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Why Call Center Quality Assurance becomes a Key Differentiator for Businesses?

You may have heard “This call will be recorded for monitoring and training purposes” if you’ve dialed a customer care number to find the answer to your query. And highly likely, you’ve walked past it, but, why do companies need to monitor the calls?

Imagine a business that closes deals on calls. How would the managers and supervisors analyze the agent’s performance? What if an agent is not adhering to the script and is distracted too often. The more the agents are going haywire, the more it takes a toll on business revenue.

Since customer experience is the key to making your business a brand, what if agents are inducing negative behavior and you are losing potential customers. Your agents are the face of the business and if you’re not generating an experience that your customers want, you’re losing on it.

This said, let’s try to understand what is call quality monitoring?

Call center quality assurance is the process to analyze if agents are delivering wow experience to the customers. A business needs to analyze key metrics like the agent’s attitude, customer satisfaction, query resolution, and more. Call quality monitoring is considered to be an effective approach to improve the experience that the callers are expecting.

It’s good news for supervisors that they can closely monitor the performance of each campaign and discover the problems in the team. With the right call center software, supervisors will find all the answers like which campaign is performing the best, where it needs modification, which agent is struggling to have qualified conversations and more.

How can you improve Call Quality?

Now that we know it’s important for the businesses to keep a check on agents’ activities, here’s what you need to know to improve the customer service standards. Customer interaction management is a tricky business and once your customer decides to switch to the competition, you will lose that customer forever. Therefore, a business needs the right call center monitoring tools to retain the customers and deliver a lively brand experience for them.

Let your Agents Assess their Performance

We all learn from our mistakes and when agents are given an edge to assess their own performance, they will be able to analyze their mistakes and learn to tackle different situations that the job demands.

Agents must be allotted a time in the week to evaluate their own calls. They can score their performance on the basis of customer satisfaction, quality of service, query resolution, average call handling time and more. He/she could asses the call quality on the basis of language proficiency, adherence to script, conversion rate and identify gaps in their performance.

Let the Data Talk

Supervisors can draw meaningful insights when they have enough data to support their strategy. For instance, if the average rating for an agent is 3.5/5, the supervisor can check the data and listen to specific calls to make it 4-4.5.

Though it is not possible to monitor each call, supervisors will get a holistic view of the agent’s average handling time, query resolution rate, call hangup details and more.

If a customer disconnects the call while he/she is put on hold, it could reflect as bad customer experience and a supervisor can deep dive into the matter to avoid such patterns in the future.

Live Call Monitoring

An agent could be talking to a friend and his auto call status may show as “active”. Supervisors can check on a live call and “force logout” an agent who has not been productive.

Live call monitoring also helps in providing assistance to the agents who are stuck on any call. A supervisor can:

Snoop in to check if the agent is on a call with the customer or is sitting idle. While the supervisor snoops in, both agents and customers won’t about it.
Whisper to the agent if he/she is stuck and needs help or assistance from the supervisor to resolve the customer query. The advantage of this feature is that the customer won’t know about whispering and this can add value to great customer experience.
Barge in if the agent is not adhering to the script. This allows the supervisor to take over the call and the agent is put on mute. The supervisor can handle such calls for a better customer experience.

Live Updates on WallBoard

Let your team see the shared goals on a live screen. Real-time data keeps the team going. Display data like number of leads qualified, customer satisfaction score, number of calls in the queue and targets to be achieved in the given time.

Urgent alerts could be created for high SLAs to ensure that everyone is on the same page and work towards the same goal of achieving SLA. Displaying exceptional performance of the hour on wallboard works as a motivation for the agents to strive to work against the odds.

Scoring Agents for Call Quality

Supervisors can score agents on the basis of certain parameters that are important to deliver a wow customer experience. For instance, if the agent’s language proficiency is 9/10, query handling is 8/10, and adhering to script is 7.5/10, the average score will be 8.1/10 which is fairly a good score.

The scoring parameters allow supervisors to breakdown the agent’s performance and gives them insights into how they can improve their existing practices. If an agent score 9.5/10 then his/her call could be used as an example to train other agents.

This also allows supervisors to assess the skills of the agents and they can allocate the agents on the basis of their best-suited skills for future campaigns.

