One of the ever-increasing needs of businesses is reliable communication. From internal communication to routine customer conversations, a dependable communication channel has been a necessity of any business. This need has emerged in the industries like call centers, BPOs, KPOs, etc., which solely run over communication tools. Even during the uncertain time of war and COVID-19, which the world has faced in recent times, the business of call centers did not interrupt. In fact, it spiked up with uncertainties. This has made it necessary for businesses to invest in defining the right strategies and adopting the right tools to thrive in certain and uncertain business periods. To help you choose the right strategy, we are going to cover more insight into the most popular call center software, which is known as an omnichannel contact center solution.
Without further delay, let’s dive deeper into this knowledge mine of omnichannel call center software solutions.
Defining call center solutions
It is a tool that simplifies customer communication management with wide ranging features. This software can handle inbound, outbound, and blended campaigns. It can have self serving, automated, and multiple other types of communication features, plus, reports, live monitoring, and other functionalities. It gives a complete tool to manage all types of conversations and even a complete customer journey.
There are three major types of contact center solutions available as briefly explained hereunder:
Single-channel call center softwareÂ
It is a simple solution that supports only phone calls as the major means of communication. You can add other communication channels though with integration services offered by omnichannel solution providers.
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Multichannel call center software
This solution incorporates more than one communication channel into a single platform. It can have two or more communication channels to support customer care operations across multiple touchpoints.
Omnichannel call center software
It is the most advanced type of software for call centers. It incorporates all major unified communication channels within the call center software.
All three types of contact center solutions can have similar features and the only difference would be the communication channels they support.
Defining an omnichannel call center solution
It is the best call center software that supports all communication channels within a single platform. It simplified managing and using omnichannel communication with a single sign-on facility. It also provides a reliable means of maintaining interaction with customers across channels without losing the plot of the conversation. Customers or agents can switch to any communication channel depending on how the conversation leads. The omnichannel contact center solution can also be used with self serving features along with human interaction with the right tools implemented by the omnichannel solution providers.
The following are the supported communication channels in this software:
-         Phone calls
-         WhatsApp
-         Twitter
-         Facebook
-         Email
-         SMS
-         Help desk
Best Practices to use omnichannel call center solutions
As you now understand what Omnichannel Call Center Solutions is, let’s define the best practices to use this software. This will help you deliver better services to clients and improve the KPIs.
Put trained team for omnichannel communication handlingÂ
Just because an agent is using Facebook the whole day, he is not an expert in Facebook based customer relationship management. The moral of the story here is to choose and allocate agents to each communication channel after running the right process. If required, give them the training to be professional on each communication platform.
For example, if your agents are using WhatsApp for communication, they should limit the usage of emoticons even if the customer is using them a lot. Being professional is the first rule of any customer care or sales campaign. Likewise, not using hashtags in response to clients while responding via Facebook messenger or comment, being more formal over a telephonic conversation, keeping text short yet professional over instant messaging platforms, etc. are basic etiquette to be followed.
Your team must be skilled and trained enough to handle omnichannel communication without silly mistakes. Adopting call center omnichannel software can turn out to be a disaster if you put an untrained or unskilled team into the process. You can also hire experts in handling some form of communication channels for client communication. For example, some agents are outstanding in handling telephonic conversations and some are trained in social media reputation management. Make a team of expert agents and allocate communication channels based on their skills. Feel free to keep training agents to handle multiple communication channels to use them to handle peak hours on any of the communication channels.
Explore omnichannel call center software and its all featuresÂ
Usually, all omnichannel software solutions for call centers would have identical features with some advanced and competitive functionalities. Still, the user interface, navigation, labels of features, etc. might be a bit different in different solutions. Communication channel features would also be identical to the main platform. For example, the Twitter module integrated into the contact center software will have the same labels and a similar type of user interface to keep it easier to use. But, this software can have some additional features such as an auto acknowledgment feature for mentions on Twitter or a saved templates option to respond to similar tweets.
Exploring all the features available in your solution will help you optimize the omnichannel software usage strategy, plus, the overall call center strategy.
Balance out self-serving and live agent use
The omnichannel solutions support both self serving options and choices to connect with live agents. Self serving options can be available in multiple communication channels with automation features integrated into the call center dialer solutions. Some customer care centers focus on increasing the use of self serving features. But, it is necessary to focus on customer experience. You can balance the use of both options by encouraging customers to use self serving features, so the workload on agents can be reduced. At the same time, you can give them a choice to connect with a live agent at any stage of interaction with the system. This way you can make optimal use of the different resources you have without frustrating your clients.
