Holly Wait at Diabolocom shares ideas to consider when finding a new customer management tool.
If you’ve realised that you need to move away from business phones and invest in contact management software, then the chances are you are ready to take your customer interaction up a level and scale up your business!
With this in mind, we think the 7 things below are key things to consider when finding a solution for your business.
How Do I Know Which Tool Is Right for Me?
There are hundreds of tool vendors and solutions available on the market, all with specific benefits and features that may be relevant to you. The key here is your time-to-value.
Undertaking a project such as integrating a new tool or system always has the same objective: You want to start realising the benefits and adding value to your business as soon as possible.
1) Implementation Time and Cost
Look for vendors that deploy through the cloud, removing any long periods of development or expensive on-premise equipment before being able to use the tool. Vendors that can’t offer quick set-up and easy on-boarding will likely add time and cost before you start realising those benefits.
Implementation can be costly, but are usually a one-off cost that can be capexed. Make sure these fees are transparent and the projected timings are clear as you no doubt will want to be getting started as soon as possible.
2) Subscription Type
The biggest benefit you receive from using a Software as a Service (SaaS) vendor is the flexibility you receive. It’s likely that the number of agents in your call centre will change throughout the year.
Being able to switch on/activate licences at any point and having users set up on your new tool expedites things like the on-boarding process of new staff, helps ensure you are compliant with any data protection requirements, and also supports financial forecasting as it’s a set cost each month dependent on how many licenses you activate.
The great thing with this model is that it’s totally scalable to your business and you are in control of your own costs.
3) Features and Benefits
Different vendors specialise in different things, and the right one for you largely depends on your business. Sometimes it’s easy to be blown away by the fancy advertising and sign up for every new feature and widget available, but this can be detrimental to your overall business goals.
If the majority of enquiries you receive come via telephone, ensure your agents have the software that guarantees the quality of those phone calls and can be answered from anywhere.
If you customers prefer to email you, ensure your email system integrates with your tool so that you maintain that overall holistic picture.
The key thing here is optimising for your business today. If you are with a cloud SaaS vendor, they will regularly be releasing new updates and features that you can introduce to your contact centre operations when you are ready to and when your customers will benefit from them.
4) Native Integrations With Your Existing Business Tools
The difference between native integrations and off-the-shelf integrations shouldn’t be underestimated here. If your tool vendor offers you an integration that is a plug-in and not seamlessly integrated, you can lose time and value by having to rework your tools to find workarounds, building bespoke developments and finding data black holes.
When looking at tools, ensure that the development and work has already been done to ensure that you can access all your information from one place. The tools should work together as one tool and should be easy to access with one easy (cyber-secure) login for your agents.
5) Make Sure You Have Inbound Intelligent Routing
When you use a contact centre tool such as Diabolocom, you unlock the ability to manage and track your contact centre operations in real-time and optimise your customer interactions live.
Intelligent IVR routing allows your contact centre manager to route calls to agents who are best equipped to deal with a customer query. When your tool is integrated with your CRM, you can tell whether or not an existing customer is calling, and place them with their account manager.
If it’s a new sales prospect you route them through to your sales team. Give your customers the personalised experience they expect when contacting you.
6) Will It Support Your Sales Funnel?
Ensuring your new tool is omnichannel is something that you really should consider. If you are doing any outbound/proactive sales campaigns, you want to ensure that your customer has the same great experience whether they called you or you called them.
Ensuring that any outbound sales agents can see all communications, previous issues, whether or not they have previously been a customer or the ability to offer them personalised promotions and discounts can make the difference for that all important sale.
7) Comprehensive Reporting
Make sure you are realising all these benefits and keeping track of all this value you are adding with a comprehensive reporting offering available in your tool.
This is inclusive of real-time analysis and monitoring your contact centre throughout the day with things such as virtual wallboards and pinpointing singular interactions, through to comprehensive overviews of all your customer interactions and their outcomes.