Managers and supervisors must make call center quality assurance a priority to ensure that the experience that you deliver as the brand is not compromised on any level. Agents are the face of the business and if they are not delivering the right experience, businesses can thrive and may have serious implications that would affect business goals.

Still not convinced? Check out our blog on What, Why and How of Call Center Quality Assurance and get better insights into it.

How Bad Customer Service Affects Your Business

There are no questions that customer service is an integral component of any business’s success. You might have an awesome product and great pricing but if your customer’s experience is not good, then you are losing the ultimate battle to win their hearts.

What is Bad Customer Service?

Bad customer service is when the customer has an unpleasant experience with your brand. This can happen at any touch point throughout their journey. These touch points are the moments of truth (MoT) for the business and opportunities to win them over. Whereas, if things go for a toss here, then that leaves a bad taste.

Impact of Bad Customer Service

54% of customers have higher expectations for customer service today compared to previous years. This percentage jumps to 66% for consumers aged from 18 to 34 years old (Microsoft). So, if as a business you will not prioritize customer service experience, be ready to face some or all of the following consequences.

1. Bad Word of Mouth

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”

Warren Buffett

Tweet

If you are not careful about monitoring and improving your customer service experience, then you are opening yourself to a whole new level of bad brand reputation. Always remember – customers love to talk about their experiences and more so, when they are bad.

With social media becoming such a big phenomenon, dissemination of information has become face and easy. A single tweet or Facebook post or a video can go viral in no time. Some examples of the same can be seen above.

2. Lesser Conversions

You call the customer service department and are made to hold the line while a message plays saying “Please hold the line as all our executives are busy at the moment”. What is the first thought that comes to your mind? I assume you get frustrated and this is aggravated further when you have to abandon the call or you never hear back from the executives. All of these bad experiences align with the notorious reputation that people have of the customer care department. The more frequent these poor experiences are, the lesser the chances of a prospect converting into a customer.

3. Loss of Business & Customer Attrition

Studies have shown that it is costlier to acquire new customers than to retain existing ones. And the fact of the matter is that a great product is only so much without awesome customer service. According to a report, around the globe, 96% of consumers say customer service is an important factor in their choice of loyalty to a brand. Frequently bad customer support experience makes the customers unsure of your brand and hence, make them look for better alternatives.

4. Reduced Employee Morale

Poor customer service not only has an external consequences but can lead to your best employees feeling burdened by handling frustrated and angry customers. There can be a sense of free riding within the team i.e. good customer support executives picking the slack for the not so good agents. If this continues for a long time, employee morale goes down and so does the service levels. At the same time, if the organization ties the agents’ hands and force them to follow a rigid structure, without much freedom, there can be a sense of helplessness among them.

Repairing the Damage – Ways to Improve Customer Service

Today customers have plenty of alternatives – the competition is very high. Be it a product or a service, there will be someone else in the consideration set. So, being customer-centric and having an edge over the competitors is the only way to attract and retain your customers.

Let us look at some of the ways to ensure pleasurable and memorable customer service.

A) Don’t Make Customers Wait or Repeat Themselves

A call center software will help you effectively manage your customer service process. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) combined with intelligent routing rules reduces the customer wait time by quickly connecting them to the right agent/ department. And in case of high call volume, allow your customers to hold their queue position even after disconnecting the call.

At the same time, call center integration with a CRM gives your agents all the information about the customer’s journey thereby improving the quality of conversation. For instance, if the agent can see that the customer had called earlier about a faulty product and sent an email for the same with more details, the agent is in a much better position to resolve the query satisfactorily, without asking the customer to repeat the details again and again.

B) Value Customer Feedback

Recording and analyzing the customer feedback gives you insights into what your customers think about your brand and what are their expectations. Provide them with various portals and channels to share their experiences.

“52% of people around the globe believe that companies need to take action on feedback provided by their customers.”

Use this feedback constructively rather than being defensive and getting into a social media war. Doing that will only aggravate the situation and will further hamper your brand’s reputation.

C) Omnichannel Support

Do not limit yourself to a few communication channels – be on all the channels that your relevant audience prefers. For urgent and important issues, you need to have the provision of call, whereas for any lengthy or procedural documents or manuals, email is the best platform. Since we are living in the ‘messaging’ age where customers like to text, having chat support further simplifies their customer experience.