Don’t enforce to use of any specific communication channel to customers
The agenda of using call center omnichannel software in any call center is to improve customer experience by delivering them services via their preferred communication channels. However, some call centers choose to serve clients via their preferred mode of communication. This can dilute or destroy the use of this software and all associated benefits. Call centers are intrigued to use this model of enforcing the usage of specific communication channels due to multiple reasons such as:
-         Having agents for specific communication channels
-         Lack of resources for some modes of communication
-         Cost of communication channel
-         Biased for some customer care strategies
-         And more
Avoid this silly mistake and don’t lose the essence of using an omnichannel solution. Always put customers at the center of your strategy. Let them choose the communication platform to let them stay delighted with their choice of choosing not only the channel of communication but also your company to do business with or use service from.
Maintain consistency across all touchpointsÂ
Using a huge system also attracts complexities and inconsistencies. The complexities are often eliminated by the omnichannel contact center software providers by making things as simple as possible in terms of functionalities. You need to work on eliminating the inconsistencies and intricacies in the processes.
One common error found in omnichannel strategy and usage of the software is inconsistent customer experience delivered by agents. Usually, this happens because agents serving over voice calls are different from agents serving over WhatsApp messenger. Also, both are completely different forms of communication. However, the customer experience delivered through any communication channel has to be unified and consistent. Customers must feel that they are interacting with the same business regardless of the different communication channels they use.
This is very easy to achieve with the right strategy and procedure in place. You can make formal documents and scripts for your agents to guide them during live interaction to have uniform communication across channels. You can also train agents to learn formal communication and intellectual skills to impress your clients with a consistent experience.
Pay attention to changes in the patternÂ
An inclination of clients over phone calls may change to inclination over instant messaging or Twitter. This is common in the customer service business. Your omnichannel customer care strategy might have major and popular communication channels as the focal point. Thus, it is necessary to keep an eye on ongoing changes in the demand and increasing supply in that direction. Continuously monitor the behavior of customers and patterns and demands to continuously evolve and refine the strategy. You can use reports available in the call center dialer solutions with omnichannel communication support to identify these patterns and define the required changes.
The future of omnichannel contact centers
It is always good to scrutinize all aspects before investing in technology. Making profitable deals is something everyone desires without a doubt. Omnichannel Call Center Solutions are expensive. Thus, you might want to know the future of this technology and it is worth analyzing.
Omnichannel communication in customer centric businesses has already proved its worth. Digitization with technologies like 5G, fiber communication channels, AI, the Internet of Things, and more gives a clear hint of an increase in users of omnichannel communication and even a possible increase in unified communication channels. Already thousands of businesses are using omnichannel communication platforms and leveraging advantages related to them. More than 50% of call centers have already implemented omnichannel communication strategy and more businesses are joining this group of thought leaders.
In a nutshell, the future of omnichannel software solutions is bright, including, for call center dialer solutions. Also, this trend of using multiple modes of communication to interact with clients and prospective clients is here to stay and rule the industry. Thus, if you want to be on the dominating side of businesses, adopting this omnichannel system for your call center or contact center is a must.
As businesses have already made a move, adoption of this software in early 2023 is unavoidable to stay in the competition.
Conclusion
Customers prefer businesses that emphasize customer preferences and experience. They are even happy to pay high for superior customer experience. One of the secrets of excellent customer service is acknowledging what your customers like and incorporating that into customer care campaigns.
The trend of serving customers with long call queues is getting replaced with distributing this volume across unified communication channels using omnichannel solutions. This gives liberty to customers to choose their favorite communication channel to interact with a business brand. On the other hand, it benefits call centers to deliver customer support across multiple channels to delight them and increase customer satisfaction.
In conclusion, the adoption of an Omnichannel Contact Center Solution is recommended and beneficial by reviewing the shifting market of call centers and customer care centers. Along with the adoption of this trending software, putting the right strategy to use this software is also advisable. We have covered the major best practices to use this software in this blog post with our years of experience in this industry as one of the leading omnichannel contact center software providers. Following these best practices will help you delight your clients, improve your brand image, amplify your resource utilization, and balance volume across channels.
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