Small Business Contact Center Features
Contact Center features come in three basic flavors, inbound, outbound, and blended. Inbound contact center features typically respond to requests for information or action from customers or potential customers. Outbound contact centers features are usually soliciting new business for the company. And blended contact center features have both of these functions integrated to provide an optimal result for the organization.
In addition to keeping track of incoming calls, placing them in proper queues, and tracking performance statistics, such as call volume, the average time to answer, and dropped calls, contact center feature software can distribute calls based upon the skill set required to address the question, issue or topic raised by each caller.
By rapidly connecting each customer with the right resource within the company, all inquiries can be addressed promptly and accurately. Most organizations have noticed that satisfied customers tend to buy more products and sometimes encourage their friends and family to also become customers of the company.
An outbound contact center feature has historically been referred to as a “call center”, a facility (possibly a virtual one) in which a large group of people makes telephone calls offering some product or service for sale. An important productivity feature of call center software is the automatic dialing function.
Auto Dialers
Contact center feature auto-dialers acquired some smarts and have become “predictive” dialers by applying algorithms to predict the availability of agents in relation to the number of calls expected to be answered at any given moment and overall call volume. They dial numbers from a list of area codes or some other specific criteria until a human voice answers, then transfer the connection to a human agent for follow-through.
In this manner, thousands of phone calls can be placed by computer, and the relatively few that are answered by a human being are immediately connected to an agent. The contact center feature software handles the fundamentals, and the agents have a little downtime, even though a contact rate of 2% of dialed calls is typical.
One of the latest elements of contact center features is the ability to integrate communications arriving by telephone, e-mail, fax, and text messaging. In this manner, a client or customer can approach the company from their PC, their office or cell telephone, or from their PDA, and always receive the same quality of comprehensive service.
When you're running a small business, you need contact center features to be able to communicate effectively with your customers and clients. That's why having a good contact center feature software is essential.
There are a few key features that you should look for in a contact center feature software:
First and foremost, it should be easy to use. You don't want to waste time trying to figure out how to use the software.
It should have good customer support. If you have any questions or issues, you should be able to contact customer support and get help quickly.
The software should be scalable. As your business grows, you'll need a contact center feature solution that can grow with you.
It should integrate well with other business tools. You don't want to have to deal with multiple different software applications. It should be easy to integrate your contact center feature software with the other tools you're using.
Blended Contact Center Features
Companies that integrate an outbound and inbound contact center have what is termed a blended center and may enjoy an additional level of flexibility. If incoming calls rise to a level the company has predetermined may negatively impact service, the overflow can be directed to agents working in the outgoing portion of the contact center features.
Many companies have a contact center feature policy that places meeting the needs of existing customers as a higher priority than working to acquire more customers. The capability to reassign agents within a blended contact center increases their capacity to make this policy a reality.
As with many other software applications, the contact center feature can now be delivered across the web or from the cloud. Using a hosted contact center service can bring greater customer support and sales capabilities to even a small business, at a price they can afford, while minimizing the demands on their IT staff.
Must-have small business contact center features
- Omni-channel support capabilities: The contact center features should offer an Omni-channel contact center solution that allows customers to reach out through the channels they prefer, including voice, chat, email, and social media.
- Reporting and analytics: The contact center features should provide detailed reports and analytics on contact center performance, including abandoned calls, average handle time, first call resolution rates, and more.
- Call recording and quality monitoring: The contact center features should offer call recording and quality monitoring capabilities to help you monitor and improve contact center performance.
- Customer relationship management (CRM) integration: The contact center features should integrate with your existing CRM system to provide a complete view of the customer.
- Built-in automation: The contact center features should offer built-in automation capabilities to help you improve contact center efficiency and productivity.
- Workforce optimization and management: The contact center features should offer workforce optimization and management features to help you manage your contact center agents more effectively.
- Intelligent routing: The contact center features should offer intelligent routing capabilities to route customer calls to the best-suited agent based on skills, availability, and other factors.
- Agent management: The contact center features should offer agent management features to help you manage contact center agents more effectively.
- Interactive voice response (IVR): The contact center features should offer an IVR system to help customers self-serve and route their calls without the need for human intervention.
- Multilingual support: The contact center software should offer multilingual support to help you serve customers in their preferred language.
These are just a few of the must-have contact center features you should look for in a small business contact center software solution. The right solution will help you improve contact center efficiency and performance while providing a better experience for your customers. Make sure to do your research and select a solution with the contact center features that meet your specific needs.
