Call centers have been one of the ever blossoming industries. That is why it attracts more and more businesses to invest in this industry or embark on their journey. From software providers to service providers, everyone invests in call center technology and industry. Moreover, business dynamics have changed, which has put customers at the focal point of business. Customer experience and customer journey are very important if a business is interested in growing manifold and leading success milestones. A call center solution with the best features has been in the need by many companies because it helps in setting up a call center business or department.
As the number of call center departments and businesses is increasing, competition is getting ferocious. To compete and win, call centers have to find ways to increase ROI (Returns over Investment) without actually increasing expenses or diluting the quality of service (QoS). This increases the need for automation in call centers.
Automation has become the need of every business and putting call center business as an exception is not an option in any way. Artificial Intelligence (AI)/ Machine Learning (ML), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), and similar technologies provide amazing features that can help in automating various operations. The top development companies have already implemented the best automation features in their call center solutions. The only vital part left over for other call centers is to implement these automation features.
Even if technology and facilities are available in the form of feature rich contact center solutions, many call centers are still clueless about the worth of using automation in their call center business. To answer all questions related to automation in the call center industry, we have crafted this blog post.
Topics covered in this blog post are as below:
- Automation in the call center industry
- Persuasive arguments to implement call center automation
- Top ways to implement call center automation
- iCallify and its role in leveraging automation in call centers
- Concluding notes
This blog post will give you a more detailed insight into automation in call centers and all relevant aspects to help you gain a competitive advantage.
1. Automation in the call center industry
Traditionally, call centers used to use manual staffs for all operations. From attending calls to fetching information manually and responding to clients, all these tasks were handled by agents without using any automation system.
With progression in time and technology, call centers started using tech packed tools like a dynamic IVR solution, automatic call distribution system, sales dialer solution, auto dialer software, etc. Each of these systems has different automation features. Depending on the type of campaigns, call centers adopted different solutions for their call centers.
The best providers then amalgamated all these solutions within a single system and started offering the best contact center software. This software usually has all the aforementioned and multiple other automation features.
Modern call center solutions either completely automate an operation or partially automate operations and empower agents to perform jobs with more accuracy and efficiency. Along with various call center technologies, other technologies like RPA, AI, ML, etc. have started introducing modernized call center automation features and tools like chatbots, voice assistants, data sync, and more.
All in all, the call center industry has plenty of options to automate business and leverage relevant advantages depending on their business needs and budget.
2. Persuasive arguments to implement call center automation
Automation has become the most vital element of all call centers, but still, there are some businesses that are skeptical about investing in technology to use automation features in a call center. If you are one of them, then here are the top persuasive arguments that highly recommend investing in and adapting call center automation.
Excellent improvement in customer experience
One of the major reasons and recommendations to implement call center automation by adopting the best call center solution is focusing on client first approach. Nobody likes to wait for too long to get the required responses. Everyone is busy and in a hurry these days. With the traditional approach, call centers cannot deliver instant responses as agents might be busy with other customers, and therefore, customers have to wait in the call queues.
Introducing automation with features like a dynamic IVR solution can help in enhancing customer experience. Clients can receive instant responses to their queries, and they don’t need to wait at all for an agent. There are multiple other options that can eliminate or reduce wait time for clients to get resolutions for their queries. For example, agents can deliver quicker responses to clients with CRM call center integration. With the call center omnichannel software, agents can provide customer experience across all touchpoints. All this helps in improving the customer experience, which will lead to other advantages.
Delight agents
It is not an exaggeration if we say that the performance of agents defines the real performance of call centers. If your agents are slow and you use the best call center omnichannel software, then it will be of no use as your agents may not be able to use the technology to its best. Usually, call centers hire the best and most skilled agents, then what stops them from working passionately to drive better results?
There can be multiple reasons behind the poor performance of agents such as:
- Lack of product knowledge
- Long and tiring working hours
- Traditional approaches
- No motivation
- Lack of training sessions
- And more
Unhappy agents not only perform poorly, but they may also look for another job, which increases the agent attrition rate, leading to high agent retention and acquisition costs.
Call center automation helps in resolving multiple challenges faced by agents. The best blended call center software with automation features can help reduce long, monotonous hours in multiple ways to keep agents free from stress. For example, integrated auto dialer software automatically dials phone numbers, connects with customers, and saves agents time from this tedious job. The sales dialer solution automates multiple jobs to enhance the results of lead generation and sales campaigns.
These contact center solutions can also be used to let agents’ self evaluate themselves and learn to improve with features like agent side reports, call recording, and more. Supervisors can coach agents using stats available in live statistics and historic reports.