D) Empower your Agents

Your employees are your best brand ambassadors – leverage them to the best of your abilities to create a pleasurable customer experience. One of the most famous examples of this is the Ritz Carlton’s $2000 Rule. Ritz empowers its employees to spend up to $2,000 to solve customer problems without having to involve the manager. These employees can spend up to $2,000 per incident, to rescue a guest experience.

Training your agents and giving them the right tools and technology is another way to help them help your customers. For example, using an omnichannel helpdesk software, the agent can get a 360-degree view of the customer – regardless of the channel via which the customer has contacted. These context-driven conversations resolves issues faster and leave a positive impression on the customer.

E) Celebrate Your Wins

Lastly, just like you own up to your mistakes, you need to celebrate the wins as well. Let your prospects and customers know about these successes. Social media has been the front-runner in this aspect. Similarly, you can spread the word by doing other marketing activities like email campaigns, case studies, newsletters, etc. All of these activities when done consistently will significantly improve your brand recall and help in increasing your customer base.

Aadhar e-KYC: What’s In It for your Business

If you are an Indian or have had any financial transactions (online or offline) you must be familiar with the concept of updating your KYC. In case of retail banking and other digital wallets, it has already been made mandatory for a seamless experience. The customers could update the details offline or using e-KYC. Now, the same online procedure has been extended to other financial institutions as well – brokerage firms and fintechs.

In its recent circular, the Securities and Exchange Board of India has issued a circular regarding the process to be followed for Aadhaar-based electronic KYC exercise for domestic investors. According to the circular, direct investors can simply go to the AMC’s website and use Aadhaar to do the e-kyc process.

Advantages of Aadhaar e-KYC Services

Instant and online verification – no more long waiting time
Secure and safe way to submit documents with KUAs
Data security & privacy maintained with UIDAI’s internal encrypted software

But, What does it Mean for Businesses?

#1. Faster Onboarding of Investors

Good news for all the mutual funds and brokerage firms, as with the Aadhaar eKYC being allowed, it encourages more investors to join the bandwagon. The trends saw a decrease when the Supreme Court disallowed the use of Aadhaar data for financial transactions. Which meant that a Permanent Account Number (PAN) was mandatory for every investor KYC.

#2. Customer Experience

Doing away with the need to depend on offline channels for KYC verification, things have been simplified for the customers. Now, they do not have to wait in long queues to submit the hardcopy of the forms and then not having proper tracking mechanisms too. The move is particularly well appreciated by the millennials who prefer the digital world rather than having to go from center to center.

#3. Cost of Acquisition

With the option of Aadhaar e-KYC the mutual fund and brokerage firms can significantly reduce their cost of customer acquisition. Earlier the firms had to incur the cost of hiring field agents and setting up kiosks at various locations to get new customers. This number can now be reduced which will eventually have a positive impact on the bottom line.

#4. Higher Small Town Penetration

It is a great opportunity for the investment firms and banks to tap into the semi-urban and rural population to increase investment penetration. These people have already got their bank accounts mapped to their Aadhar cards, so onboarding them towards small investment schemes like SIPs will become easier. Moreover, this is also an effective way to increase awareness about the need for investments and basically widen the clientele base while doing good for the society.

Conclusion – Is that It?

While e-KYC is a positive move for the people in general, but we cannot forget about a large chunk of our population which prefers the more conventional way of handling their financial transactions and investments. This more mature and aged strata is not as tech-savvy as the millennials. So, the bottom-line is, that going digital might be the right thing to do, but the growth needs to be inclusive.

RBI has recently permits the Video KYC as a method of customer identification. Video based KYC is cost effective and saves lot of time. Ameyo is recently launching Video KYC to improve the customer onboarding process and the solution is fully complies with RBI V-CIP regulatory guidelines.

Ameyo and Kapture Integration solves Call Center Agent's Real-Time Problems

What is the end goal of your business? If you are making ends meet to make your customers happy and still the results are depressing, it’s time that you consider integrating your call center software with a CRM that offers you the right tools to smoothen your sales process.

If you are a CEO, Marketing Director, business owner, or anywhere between these, you must have had the challenge of solving the most basic agent problems to increase TAT and decrease manual tasks. That’s where an effective CRM comes in.

Your customer wants the answer now!

How do you ensure that they are not waiting for quick response? How do you ensure that your agents are not stuck in finding answers to customer’s queries?

