One thing that can’t be denied is that technology is always changing. This is definitely true when it comes to call center phone systems. Today, these systems do much more than receive inbound calls and allow support teams to talk to customers.
The right system can also streamline your company’s operations, help you learn more about your team, analyze and improve the effectiveness of your processes, and even boost your overall brand image. Phone systems are sometimes overlooked, especially if you already have one in place, but they are more powerful and beneficial than you may have assumed.
Whether you’re setting up a new system or looking to upgrade your current option, understanding everything that a phone system can do for your business is crucial. The right choice can significantly boost your customer support center operations and help your business be more organized, productive, and profitable.
What are Call Center Phone Systems?
In short, these tools are designed to accept a high volume of inbound calls so that business customers can speak with staff at a call center. When you’re managing a business, providing quality customer service is extremely important. You need to be able to field technical support calls, customer inquiries, and much more so that you can effectively provide your clients with the information and assistance they’re looking for.
A call center system also handles outbound calls, in order that staff can reach customers, make sales calls, and provide other services.
However, in today’s business world, contact center software does more than just help you handle a large call volume. These tools help your support teams perform better, and provide a better customer experience. They also help you monitor performance and streamline and improve your operations. This is because modern tools offer options that previously weren’t available to most businesses. Understanding these options and why they matter can help you choose the right call center phone systems for your company.
Call Center Solutions
There are several things you should be on the lookout for when you’re choosing a call center solution. Here are a few features that are typically found in systems today. These options can provide your business with a significant boost to operations and make it easier and more convenient to deliver high quality customer service.
Here are some features you may want to look for in a new phone system for your business.
Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)
One of the most powerful and practical services that call center solutions provide is automatic call distribution (ACD). This is a must-have for any call center as it automatically routes calls to agents depending on availability and pre-set rules. ACD allows you to efficiently distribute calls to agents, ensuring that calls are answered promptly and are routed evenly to agents as well. This reduces the potential of agent burnout and provides better and more effective customer service.
Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
A call center needs to be able to direct customers properly. When someone calls your business, they could be asking for a number of different things or have a variety of different questions or issues. Getting them to the right department, agent, or service is crucial.
Interactive voice response or IVR systems let callers use voice responses or menu options to obtain information. This ensures that calls go where they should, but it also lets customers resolve certain inquiries without speaking to an agent at all. For instance, the system can let callers know your business hours or provide assistance with common technical issues.
Many new systems use artificial intelligence (AI) to handle repetitive tasks or simple queries. This frees up live agents to handle more complex issues.
Call Queuing
Sometimes there will be situations where all agents are busy and incoming calls will need to go into a queue. In these situations, it is important to rank these calls in the order they came in, so no one loses their place in line. You also want the option to play messages or music while the customer is on hold, since this lets them know that the call hasn’t been disconnected. Additionally, messaging can let customers know what they can do to help themselves rather than wait (such as how to find information online), yet still assure them that they are in line.
Routing
When calls come into your call center, there are several ways that they can be routed and prioritized. The most common is to have them be sent to an available agent in the order that they are placed. This is an option that many businesses choose. However, there are other options as well.
For instance, calls can be routed based on skills or requests. In an IVR system, the system can determine why someone is calling and then this call will be routed to an agent with the skills needed to match that request. Skills based routing helps companies get the most from their teams, provides a better customer experience, and improves overall service.
You can also have calls routed so that each agent receives roughly the same number of calls, if you wish.
Routing options further allow you to change how calls are handled depending on the time of day, providing great service no matter when someone phones your business.
Call Monitoring
As mentioned, call center phone systems do more than just handle calls. They also provide businesses with important information. One way they do this is through call recording. Management can use recorded phone calls to analyze how agents are working and use the customer interaction and other information they gather to ensure compliance and improve the level of service.
Call Notes
Once a call is completed, most phone systems allow agents to add notes about the call. This is important for delivering high quality service. It helps future agents better serve the customer and prevents the customer from having to repeat themselves on any subsequent calls.
CRM Integrations
While call notes certainly help agents better serve customers, full integration with your company customer relationship management (CRM) takes this a step further. This integration allows you to better personalize interactions, easily access relevant customer information during calls, and get next steps moving forward as soon as the call ends. Streamlining your workflow in this manner saves time and money while providing a better experience for customers.
Enhanced Outbound Dialing
Customer service often involves making outgoing calls. Call center phone systems can help agents by giving them customer information before dialing. It can also use automated predictive dialing to connect agents to live calls. This ensures that agents don’t spend time searching for phone numbers, and instead be immediately connected to a new call after completing the current one, which saves time and makes the company more efficient.
Agent Permissions
Agent permissions let you decide which agents see what information. For instance, you can choose if information about a client is shared across all agents or just those who have talked with that client. This feature can be used to improve security, and also works to help agents share information and provide better service to clients.
Reporting and Analytics
A major benefit of using modern call center phone systems is that you gain access to information and analytics that can help make your business more efficient. Many systems include live metrics with information on call volumes, average weight times, average call lengths, and other critical performance indicators.
This information can quickly be compiled into useful reports that will help your business become more efficient and provide better service.