All this helps agents to work more productively. It also helps agents to manage work life balance. This can increase work satisfaction and reduce agent attrition.
Top Reasons Your Business Needs a Blended Call Center Solution
Simplify management
Managing a call center is a complicated job as there are so many inbound and outbound calls to handle. Moreover, agents, supervisors, and other team members, multiple shifts, etc. need to be handled by the team. The blended call center software automates several jobs related to the management of call centers.
This software helps in automating jobs like managing lists, auto dialing, and more. For example, an automatic call distribution system integrated into the contact center software helps in attending to all calls and routing callers to the most suitable agents. Moreover, the callback scheduling feature makes sure that customers are connected as per their preferred date and time automatically. CRM call center integration automatically updates records in the CRM system when an agent updates the same in the call center software during a live call. In multiple other ways, the software can automate several jobs and help in managing call centers.
Save resources
Similar to any other business, call centers have to explore possible strategies to reduce expenses and increase revenue. One of the options to cut costs in any call center is saving resources. The introduction of automation helps in saving significant resources in a call center.
Call center automation will reduce the tasks of agents, so they can work more productively. For example, a predictive dialer will automate the dialing numbers of the customers and agents will not need to do the tedious job of fetching and dialing numbers. Even this dialer will call customers even before an agent shows availability. This saves a lot of time for agents. Moreover, it increases the productivity of agents. All this helps to increase agent productivity. It saves time, money, and multiple other resources.
Likewise, in multiple other ways, automation in the call center industry helps in saving resources.
Gain competitive advantage
A call center that can deliver excellent customer experience, delight agents with work life balance, take advantage of technology, and keep making a difference for its clients, team, and industry often stands out. All this is possible by selecting the best call center software that can automate several jobs as mentioned in this blog post. It can help in gaining a competitive advantage. This can help in leveraging several other advantages by building a brand in this industry that everyone loves to connect with.
3. Top ways to implement call center automation
There are multiple reasons to adopt automation in the call center industry. Likewise, there are multiple ways to implement automation in the call center industry. Let’s explore the top ways to implement call center automation:
Auto attendant
It helps call centers automatically attend to all incoming calls and greet customers with warm greetings.
IVR
It helps call centers automate the job of answering frequently asked questions of customers.
Automatic call distribution software
In modern on-premises and cloud based call center solutions, there are several call routing strategies available as part of an integrated automatic call distribution software (ACD). Some of the major rules available in this software are listed below:
- Sticky agent
- Skill based routing
- ACD
- Most idle agent call routing
- And more
Each of these call routing strategies holds specific features and benefits. It automates the job of distributing calls to the most suitable and right agent, so benefits like reduced average talk time, increased first call resolution rate, etc. can be achieved.
Voice broadcasting system
A voice message can be sent in a personalized manner to all customers via a phone call using this feature available in the software for call centers. It can also help in running surveys, collecting feedback, and leveraging several other advantages of automation.
Some software providers also offer SMS broadcasting and email broadcasting features.
Auto dialers
The best blended call center software solutions will have multiple auto dialing features, which can be used to automate outbound campaigns. Call centers can run sales and other outbound campaigns with double speed or even more using auto dialers. Different solutions can have different automated call center dialer solutions. Some of the most common and must have call center dialer solutions are listed below:
- Predictive dialer
- Preview dialer
- Power dialer
- Progressive dialer
- Auto dialer
4. iCallify and its role in leveraging automation in call centers
Different inbound and outbound call center solutions can have different features to offer that help in automating several jobs in call centers. iCallify is regarded as an award winning intelligent call center software. It is empowered with a wide array of impressive features that not only enhance the performance of the team and delight clients, but also improve other touchpoints that indeed uplift a business with a competitive advantage.
This solution has several automation features built by leveraging the advantages of bleeding edge call center technology. The company that has been offering this intelligent call center software has been investing in the enhancement of this solution with more intelligent and automation features and functionalities.
iCallify can help swiftly adapt automation in the call center industry and leverage several advantages. It makes sure that call centers don’t face any challenges in moving from a legacy system to a modernized solution that improves automation.
Concluding notes
In conclusion, automation is inevitable in any business, including the call center industry. It is necessary to match pace with ongoing trends and how businesses turn to be smart. In the call center industry, automation can lead to new growth benchmarks. A feature rich call center solution can play a vital role in augmenting benefits by adding automation with ease.
To know more about this subject matter or to book a lifetime free edition of this software, get in touch with us.
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