With an effective CRM, you can ensure that your agents are delivering the experience that your customers are looking for. Integration is the answer to most of your queries and your agents could provide the best solution to your customers when provided with the right integration capabilities. To establish the customer-centric world, your agents should have a platform that provides them with an instant solution, to help reduce the number of clicks and double the work-time efficiency.

What does Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) do for your agents?

Did you get a chance to ask your agent what they want? What do they need to keep track of customer’s information? Are you recording customer data manually? Here’s what you need to know before exhibiting the next round of conversation with your agents:

Accessing Information in a Click

If your agents start their conversation with a mundane pitch that says, “Hi, I’m calling from XYZ bank and we’re offering home loan,” you’ve already lost the customer because he/she is a student and is not interested in home loan.

But, education loan might work well for them. How would agents know if they need to sell a home loan or education loan? With a predefined context of customer’s information, they will know how to start a conversation and the conversion rate will increase. This is where integration helps, because it gives a preview into customer’s information prior to the call is made.

Eliminating Manual Errors

“It’s a wrong number.” Is this the standard response that your agents are receiving? This is a practice that consumes most of your agent’s time because they are busy dialing manually and making errors.

With an effective click-to-dial functionality that Ameyo-Kapture Integration offers can do wonders and reduce human errors like dialing wrong numbers. Agents can simply click on the contact number and the call gets initiated without any scope of mistake. If the number already exists in CRM, the agent will also be able to see previous interaction history to customize their pitch and deliver the desired results in less time.

Single Sign-On

When agents spend more time switching tabs, they lose their productivity. How great would it be if they didn’t have to remember multiple passwords and a single click would land them into desired application?

With two way synchronisation between Ameyo and Kapture, agents can log into an account with a single username and password and access multiple applications. This eliminates the need to toggle between multiple tabs and retrieve customer information without any hassle.

Quick Call Functionalities

The customer has landed in the wrong queue and you cannot deliver an “I don’t know” experience for the customers. What could agent do then?

With Ameyo Kapture integration, agents can quickly take another person on conference or transfer the call to the right department without compromising on exceptional customer service. This helps in increasing first call resolution significantly and ensure that your customer is satisfied with your service.

Adding to it, agents can also add notes to existing interactions in real-time and update the information in CRM which could be availed for future references.

Real-Time Reporting & Monitoring

How well your agents are performing is the question that you raise in every board meeting! What if you had statistical overview of all the data?

Ameyo integrated with Kapture Service Cloud allows supervisors to monitor agents’ performance and analyze business specific metrics. Supervisors can take informed decisions when they have numbers that define average call handling time.

With these extensive reports, supervisors can draw insights that could be used to train agents and help in bettering their performance.

Ameyo Kapture integration is a complete package of all the features to create a customer-first environment and make your agents’ life easy. When agents have the right tools, you’ve got your business goals settled because with a powerful CRM integration, it becomes easy for the entire organisation to be in sync.

Not convinced yet, here’s a list of things that you can check to Boost Agent’s Productivity with extensive CRM Capabilities.

Conversations’19: Our New Way to Explore the Opportunities

Coversations’19 has been amazing to Ameyo!
After a successful journey in Africa and the Middle East, Coversations’19 knocked on the door in APAC to bring in the booming change in the face of Contact Centers. From Malaysia to the Philippines and Cambodia, our team of customer engagement experts has walked around the globe to help businesses unleash the secret to customer win through simplifying their customers’ journey.
We’re happy to mention that it was a collective achievement for the company and hence appreciate the efforts of some key people who actively indulged in the events- Sachin Bhatia, Rahul Zutshi, Binzad Aliar, Shobhit Gupta, Nikhil Sharma, and Deepak Basavraj from the Ameyo family went beyond all boundaries to explore the painstaking aspects of various businesses in APAC. Through Conversations’19, we got a fair chance to communicate with people who were actually looking out for a major drift in the way how contact centers work. The events were highly cherished in all three regions of APAC and got gigantic admiration from our respective technology partners, prospects, as well as customers.
With Ameyo’s omnichannel contact center solution, we were able to make businesses in APAC understand the virtues of modern customer engagement strategies to ace the market competition like a boss! People loved how Ameyo’s solutions- Voice, Omni, and Fusion CX have got excellent features around informed conversations, single view of customer interactions through various platforms, accurate reporting, robust monitoring and analytics, and of course, not to be overlooked highly capable automated dialers.

