiment Analysis can be integrated to comprehend the visitor’s emotion at the exact stage of the customer journey.
In less than a year, the consumer will be able to maintain 85% of the relationship with a business without engaging with a real-live agent according to Gartner.
Social Media
Rather than call a representative for a question, consumers would rather go online on social media channels, like Facebook or Twitter, to obtain real-time data about their issues. It is much simpler to confirm if a website is down by checking on social media, rather than giving a call center representative a call.
In a tougher customer service circumstances, customers can use social media to notify the company about their query by leaving their Order ID. There is no doubt that there is a growing role of social media in business.
If you want to attain an ideal customer-agent engagement in your call center then having an effective Customer Relationship Management (CRM) can go a long way in making this a reality.
Real-Time Analytics & Reporting
Without real-time inputs from a reliable reporting tool, you’re left to believe your hard work is hopefully paying off. With data coming in from all touch points, agent, and team – your staff is in a much better position to service consumers effectively by examining and interpreting incoming data. Most customer experience software has real-time customer experience analytics to comprehend and enhance customer experience in their industry.
Call Center Technology – Where Does Your Business Stand?
Since call center technology is still evolving and improving every day, it is difficult to pin-point precisely where a business stands in terms of call center technology. Do you require more progressive call center technology to power your business to greater heights, or just a trivial system upgrade to address a departmental problem? In any case, you should start with performing a customer experience assessment before doing anything to ensure that the call center software you chose for your business is effective and falls within your budget.