It is no secret that the call center industry is booming like never before. Technology is evolving and manpower is getting more intelligence. All this is contributing to shaping a better future for this industry by gifting innovative features and solutions. The traditional software for call centers is now replaced with a better and bigger platform. Moreover, there is a wide variety of options available to fit the different needs of diverse call centers. One of the popular innovations in this industry is a blended call center software system, which is built with some really powerful features. In addition to that, this industry is now shaping the future of this industry with innovative blended contact center features.
In this blog post, we are going to unveil some interesting facts related to a blended solution and how innovations in different areas are shaping the future of this software.
Let’s delve deeper to explore all the important facts related to this software.
1. What is a Blended Call Center Solution?
We are all aware that a call center solution is a software platform that offers a wide array of features to manage calls with automation features. Moreover, this software has several important features that help in boosting the performance of agents. Traditionally, this software provides an option to run either an inbound campaign or an outbound campaign. While running an inbound campaign, the call center agents will receive all the inbound calls. Moreover, the software will use a majority of features related to managing incoming calls.
On the other hand, if you are running an outbound campaign, your software will keep passing outbound calls to the agents. Furthermore, it will use the features required to effectively manage outgoing calls. For agents, there is no huge difference between incoming and outgoing calls because both types of calls are assigned by the software for call centers.
A blended contact center software solution is one that supports both incoming and outgoing calls. It means agents can receive either incoming calls or outgoing calls. Unlike inbound and outbound solutions, this software does not run only one stream of calls. There are several benefits of using this solution in a call center.
2. What are the Major Features Available in the Blended Call Center Solution?
Blended contact center features may vary based on their provider. But, in general, it will have all standard call management, call monitoring, and reporting features, which include the following:
- Live statistics
- Dashboards
- Automated call distributor and different call routing strategies
- Manual dialer
- Multiple types of auto dialers
- Call script
- IVR
- Music on Hold
- Call queues
- Call forwarding
- Call mute and un-mute
- Call transfer
- Call hold and retrieve
- Call script
- 3-way conferencing
- Whisper
- Barge-in
- Reports
As technology is growing, innovative and advanced features are emerging to benefit each blended contact center. These innovative features are shaping the future of the business, as well as blended call center solutions. Some companies even provide development and customization services to implement never seen before features into this software.
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3. Which are the Top Innovations that Shape the Future of Blended Software?
It is a very interesting niche. Therefore, several innovations are taking place in this space. Let’s discuss some of the top innovations that are already in use or evolving to benefit the call center industry.
Smart Routing
- We are all aware of different call routing strategies like sticky agent, skill based call routing, most idle agent call routing, and more. In inbound call centers, these strategies are used to provide smart assignment of incoming calls for better performance and productivity. You must be aware of call routing in outbound campaigns, too. Auto dialers like a predictive dialing system predict certain factors and dial multiple numbers to assign calls to agents. Thus, in the outbound calls, too, there is some sort of call routing. In the case of blended calling, both inbound and outbound calls are going through and the blended call center software routes calls to the right agents.
- In blended campaigns, it becomes crucial to use the right call routing strategies to maximize performance. Regardless of the stream of the call, it must be assigned to the most skilled and experienced agent. Moreover, the system must work at a pace to reduce the call abandoned rate and call drop ratio.
- There are multiple factors involved in assigning calls in a blended call center. Therefore, it is necessary to design smart call routing features. These features must work on both incoming and outgoing calls to make blended calling more effective. The smart routing feature is invented to benefit blended call centers in this regard. It can smartly route the blended calls to boost performance and productivity.
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Context Driven Conversations
- A majority of solutions provide omni channel communication support. As a result, customers use multiple communication channels to connect with call center agents. This often confuses agents to manage calls or chat conversations over WhatsApp, social media, or SMS because they don’t know the history. The blended contact center software invented an option to provide a glimpse of all interactions of customers via any communication channel to agents. Agents can also filter this data based on different criteria. For example, they can check all interactions based on the communication channel of the agent. They can find all interactions on a specific date or during a selected duration. All this data gives a quick overview to agents, so they can better lead the conversation.
Emotion Analysis
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) is amazing when added to any technology tool and a call center solution is definitely not an exception. By adding AI driven features to this software, call centers can achieve several futuristic milestones. One of the tried and tested tools available in this segment is emotion analysis. AI driven tools can analyze voice and text to score the emotions of customers. A customer’s state of mind can define the emotions of clients, which can be happy, sad, angry, disgusted, etc. Emotion analysis helps in multiple ways. Firstly, it can help in redefining blended calling strategies. Secondly, it can help in boosting agent performance. Thirdly, it can help in improving customer experience. Right now, emotion analysis on live calls and historic calls is possible.
Smart Filtering
- This is another important feature that can redefine the future of the blended calling business. Several customers opt out of some campaigns, and some ask not to disturb them. Moreover, some customers prefer receiving calls during certain hours of the day only. All this is very difficult for a call center to remember. However, developers can easily feed this functionality by using technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning. These technologies can apply all conditions while making the call. In addition to that, it can also filter incoming calls depending on the ideal agent description. For example, a call center can run a survey to identify what type of agents a customer is interested in having a conversation with. Based on this information, the incoming call is assigned to the right agent.
- Smart filtering has an amazing advantage in blended calling campaigns. As a result, it can define an impressive future for the call center business.
Automation in a Call Center
- This has been one of the major trends in this industry and it will be for the upcoming many years. Automation helps in saving a lot of time of human resources, so they can put their best foot forward. Automation dramatically boosts performance, productivity, and resource utilization. Already some features in this regard are available in the software and tools. However, more are needed. Therefore, several companies are researching building more mechanized options for blended calling. It will provide dynamic call scripts and features to boost performance. It can also involve chatbots and voicebots to save resources. There are endless possibilities in this area. Thus, this space is still evolving to shape the future of blended call centers.
4. Concluding Notes
Call centers are important to manage different types of business calls. Nowadays, a blended contact center is more important than just an inbound or outbound call management center. The reason is it gives better performance and returns. As the demand for blended contact centers is increasing, innovations in this area are also increasing. Already several amazing functionalities have been introduced, and more are evolving to shape the future of this industry.
We, iCallify, are offering the best software with powerful blended contact center features that can help you make your business future-proof. To learn more and book a free demo, contact us.
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