Conversations’19 in Malaysia

Our preferred channel partner- Tommy Ng, Sales Director at Microtel Technology has embarked on this superb journey with his experience in the industry. He addressed the audience and shared his thoughts on how contact centers in Malaysia can improve their customer engagements with advanced contact center software. He talked on how Ameyo’s modern call center software can be true companion for businesses who’re endeavoring on improving their overall call center operations and CSAT. Here’s a glimpse of the event.

Conversations’19 in Philippines

The Philippines alone has got a huge hub of renowned BPOs. These BPOs are consistently putting efforts in modernizing the call center technology in order to provide their customers with unremitting customer service and sales operations. It was an absolute pleasure to be there, exchanging views on improving customer experience and engagement. From our loyal customers like Ian Madrid, CEO of SP Madrid, to preferred channel partners like Cornelius Macalino from CYN Solutions made the event a sure-shot win! Here’s a glimpse, have a look!

Conversations’19 in Cambodia

Conversations’19 turned out to be great in Cambodia with our preferred channel partner Erya Hounheng from Advanced MSP. It was truly amazing how we got to share some insightful thoughts and ideas in a way that attendees loved to implement in their existing business operations. Ameyo’s omnichannel solutions were highly appreciated and we owe this success to our technology partners. Here’s a glimpse of the event, see how it won hearts!

Conversations’19 was a great start for Ameyo in every way and we look forward to keeping it going to help businesses from other corners of the world as well. Stay tuned to Ameyo for latest updates on contact center software.

Solving the Most Common Operational Call Center Problems

Next in my series of Solving the most common Call Center Problems (also read Solving the Most Common IT Call Center Problems) is the Operations Team’s perspective. Once the IT department has looked at the feasibility of the call center software, the operations team’s job starts. These are the people on the ground, the ones who are responsible for the smooth functioning of day to day activities. Even though their problems are linked to that of the IT department but it’s more on the lines of making things simple and easy to use.

Let us address some of these concerns that a call center manager might have and try to provide a satisfactory resolution for the same.

Problem: How to Manage the Agents?

A BPO typically handles operations for various businesses and within this, there are multiple campaigns for each business. For example, a banking call center will be handling inbound queries as well as doing telesales. It’s imperative to be smart with resource allocation.

Solution: Real-time Resource Allocation

With Ameyo Voice user management tools, the supervisor can simply assign and re-assign agents from one campaign to another. This is particularly useful in case of peak traffic. For instance, it is observed that during financial year end, there is an increase in incoming queries about bank statements. So, during that time the supervisor can easily more agents in the inbound campaign.

Problem: Reducing Manual Effort

Agents have to make and take numerous calls a day which leaves them with not much time to do other tasks. Sometimes that hampers their motivation levels and makes the work monotonous and thus, increases the chances of making mistakes.

Solution: Automating Operations

Automating the routine and mundane using dynamic place holders or configuring event and time based rules is one way to tackle the issue of manual tasks. For example, while sending an acknowledgement or status update on a pending query, the agents no longer have to type in the unique identification code (name, ticket ID,etc) its taken care of by by simply selecting relevant placeholder.

Problem: Measuring the Day to Day

Being an operational head one has to ensure that the processes are working seamlessly. Moreover, if there is any glitch, it is important to have the visibility to fix it pronto.

Solution: Live Monitoring and Dashboards

Have real-time stats about the number of available agents, the customers waiting in the queue, the number of agents on break, etc with call center live monitoring tools. At the same time, the supervisor can perform various actions on a live call such as snoop, barge, whisper and even force logout the agent if she/he deems fit. This allows the operations manager or the supervisor to monitor the quality of conversations. Having multi-format reports which can be scheduled further allows the supervisor to analyze the productivity at the end of each day.

Problem: Controlling Call Center Operations

A call center software which makes you too dependent on your vendor is of no use. As an operations person who is constantly on the floor and managing various processes and call center campaigns, one needs to be able to have quick work around to ensure everything is in order.

