Call Center Software

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Communication is complicated. How many messenger apps, phone services, email features, and social media platforms have you used to connect with your customers? It can be unfortunately easy for calls and messages to get lost in the fray.

Call center software, such as that offered by Gladly, provides a streamlined solution to the smorgasbord of communication platforms available in the world. By harnessing that collective power into one program, customer communications is made easier, and allows your company to provide ongoing top-notch service.

What is Call Center Software? 

Call center software integrates all of your methods of communicating with customers — PC, browser, and phone — into one platform, effectively creating a central customer communications hub. It serves to automate and standardize the process of receiving and responding to customer phone calls, and includes such operations such as:

• Quality monitoring.
• Call recording.
• Speech and text analytics. 
• Virtual queuing and web callback.
• Social media support.

Who Uses Call Center Software?

Any business with a customer base can and should use call center software, even if your company is just getting started. Within a company, call center agents are the primary operators of call center software, and a good call center platform will be designed for their ease of use. 

Call Center Equipment: A Brief Guide 

Here are the must-haves for your physical call center.

1. Internet. Whatever device you’re using to send and receive calls, your call center must be equipped with a reliable network connection or phone service. With a good internet connection, you can do anything.
2. Computers. Whether working from home or from a commercial location, a desktop computer allows call center agents to not only send and receive customer communications, but allows them to personalize each interaction by having the customer’s information right at their fingertips.
3. USB or Bluetooth headsets. Hands-free all the way. Agents can provide the best and most effective customer service if they are able to access customer information during the conversation. 

Why It’s Essential to Use Cloud Contact Center Software

Everything is in the cloud these days, and call centers should be no exception. 

Cloud-based call centers require minimal onsite hardware, meaning they are more flexible and scalable than a traditional model. Businesses can grow exponentially, adding more and more call center agents to their roster, with little added cost to call center modifications. It also allows agents to work from a wider variety of places, should the need arise to go remote, as it has during the current global pandemic. 

Internal IT operations are often bogged down by traditional call center maintenance requirements, between upgrades and routine operations. A cloud-based system allows you to remove these traditional hurdles and free up your internal IT team.

And cloud-based centers are cheaper to maintain. A monthly flat-rate fee gives you access to compliant, high-quality software, and lets you avoid the expenses associated with on-premise solutions. 

Call Center Software Features

On top of the call-in-call-out basics, quality call center software offers a comprehensive menu of other features designed for useability, and to enhance the customer service experience.  

[Features fronted by Gladly are especially created to center the customer, and not the ticket, prioritizing a people-centered approach to customer service.] 

REPORT

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Modern Call Center Software features you must have: 

• Customer assignment – Customer requests are assigned to the customer, and not the request ticker. This allows agents to access historical customer information, and provide them with a personalized experience.
• Built-in channels – Voice, email, text, chat, self-service and social media are all built-in to the platform, alleviating the need to integrate third-party communication platforms.
• Single-view customer profiles – Everything your agents need to know about a customer is right there. Name, lifetime value, and purchase details are all readily available within the first 5 seconds of their conversation.
• Lifelong conversation thread – One customer’s conversations across all communication channels are integrated into a single thread, so that agents can access a customer’s history with your company, without needing to ask them for clarification of a previous problem, or asking them to repeat themself. 

Other common call center system features include:  

• Automatic call distribution (AUD)
• Call center monitoring and analytics
• Call recording
• Call transfer and three-way calling
• Contact management
• Computer telephony integration
• Workstation recording
• Live call coaching
• Performance evaluation
• Predictive dialer
• Speech analytics
• Technical support
• Hold music
• Voicemail to email or text
• And more. 

Types of Call Center Software 

Call Center Software is an umbrella of tools used by service and help teams. These various solutions include:  

• IVR 
• Outbound Call Center  
• Inbound Call Center Solutions  
• Virtual Call Center  

IVR Software

Interactive Voice Response is an automated voice system that gathers information from callers and routes them to the appropriate recipients. 

Outbound Call Center Software

A centralized office used to receive or transmit large volumes of enquiries by phone. The agents make outgoing calls to prospective or existing customers. 

Inbound Call Center Solutions

A centralized office which receives calls from existing customers for reasons such as product or service support or administration. Solutions for operations such as these include call center software services such as Gladly. 
 

Virtual Call Center Software

A call center which is not located at one specific physical location. A single call center may have agents distributed across a number of different geographic locations. Agents may also be working remotely.  

How to Choose Call Center Software

What call center software you choose for your company will depend greatly on the size and age of your business. 

The average number of clients which your company services in a day will be the foremost determiner of what kind of call center software you will use. This will determine other factors, such as the number of agents required, the number of physical assets needed, the growth projection of your company, etc. 

Enterprise Call Center Software

Your primary concern for your call center software as an enterprise company will be volume capacity. The solution you choose should be able to handle a daily average of several thousand calls a day, all of which must be attended to with equitable care and consideration. Automate your system as much as you can, by looking for solutions which feature AUD, call recording, predictive dialers, and technical support. 

Small and Mid-Sized Call Center Software  

 Your primary concern for your call center software as a small and mid-sized company will be personalization. Enterprise companies snare enormous consumer bases in part by providing excellent customer service, and this is done through personalizing each customer experience, and making them feel like a part of your commercial family. Your priority when searching for call center software should be solutions which make the customer the center of attention. Look for products which allow you to best keep track of customer interactions.  

Startup Business Call Center Software

Your primary concern for your call center software as a startup business will be scalability. The solution you choose must be flexible, scalable, and has to move and grow alongside your new business. You should be able to effortlessly add more agents to your team and more client profiles to your database as your customer ground increases, otherwise you might find yourself suddenly swamped with more customer enquiries than you can handle. 

Your solution should be cloud-based, and feature smart learning features such as call center monitoring and analytics. 

Final Thoughts: Call Center Software

You already provide excellent customer service. And it could be even better with a top-quality call center software. Follow the above guide to find the right solution for your company.