Ready to Upgrade Your Contact Centre Software?

Susan Ysona at Talkdesk explores some of the key considerations for businesses when choosing contact centre software.

Customer expectations are changing at a lightning pace and the acceleration of digitization, as a result of COVID-19, has forced many businesses to reconsider their approach to customer experience (CX).

It can be a daunting task, choosing the best solution for your business, with packages varying considerably in terms of cost, ease of use, deployment time, security, reliability and uptime. However, no matter what your individual business needs, the cloud can help take customer service to the next level.

Connecting Your Systems

If you started out with a small team, it’s likely that you would have relied on a business phone in the early days to manage customer queries. As you scaled up, you might well have implemented a helpdesk system to handle emails.

Following further expansion, you may have realized that live chat functionality and a robust customer relationship management (CRM) system were also required to keep better track of customer interactions.

Using these tools in isolation is inefficient and, as many businesses realized in the early days of the pandemic, can seriously hinder your ability to adapt in the face of new challenges.

Contact centre software can integrate these key business tools, connecting all aspects of your customer service department. With two-way synchronization of data, whenever customer information is updated, your system will spring into action and automatically update across the board, meaning agents can rely on a single interface for all their needs.

To further assist your team, many of the mundane day-to-day tasks can be automated. For example, if a call is missed, the system can create a new ticket in your helpdesk, with the call data and voicemail transcription, saving hours of time per month, which can be put towards more value-add activity.

Reducing Costs

It’s no secret that the cost of add-on features is skyrocketing, but they’re deemed increasingly necessary to help bolster the basic capabilities of business phones.

Despite features like hold, mute and transfer being perfectly adequate for small teams, as your operation expands and the need for call queues and recording becomes greater, implementing specialist software is a must.

For businesses looking for the most cost-effective solution, cloud or browser-based solutions offer a number of money saving benefits, compared to their on-premises counterparts.

First and foremost, they require little to no upfront investment and many also offer pay-as-you-go options.

Cloud and browser-based solutions are also most likely managed by the service provider, so you won’t require a dedicated IT team to manage maintenance or upgrades.

As these systems proved during the height of the pandemic, no matter where your team is located, they can continue to work cohesively, with managers able to view progress and performance or identify any worrying trends.

Improving Customer Service

For businesses looking to gain a competitive advantage there’s no space for outdated customer service features or the inability to glean insights from data to improve interactions. For example, customers now expect call handlers to have the relevant information up on screen, ready to deal with their query as efficiently as possible.

When teams use a business phone, it’s up to the individual agent to ask the customer for relevant information. Of course, some agents are great at this, but some aren’t.

After a while, if the central system isn’t kept up to date, you may notice that important customer information is lacking, hindering your ability to effectively deal with questions or complaints.

Whether customers reach out over email, phone or instant messenger, cloud-based customer service solutions can help your team track every interaction – digital or telephone.

Relevant, comprehensive data can also be compiled to help optimize the team’s approach to interacting with customers. The software can also scale up as you do, ensuring continuity of service – no matter what.

When you do decide the time is right to invest in a new solution, the Talkdesk Buyer’s Guide can walk you through the buying process, help identify your team’s needs and guide you to the most appropriate package to suit your business requirements.

For more information about Talkdesk - visit the Talkdesk Website

Call Centre Helper is not responsible for the content of these guest blog posts. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of Call Centre Helper.