Solution: Flexible and Configurable Features

Some call center software look great in theory but once you implement them things turn out to be completely different. It’s always advisable to have a demo of the setup prior to deployment. Being able to filter dashboard data, setting threshold limits, campaign and queue wise agent management are some of the useful configurations that allows the managers to effective management. Moreover, she/he can also design the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) flow according to the business requirements along with setting the routing algorithms to ascertain first call resolution (FCR). Similarly, in case of an outbound scenario the supervisor has the option of selecting the dialing strategy which will be most suitable for better connect rates and conversion.

Solving the Most Common Call Center Problems (IT’s Perspective)

Building a call center is a tricky business since the agents are the frontline, the first point of contact for customers who are in a fix or prospects who are looking to explore your product or service. Thus, before putting in that kind of investment – financial as well as personnel effort one might get skeptical and have plenty of questions in mind. More so if you are the IT Head of the organization and are trusted with the responsibility of setting up the call center

In this article, let us try to answer some of the most pertinent problems or questions that one might have before setting up their very own call center for customer support and service.

Problem: How much Money to Invest

Solution

The best way to tackle this issue is to plan ahead. Prepare a budget. One of the most important considerations should be the deployment model you want to go – whether you want to have an on-premise call center or looking for a cloud-based call center software. Cloud call center software are subscription-based – you pay what you use. On the contrary, in case of an on-premise, it calls for a bigger investment.

Problem: What about Existing Infrastructure

Solution

Deploying a call centre software is all well and good but happens to your existing infrastructure? All the hard phones, PBXs, laptops, etc cannot go down the drain and they do not have to. Ameyo’s call center integration takes care of this effectively. With readily available connectors for leading CRMs and applications like Salesforce, Zendesk, Freshdesk, Freshsales, SugarCRM, LeadSquared, etc your call center can be up and running in record time while utilizing your existing systems.

Problem: Support and Scalability

Solution

When you are starting your business, you naturally expect it to grow and progress with time. This means whatever software you end up buying has to be able to scale as your business grows. Moreover, the call center software provider needs to have the means and workforce to provide you with all the support that you might need at present and in the future. Afterall what’s the point of having a call center if its does not have a high uptime.

Problem: How Customizable is the Solution?

Solution

As an IT person, one of the most important questions are – how well the software meets your business requirements. One thing to keep in mind here the deployment model. In case of an on-premise and private cloud setup customizations are easy but it’s difficult with private cloud call center. With personalized call center software you can have the interface color-scheme in alignment with your brand (adding the company logo, choosing the color of the buttons,etc), design and automate your business workflows and/or get customized reporting and monitoring tools – to name a few.

(Also read: How you can make your life easy with a configurable call center software)

Problem: Multiple Vs Single Vendor

Solution

Last but definitely not the least is deciding on the best call center software vendor for your business. Will one vendor suffice or it is best to put your eggs in multiple baskets and go for multiple vendors.

	Multiple Vendors	Single Vendor
Integration	One block to choke Collaboration time Multi-Compatibility issues	Unified Platform Ready availability of feature updates
Time to Market	Tighter Collaboration and Project Execution needed	Faster procurement Faster Deployment and Training
Workflow Management	Data Inconsistency Operations Overhead	Minimal Compatibility issues Streamline operations Data Coherence
Implementation Cost	High Support cost Training cost increases	Lifetime savings Reduced Integration costs

Conclusion

Setting up a call center is just a primary step towards delivering winning customer experience. Today, we have tried to answer a few of the most pertinent questions that one might have before planning to build a modern contact center.

Are you struggling with one of these common call center problems? Talk to our experts and start your call center today!

Guide-To-Select-Right-Call-Center-Software-for-Your-Business-300x178

When Conversations’19 Touched Down at Middle East

After the success of Conversations’ 19 in Zambia and Zimbabwe, it was time to move on to the Middle East (ME). We started our ME leg with the city which derived its name from the Arabic word kut i.e. Kuwait. Post which it was time to move on to our next destination – Bahrain.

Spending a Day in the Kuwait City

Its All About Keeping It Simple

The event which was focused on sharing knowledge and experience about the world of contact center and customer experience started on a high note with Binzad Aliar, our AVP – Sales (ME & Asia) emphasizing the need for contact centers to keep things simple rather than complicating it.

For instance, when IVRs first came into being, people were excited about them. Whereas now, customers crave to talk to an agent – they seek the human touch. However much the technology evolves this shall remain true.

Maintaining the Balance

Unless living under a stone, practically no one has been left untouched by technology. But, the trick is to maintain the balance between using and abusing technology. “Initial technological transformation was wow then it became maniac and now it is heading towards toxicity” added Binzad.

