5 Must-Have Technologies For Call Centers

The contemporary times for call centers have become very efficient gradually because of the latest innovations and technologies such as cloud and mobile. The idea is to keep the customers on priority and everything related to them to be very much oriented towards the customer benefits. Now, a customer service platform should be well balanced between technology and human skills.

Human skill is a matter of training and developing expertise but technology can be chosen depending on the needs. When it comes to call center environment, every technology should be in tandem with the needs of the customers and it should enhance the possibilities towards greater benefits for the customers.

Image Source: Iebschool via Flickr

Technology, definitely can not be avoided in the customer support scenario because it takes care of the essentials for making a customer support platform more productive and efficient.

These five essential technologies are mentioned here that can not be avoided in a customer support environment in contemporary times.

1. CRM Integrated Desktop

The desktop should be integrated with CRM as it makes agents comfortable while accessing the customer data across different channels. The ideas are mostly related to the fact that the agent should have an easy and fast access to the customer related data. It expedites the customer support process many folds.

A customer who seeks for a support leaves a lot many data with the call centers. If this data is used intelligently then it gives many cues to understand the customers and many ways to leverage the benefits out of it. CRM integrated setup makes the agents capable of using this data quite meaningfully.

2. Call Distribution

The number of customers who do their transaction online or make their final decisions for a product purchase after interacting with an expert has grown at an alarming rate and so has the call volume. Now a customer who seeking for a support has two things in his mind, first one is, a proper value should be given to his time and the solution should be apt. So two properties that a solution should cater are immediacy and aptness.

To make this possible, it is necessary to prepare well aware agents and call distribution should be flawless. The way calls are distributed decides how effectively and immediately, customers find a solution. A particular query should reach the right agent.

3. Interactive Voice Response (IVRs)

Self-help tools expedite the process of customer support and it becomes really necessary to have IVR systems in your call center. With time, customers have become more aware and they find it easy to help themselves by following the instructions on the IVR.

So IVRs are one of the must-have technologies for the contemporary call center scenario. IVRs also give a sense of engagement to customers. And in case if a customer is not able to find a solution on his own then a line is always open for the live agent to help the customer with an apt solution.

4. Predictive Dialing

Dialers are one of the most needful entities for the call center environment and predictive dialing has totally changed the scenario towards making a better access to the customers. Predictive dialer algorithm is complicated and intelligent that analyses whole of the data and further making some meaningful deductions based on it.

The algorithm takes care of the different attributes of the customer data such as the demographic details and time zones. Based on these attributes, the predictive dialer picks a particular time to call the customers. This makes the customers more likely to take the call.

5. Tools To Record And Monitor The Call

Call recording and monitoring are two essential aspects of call center environment and they help to improve the customer support system because improvement can only be done by monitoring.

Call recording helps to analyze how the agents deal with the customers in certain circumstances and what changes are needed to be brought out. Call monitoring helps you to check on how many agents are busy and the manager can whisper in the customer agent conversation to guide the agent.

Choose Wisely

The technologies that are being chosen should be well thought over and it should depend on the needs that are there in the customer psyche. Because eventually, the chosen technology decides the efficiency of your call center.

And technology and human skill together make the whole scenario more promising. So it is necessary that they should be able to work in tandem and a productive harmony.