A complete guide to the best call center software
With the right call center software, providing great customer service becomes that much easier. Discover what the best call center software can do for your business.
Introduction
Despite more and more support channels such as live chat and social media coming up, voice remains one of the most important platforms for customer service. Some customers find voice the most convenient way to get answers, some desire the legitimacy of talking with a real human, while others need high-touch support for troubleshooting complex issues.
Yet, maintaining a voice channel can be resource-intensive for businesses. This challenge is exacerbated by the emergence of telecommuting, which forces employers to make remote work a viable option. This is where a good call center software comes in—to help teams get organised, automate manual work, and provide remarkable caller experiences.
If you are looking for ways to be more efficient on voice, browse topics below:
What is an inbound call center?
An inbound call center is the main point of contact for receiving customer calls, where support agents are tasked to help customers on a broad range of topics. In contrast, outbound call centers are focused on making high volumes of calls primarily for sales or research purposes.
Businesses may form their own internal call centers, or in frequent cases, outsource this work to an external provider who manages multiple accounts. In both situations, teams leverage call center software to make high call volumes manageable while maintaining consistent quality of service.
Essential features of inbound call center software
Inbound call center solutions help businesses manage their voice-based customer service efficiently, and at scale. While one of its core functions is to automate call routing, a good call center software should provide the necessary features for agents to resolve customer requests efficiently, for call center managers to supervise teams and evaluate performance, and for the overall business to derive valuable insights based on customer feedback and operational data.
- Interactive voice responses (IVRs): Create end-to-end caller experiences using IVRs, including greetings, routing, surveys, and more.
- Screen pop: Enable agents to reference caller information the moment the call connects.
- Call disposition: Create associated forms (e.g. Tech, Sales, Billing) for agents to take down key information conveniently.
- Call recording: Record calls for quality, training and investigation purposes.
- Call transcribing: Transcribe calls for contextual reference in problem-solving and follow-up.
- Listen, whisper, barge into calls: Managers can use these features to monitor new agents, and help them when needed.
- Phone surveys: Collect feedback on customer satisfaction to uncover improvement areas and training needs.
- Live dashboards: Get real-time operational data, enabling managers to make adjustments and evaluate performance.
- Reporting & analytics: Gain insights into trends relating to call traffic, agent performance and customer feedback for future planning.
- Integrations: Link external software like CRMs or internal systems to access and share useful information across teams.
- Omnichannel communication: Offer additional channels like email, live chat and social media to engage customers on their preferred platform.
- Flexible deployment: Implement software via cloud, on-premise, or hybrid modes according to your IT and business needs.
Benefits of inbound call center software
As a communication hub, a call center software helps businesses maintain a single point of contact, boost productivity and keep callers happy. We summarise three key benefits that impact your customers, teams, and business.
Improved caller experience, higher customer satisfaction
Customers pay for products with the expectation that it comes with your services. A good call center software helps you reduce waiting time, resolve issues faster and provide top-quality service. With that in mind, customers are more likely to return for more.
Higher workforce productivity
Call center software increases operational efficiency by cutting out manual task distribution, eliminating work siloes and ensuring that agents are working on tasks they are good at. Equipped with all the essential tools they need, agents can resolve issues faster without distraction.
Drive business improvements
With live dashboards providing visibility on key metrics such as call volume, waiting time, handling time, and more, managers can better manage bottlenecks and support their teams. At a more macro level, traffic reports help management to anticipate trend, while listening to customer feedback can influence service improvements as well as product development.
Explore additional customer service channels
Email ticketing
Handle millions of emails accurately and efficiently every day.
Voice
Flexible and scalable telephony system for big and small businesses.
Live chat and bots
Interact with website visitors in real time and boost conversion.
Social media
Message customers via SMS, Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook.
Knowledge base
Help customers help themselves with FAQs and support articles.
What is an outbound call center?
Outbound call centers are focused on making calls, where agents reach out to wide pools of people for sales or research purposes. Outbound call centers are typically used by government and social services, banking and insurance, technology, healthcare and retail sectors, and may comprise of internal teams or outsourced to external BPO companies.
Key attributes of outbound call center software
Whether the purpose is to generate leads, complete surveys, or to offer promotions and renewal deals, agents must do two things: call as many people as possible, and keep calls succinct to avoid losing the caller’s attention. Hence, outbound call center solutions are designed to speed up the process of dialing, fact-finding, and documentation. Below, we outline some key features:
- Power dialer: Automate the process of dialing numbers, where agents are connected only when the prospect answers the call.
- Screen pop: Enable agents to reference caller information the moment the call connects.
- Call disposition: Create associated forms (e.g. Tech, Sales, Billing) for agents to take down key information conveniently.
- Call recording: Record calls for quality, training and investigation purposes.
- Call transcribing: Transcribe calls for contextual reference in problem-solving and follow-up.
- Listen, whisper, barge into calls: Managers can use these features to monitor new agents, and help them when needed.
- Live dashboards: Get real-time operational data, enabling managers to make adjustments and evaluate performance.
- Reporting & analytics: Gain insights into trends relating to call traffic, agent performance and customer feedback for future planning.
- Integrations: Link external software like CRMs or internal systems to access and share useful information across teams.
- Omnichannel communication: Offer additional channels like email, live chat and social media to engage customers on their preferred platform.
- Flexible deployment: Implement software via cloud, on-premise, or hybrid modes according to your IT and business needs.
Benefits of outbound call center software
Seamless customer experience across channels
Outbound call center solutions provide a full suite of communication channels, allowing efficient two-way interactions across email, live chat and social media messaging (in addition to voice).
More efficient outbound calling
With outbound call center solutions, dialing and waiting times are eliminated, enabling agents to focus on talking with potential customers. Additional features like CRM integrations deepen the customer context available to agents, while automatic screen pops enable agents to record call outcomes conveniently. Combined, outbound call center software provides a significant boost to agent productivity.
Real-time visibility on operations
Outbound call center solutions help businesses track KPIs, drill down data and drive continuous improvements. Data helps to inform resource planning, performance management, and service improvements.