You can gather additional information by using post-call reporting. Your system can create and automatically send post-call surveys to callers to capture data about their calls, such as if they were satisfied with their experience. This process can lead to continuous improvement and better customer service.
The Benefits of Call Center Features
It’s one thing to be aware of the many features out there, but it’s another thing entirely to understand why these features matter. They matter because they make your business more efficient. The different options aren’t just there to sound good or to give you greater flexibility: They exist because these are tools that can improve your business.
For instance, automatic call distribution helps your company because it allows you to evenly route calls. You can help your team be more productive by giving all agents similar call loads. This prevents burnout and helps your team maintain concentration and ultimately do their jobs better.
IVR makes it easier for customers and callers to get what they’re looking for quickly. How often have you struggled to find the right options on a phone system and ended up frustrated with a company because you couldn’t get the information or assistance you’re looking for? The right software and system can prevent these issues.
These two examples show the power of choosing the right system. Business phone services are important for many reasons, but are often overlooked.
How Your Call Center System Improves Business
Customer service matters. When customers feel supported and valued by a business, they’re more likely to become repeat customers and recommend your business to others. This is how organizations grow and develop strong and loyal followings.
When a customer has an issue with or a question about your company or your products or services, they want to be heard. They want to be able to address whatever their problem is or have their questions answered. They also want this information as quickly as possible and in the most convenient way possible.
They don’t want to have to go through menu and menu after menu to get the information they need. They don’t want to wait on hold any longer than necessary. They don’t want to end up in the wrong department and be transferred around several times. They don’t want to be asked to explain themselves over and over again to different agents.
What do customers want? Quick, accurate, and polite service.
The right call center phone systems make this possible. When calls are routed correctly, when information is available through the system without even speaking to anyone, and when your setup lets them get to the right agent quickly and easily, they’ll feel supported. This is why getting an effective phone system does more than just help your team answer calls: It improves the overall image of your brand.
In addition to helping your team provide great service, call center phone systems also help your business improve in other ways. With the information and analytics gathered by the system, you can work to improve your company quickly and effectively. Call center software lets you know exactly how long customers are waiting on hold, for instance. If you determine that these waits are too long, you can make changes to speed up the process.
Most importantly, you can do this before customers start to complain. Without software like this, you might have had to wait until several customers brought up the long wait times before recognizing that there is an issue. With the right software, however, you can fix potential issues before they negatively affect your company and your brand.
The reporting and analysis aspects of a phone system also let you recognize high performers in your company. If you notice that certain agents are answering more calls than others, for instance, or if post-call surveys tell you that some employees are providing especially good service, you can recognize these team members for their work. This improves employee morale, engagement, and retention and makes your company a more desirable place to work.
Choosing the Right System for your Company
Every business is different. When you’re comparing call center phone system options, it’s important to think about what matters to your business. There are many features available, but certain ones will be more important to your company than others. Once you understand what’s out there, compare the available features to the ones that matter most to your business. This will help you find the right system for your situation.
One aspect you’ll obviously care about is the cost. While the right phone system is important for your company, you also have a budget, and you don’t want to pay more than is necessary. When you look at the many providers available, you’re likely to see a variety of costs. It’s important to look at just more than the raw numbers, however. Think about what you are getting for your money. You may realize that you can get a lot more from one provider than another and that the cost difference is quite small given the service.
Also, note that there might be installation and set up costs on top of the upfront or monthly fee for the service. There may also be other costs associated with the service, such as technical support or maintenance costs. Whether you choose a plan that includes maintenance, training, and troubleshooting will depend on how comfortable your team is with handling technical issues.
It’s important to think about more than just your current situation. You want to have a phone system that grows and adapts with your company. Having a system that can change or upgrade as your business changes can save you the time, hassle, and expense of having to overhaul your entire system in a few months.
For this reason, a cloud-based VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) system might be the right choice. There are many benefits to these systems, but one of the most important is that a VoIP system is easily scalable.
VoIP Phone Systems Offer Scalability Benefits for Growing Businesses
VoIP phone systems use internet connections rather than traditional phone lines. These cloud based call center systems typically require fewer resources and have a greater range of scalability options. For instance, lines can easily be added or removed as required without a significant amount of work or cost.
There are other benefits to using a VoIP system. One major advantage is that these systems are more portable than traditional phone lines. Since handsets use internet connections, you can add wireless handsets that can function anywhere in the world.
This is perfect for companies that operate out of more than one location or that have employees who travel. Local numbers can be used for these systems, no matter where the physical handsets may be located, and an automated attendant can ensure that incoming and outgoing calls are routed correctly.
A VoIP can be a great choice for any company that wishes to scale up easily or one that wants to take calls from anywhere. This choice is definitely worth considering if you’re looking for a new phone system. Not only can a VoIP system help your business today, but it can help future proof your company as well.
Oppuous can help you find the right call center phone systems for your company. As a full-service technology advisor, we can work with you to understand your needs and recommend options that suit your situation today and in the future. We also offer an innovative self-service portal where you can easily browse providers and services to find the one that is right for you. Visit our digital marketplace today to find the right solutions or contact us directly to find out how we can help.
