Contact center tools are crucial for boosting customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and revenue generation. McKinsey reports that companies with outstanding customer service can outpace competitors’ gross margins by over 26% while making employees happier and operations simpler.
Not all contact centers are equal, and the right features make the difference between a winner and a loser. Find out eight contact center tools you need to succeed.
Key Takeaways:
- A contact center should offer excellent customer support, including self-serve options and one-on-one help.
- Contact center software needs features such as ACD, IVR, recording, monitoring, barge, whisper, and user-friendly dashboards for success.
- Companies that employ a contact center solution should ensure they have the right hardware and sufficient bandwidth to operate the system.
1. Customer Support for Your Contact Center Tools
You need time and assistance to get up to speed with your contact center tools. The customer support for your software must be superb and efficient so you can focus on pleasing your customers.
For example, if you have trouble integrating productivity software, the provider should walk you through the process quickly so you can take full advantage of available features. A contact center software with exemplary customer support ensures you can resolve any challenges for improved business performance.
2. Automatic Call Distribution
An ACD system eliminates inefficiencies that result from manual call routing. You can provide faster response times and superior customer service experiences.
The system routes customer calls to agents with the appropriate skills. You can also set up the system to funnel calls to agents based on specific locations or language preferences. Instead of bouncing between company representatives or sitting endlessly on hold, customers can get the help they need the first time.
Agents benefit because they receive fewer calls outside of their specialization. Your team members experience less stress and fatigue from dealing with frustrated callers. Agents waste less time and can focus on improving their skills, making your organization stronger as a result.
3. Interactive Voice Response
To get the full use out of your ACD, another one of your contact center tools should be an IVR system. Customers now expect self-service options that boost efficiency, and an IVR setup permits that functionality.
The system works by using either touch-tone keypad inputs or voice recordings to guide customers through menus of options. A caller can select the type of product or service they require assistance with.
An IVR significantly shortens customer wait times, making the experience more efficient. You can customize your IVR to use phrases that best characterize your business’s unique brand identity, creating a more personalized environment for callers to interact with.
4. Recording and Monitoring Capabilities
Your contact center is central to your efforts to build stronger customer relationships. Your team will struggle to improve if you don’t have data for comparing performances.
With monitoring and recording, you can get crucial insights into how your contact center is doing, helping you address areas for improvement and ensure excellent customer satisfaction.
5. User-Friendly Dashboards and Analytics
Your data is no good to you if you have difficulty understanding it or if it comes to you as a disorganized list of facts. Your contact center tools should provide an interface that helps you to interpret the information effortlessly.
You can isolate what is wrong and how to fix it with a clear analysis at hand. A user-friendly dashboard has access to:
- Metrics
- Recordings
- Monitoring
- Agents
- Reports
The data helps you to take meaningful actions for better results.
6. Barge and Whisper Features
You don’t have to wait to review the analytics to help your agents improve their calls. As supervisors listen in, they can speak to agents and provide guidance. They can also easily provide feedback between calls.
If an agent needs the supervisor to step in, the barge feature lets a supervisor join the call and speak with the customer. The agent doesn’t need to go through a complicated connection procedure. The supervisor comes on and assists in one fluid process.
7. Suitable Hardware
You need the right equipment to run your contact center. Outstanding contact center tools are no good without the hardware to run them on. Ensure your team’s devices are powerful enough to do everything you need them to. Your contact center representative can help determine if you have the correct equipment.
A bring-your-own-device system can be ideal, but verify each team member has a compatible operating system and device. Without a reliable phone or computer, you can run into poor connectivity or slow software load times. Your customers will suffer as a result.
8. Adequate Bandwidth
You also want to be sure you have internet service that can accommodate all of your interactions. Your contact center tools operate through your internet connection. With insufficient bandwidth, calls can experience distortion and a deterioration in sound quality. Your team may misinterpret requests or miss messages altogether, creating a negative customer experience.
Moreover, not having enough bandwidth can slow down logging into applications or accessing customer information during calls. This can further impact service levels and customer satisfaction.
Ensure your remote teams maintain a minimum level of bandwidth and that all locations can hold up under high call volumes and strong usage spikes. Doing so allows frontline reps to provide priority service with no interruption in the conversation flow.
All the Contact Center Tools You Need In One Place
Intermedia can help ensure that you have all of the necessary contact center tools to make your customer communications a success. Contact us to learn more about our contact center solution and how you can get a system running in no time.
Mariel Santos
Mariel Santos is the Director of Marketing Communications at Intermedia
March 13, 2023
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