Moving from On-premise to Cloud

While talking about recent developments in Kuwait, Sundararaman Krishnamoorthy, COO at Future Communications Company FCC mentioned “The disruption has started. Organizations are increasingly moving towards a cloud-based call center set up because of ease of scalability and lesser maintenance responsibility”

This trend is being observed world over as more and more players are entering the industry. A cloud call center requires lesser infrastructural investment and thus, comparatively a lesser financial risk.

Transforming Customer Engagement at Bahrain

Customer expectations have evolved in the last decade and that has transformed businesses’ outlook towards customer experience as well. Being customer-centric is the need of the hour. That’s where contact center technology comes into the picture. From being just focused on calls and voice as a medium of communication, customers have evolved on to using different channels such as social media, chat, WhatsApp, etc.

As the market changed, so have the call center solutions. “Ameyo which started as a small call center software provider has now evolved into a global customer engagement solution” Binzad Aliar noted at the event.

Adding to that Tareq Fakhroo, Director of Fakhroo Information Technology Services WLL (FITS) our channel partner in Bahrain mentioned “Ameyo sounds like I Am You i.e. I am you… How can I help you” this is in alignment with the brand’s ideology of keeping our customers first.

Contact centers of yesterday have transformed into customer engagement centers. From earlier being transaction-focused, organizations are becoming more and more customer-centric. Additionally, from an operations standpoint, call center managers have done away with giving prime importance to just call center metrics and KPIs and are increasingly acknowledging the need to be focused on customer experience (after all CX is the next battleground). This is just the beginning – with artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other emerging trends, we can expect the customer experience landscape to change drastically in the years to come.

Configurable Omnichannel Call Center Software To Serve Your Exact Business Needs

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when I say customer care or customer support? Let me just go on a limb and guess – Call center? Am I close or am I closer? Most of us look at a call center as a number of people sitting in front of their computers with headsets, talking on the phone. And you are not wrong. Though, the call centers of yesterday have evolved into Customer Engagement Centers of today – supporting more than one channel (voice) such as email, social media and/or chat.

With this evolution and contact centers becoming an important piece of the customer service puzzle, businesses evaluate the call center software providers with a fine-tooth comb. With varying business requirements, it’s best to go for a software that allows you to do most of the tasks yourselves (agents and supervisors) rather than going back to the provider. Having configurable call center features will make things simple for the managers and thus, ease their workload.

Configuration vs Customization

Both these terms are frequently used in the tech world. Although many confuse the two. Let me define them for better understanding.

Customization means writing a new code that is outside the purview of the existing software or application. That means more effort and higher risk as it calls for the programmers to modify a program or write a program to do something that the software does not presently do.

Configuration refers to using the tools and capabilities already existing in the software to meet the business requirements. That means no need to involve a programmer or writing new code. Hence lesser efforts and less risky as well.

Some Configurable Call Center Features

#1. Agent Break Options

Call center agents’ days are packed with customer interactions, calls and managing non-call work as well. With so much work on their plate, it is obvious that they need a break at times. With a call center management software you can achieve that by deciding what all break options you want to provide to your agents. Not only that, the supervisor can monitor these for each agent. For example, if an agent has been on a break for more than the stipulated time, the supervisor will be able to track that under live monitoring.

#2. Configurable Applications/ CRMs

Have the freedom to integrate any CRM, application and/or Order management or any other system using an omnichannel call center software. With the CRM at their fingertips, the agents can view and edit the customer data in real-time. This two-way sync between your call center software and the CRM will enable pushing and pulling of data from the CRM in real-time.

#3. Call Dispositions

Let us first understand what do we mean by call disposition. Simply put, these are the outcome of a call (inbound/outbound). Usually in a call center, once the call ends the agents have to mark the purpose of the call. You can choose what dispositions to add based on your business requirements. For instance, a call center for Telco will have options like – internet issue, broadband issue, new connection request, etc. Once the supervisor generates the call details report she/he will be able to know the most frequent issues that the customers call for. Which in turn will help them to make them a priority and bring necessary improvements so as to reduce the number of complaints and improve overall customer satisfaction levels.

