There are countless platforms and
applications to power interactions with your customers. From personalised videos to cloud call centre software, chat, mobile apps, and customer feedback systems…the list of products
and services is endless, and the biggest challenge is the time it takes to research all the offerings in the market. Fortunately, there's now a smarter, faster way to source technology. Simply enter your needs through our quick
questionnaire and we’ll connect you with a shortlist of the best-fit suppliers
with just the technology solution you’re looking for.
Contact Centre / Call Centre Software
A CRM system often connects to “call centre software” - somewhat
of a misnomer, as nearly every call centre today needs to be equipped to deal
with a range of contacts, not just calls.
For example, customers are increasingly turning to social media, web
chat, and email to interact with an organisation, hence the term “contact
centre”, which encompasses all these channels, is now commonplace.
Contact centre software comprises a variety of systems which
are designed to improve efficiency, automate tasks, and measure and monitor
performance. For example, a knowledge
management (KM) system enables agents to access up-to-date information about a
product or service easily, reducing the amount of time spent in training, and
allowing customer inquiries to be processed more quickly.
Workforce Management (WFM) software enables companies to
staff in the most efficient manner, reducing “fat” in an operation, and
ensuring schedule adherence.
Through Quality Monitoring (QM) software, managers can gain
valuable insight into individual contact centre agent performance and identify
those who need extra coaching.
When people talk about contact centre (call centre) technology solutions, they are often
referring to a multi-channel system which an agent uses to interact with customers
over the phone and through all other media – the system can report on a range of efficiency and customer experience (CX) KPIs, by channel.
When purchasing call centre software, it's important to
clarify whether the vendor’s pricing is based on “named users” or “concurrent
users”. This can have a large pricing impact in
a 24x7 operation, in particular.
Building a Business Case
Asking the business for sometimes
substantial funds for new technology needs to be couched in terms of benefits
which are readily understandable, and where possible quantifiable in dollar
terms. Here are some of the benefits
which may be relevant to you and your stakeholders:
•Improve
efficiency and reduce costs – this is
always music to the finance department’s ears.
Demonstrate how, despite growth, you can do more with the same headcount
by leveraging technology, thus reducing the average cost to serve a customer. With a product like speech recognition, you
can use market data to predict a reduction in calls which require a live
agent’s attention. And investment in a
mobile app can provide customers with account and service information, as well
as ordering capability, when they are on the go, again meaning less calls to
the call centre.
•Enhance
service to customers – upgrading to a robust knowledge
management (KM) system which allows the same agents to handle hundreds of call types
has massive savings in training costs, wages associated with a reduction in
average call handle time, and elimination of many call backs due to first-time
resolution – resulting in a much higher level of customer satisfaction. Likewise, investing in a quality monitoring (QM) system allows your operations team to actively spot opportunities for improving
the customer experience amongst the agent workforce, and coaching to better
outcomes which mean happier customers and repeat business.
•Learn
more about what customers want –
what every marketing, product development and senior executive should want to
know more than anything. Knowing what your customers are – and are not –
looking for and where your competitors are meeting or failing to meet a market
need, is information that is absolutely critical to a business’s success. Yet so few companies are effectively
leveraging technology to attain this holy grail. Something as simple as a customer feedback platform, or a more complex speech analytics product, are goldmines of customer
insights which can give a company a truly competitive advantage. Big data analytics is now accessible to smaller (20-100 seat) call centres as well, thanks to the advent of analytics-as-a-service.
If you'd like personalised assistance with technology purchasing, please contact sales@aboutmatch.co.uk.