Choosing Contact Center Solution Providers

Is your business meeting your customers’ expectations when it comes to Customer Experience (CX)?  Is your call center meeting your needs? Or are you hesitating to set up your support desk because you find the choices of contact center solution providers overwhelming?

Maybe your business is small to medium-sized, and you think implementing CX capabilities, typically associated with contact centers, is only for larger businesses. This is no longer the case as these advanced capabilities are available and affordable for businesses of all sizes. Businesses need a competitive edge to grow, and the new battlefield is CX.

The impact to a business is greater than most people know.  According to a McKinsey & Company article, businesses that focus on CX grew 2X more over 5 years than businesses that did not.

Key Takeaways:

• Narrow your search down to contact center solution providers that can meet your needs as your company grows.
• Your contact center should be easy to install, have great customer service, and be secure from data breaches or losses.
• Look for an omnichannel contact center that works anywhere you have internet and has strong reporting and analytics capabilities.

Understand What Contact Center Solution Providers Do

Before you start shopping or even listing what you’re looking for, make sure you fully grasp what contact center solution providers offer. A search for call center services or software might lead you instead to an answering service, which focuses on simply taking and relaying messages to you.

A contact center is your team or department that communicates with your customers across all channels. These teams can handle more complex support tasks and sales outreach.

A contact center solution provider sells you a subscription to high-powered software that your call center team uses. The application makes the connections with callers and enables you to organize details from interactions and manage your team.

Identify Your Contact Center Needs

Next, you should identify the capabilities you need out of a contact center. This step helps you determine not only which contact center solution providers are viable candidates but also which additional features you should invest in and which you can skip.

Consider how many agents will be on the system, which tools you require, and how much support you’ll need from your provider. Schedule a time to discuss and detail these concerns with key stakeholders in your organization.

Find a Service That Will Grow With You

Your contact center shouldn’t hold you back from expanding your business. Find out how simple it is to add additional lines for new agents. It should also be easy to reduce lines and features if you experience seasonal ebbs in demand.

Cloud-based contact center solution providers are the best in this regard. The vendor hosts your software in the cloud, so you can adjust connections, permissions, and features quickly from your admin dashboard.

Look For Easy Installation

In the past, contact centers required physically installing lots of equipment, which cost significant time and money. Here, again, cloud contact centers take the cake. You can set up a solution that could be running within a week with a solid provider.

Avoid Isolating Your Contact Center Users From the Rest of Your Business

Today, contact center users and agents don’t have to be separated from other users within the business when it comes to communication. You should look for a cloud communications solution that integrates UCaaS and CCaaS into the same platform, with the same user interface. More providers are trying to provide this seamless offering, but since few providers own the entire tech stack of UCaaS and CCaaS, most can’t deliver on the promise. As more and more staff are involved with supporting customers, enabling your customer-facing employees to effectively communicate with everyone else in the business will increase first-call resolution and ultimately improve customer experience.

Ensure the Provider Allows Software Integrations

Top contact center solution providers make collecting, storing, organizing, and retrieving customer info a breeze with productivity app integrations. Your contact center as a service solution should work seamlessly with your CRM or ERP programs.

Insist on a Location-Agnostic System

Now, even boutique businesses can go global in manufacturing and sales. Likewise, your hiring should not be location-dependent, especially for contact center agents who need to be available for customers across time zones.

A cloud contact center works anywhere an agent has internet. This gives you access to a deep talent pool of remote workers and can reduce your overhead on office space and employee compensation.

Demand Top-Notch Customer Support

While you’re helping your clients, you’re going to need assistance from time to time with your call center software as inevitable challenges arise. The best contact center solution providers have responsive customer support that is with you from day one to help you onboard and keep the system running smoothly.

Verify the Provider’s Experience and Expertise

Your vendor must be knowledgeable and capable of providing you with assistance that promotes the success of your whole organization. Look for a provider that has years of experience with your type of operation.

Investigate the Reporting and Monitoring Capabilities

Your supervisors need excellent tools that help them monitor agent effectiveness. Your contact center solution should have comprehensive monitoring features that show your service level, wait times, and answer rates. AI-empowered analytics help you interpret that data accurately.

Opt for Omnichannel Connectivity

Your choice should be among true contact center solution providers, not just call center providers. Find a communications vendor that handles more than voice calls. Whether chat, SMS, email, or video, customers should be able to have seamless contact with you across channels.

Don’t Overlook Security, Privacy, and Compliance Concerns

Talk with a prospective provider about how they manage and secure the information passing over your lines. A reputable contact center will have sufficient data centers that back up your data so that data loss is not a worry. 

Additionally, security should meet strict standards to prevent a breach. If you’re in highly regulated fields, such as medical, legal, or financial, the provider must comply with applicable laws for your location.

Work With Intermedia: The Industry Leader of Contact Center Solution Providers

Intermedia should top your list of contact center solution providers because we deliver on all of these requirements and then some. Talk to us about how we can help you set up a contact center that helps you deliver smarter customer engagement from anywhere.

Patrick Sheehan