#4. Setting Your own Call Routes

The most important job of a call center software solution is to resolve the callers’ queries quickly and satisfactorily. The key to doing that is – connecting the caller to the right agent. Imagine a customer called to know their bank account balance but they are connected to the lost credit card department. What will happen then? No prizes for guessing – they will be irritated. As a call center manager, you do not need to rely on your vendor to set these call routing logic, you should be able to configure them on your own. Some of the common routing logics are First In First Out (FIFO), Least Recently Used (LRU) and/or Round-robin. Setting these rules is crucial as they have a direct impact on your brand reputation, customer satisfaction, and agent’s efficiency.

#5. User Role Privileges

The capability to assign privileges to the users (agents or supervisors) to view, manage, edit and update customer interactions. For example, providing the agents with the option to have auto-call on or off. This means if the agent has switched off the auto call button she/he will no longer receive any call. Agents can use this option while performing post-call work. But, if you want the agents to be available to take calls at all times, then the call center manager can revoke this option.

Moreover, as a supervisor, you can move around your agents to different campaigns and queues as per requirement with these call center software features. For example, you observe that presently many customers are waiting in the credit card queue, you can assign more agents to that queue in real-time to manage the peak call traffic.

Conclusion

As can be inferred from today’s discussion, call centers are there to make your customer service a seamless experience for both your customers as well as the agents. Whether you opt for a cloud-based call center solution or an on-premise setup, it is important to choose software that works as a business enabler. It should be able to cater to all your call center needs while empowering your team to manage the operations themselves – without having to go back to your vendor for small issues. The true testament to the right call center software is that it makes its users efficient and independent while keeping customers at the heart of their operations.

Why Businesses are moving to the Cloud Contact Center Solutions in South Africa?

Successful businesses choose innovation and they invest in contact center technology that keeps up with the customer service standards. Customer experience has become the talk of the town and there isn’t a business that is not swept by the wave of this change.

And why not? The cloud contact center is the future, and the future starts today with the change. With the ease of deployment, cloud contact center solutions are a rescue to challenges like working across different geographies, scalability, operational costs, security, and compliance.

According to Forbes, 83% Of Enterprise Workloads Will Be In The Cloud By 2020.

The cloud model, hosted over the internet, has everything that you would get on-premise, only with a lot more ease of connecting your agents with other agents and customers. From Abacus Insurance to 3 Way marketing, businesses are choosing cloud to deliver value for each interaction, making cloud the solution for simplifying interactions.

What does Cloud Contact Center Solutions bring to your business?

Flexibility and Scalability

Cloud based contact center software provides easy scaling up to accommodate an unanticipated call volume around holidays, and then scale down when additional resources aren’t needed.

For instance, in the travel industry, you may get a large number of inquiries about holiday packages and you need more agents to handle all the queries. Don’t worry, you are in safe hands because virtual call center software provides easy scaling without any hassle.

Improved Business ROI

Are you wondering how? Once you move to the cloud, you can forget about the costs involved in hardware installation. With a minimum investment, you can go up and running in less time. But, how does that add value to your ROI?

Operate your business with ease and monitor call details, agents’ performance, call volume trends, call distribution and more in one screen without worrying about multiple software. Integrate your cloud contact center solution with platforms like CRM, multiple channels for driving contextual interactions, allowing your customers to access different channels without any additional cost.

Channelize Cyber Security

Moving to cloud brings its own kind of data threats and compromising on sensitive data is not an option.

Studies say, 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for enhanced customer experience.

Customers share their data by placing their faith in your brand. They want proven security and you can deliver the comprehensive customer experience by saving data leakage with Virtual Private Network (VPN) and ensure a safe customer service environment.

Ensure Business Continuity

Moving from on-premise to cloud based contact center solutions ensures that your business is running without a break. In case of unprecedented disaster, cloud solution provides a high level of business continuity as the redundancy/backup is availed as a default offering by cloud contact center software providers.

Due to operational hardware failure, it may take months to recover on-premise. But, on-cloud, you will not have to lose on your business even for a day. You can continue to serve your customers with a promise of 100% uptime service level agreement (SLA).

In a nutshell

It’s time that you move to cloud contact center and improve your business efficiency by being the leader of this change. Avoid the need to have technical assistance, making your business a hassle-free go-to platform for your customers.

Here’s the key to change your customer experience game and build a brand of tomorrow by moving on a resilient cloud contact center software.