Routine call center activities are hectic and often make people cranky about the job. However, with the right technology support, this tedious experience of agents and supervisors can be transformed into a more soothing experience. Of course, the mindset cannot be changed with a call center solution. But, tedium from this job and the struggle related to offering the right experience can be removed, which makes things lighter for agents. One of the right tools that all call centers can adopt is one of the popular unified communication solutions like a unified call center software solution.
There are several advantages correlated to using this software and we will discuss them in this article. These facts are going to be amplified with the shifting trends of 2023 and make this solution more inevitable for call centers and similar businesses.
Topics covered in this blog post are as below:
- What is a unified communication solution?
- What is a unified contact center solution?
- What are the features of a unified solution for call centers?
- What are the advantages of a unified solution in 2023?
- Concluding notes
You will get complete detailed information about unified solutions for call centers in this blog post, so you can make the right decision of moving to it in 2023 if you are not using it already. So let’s begin this interesting topic and explore all the fascinating details about it.
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What is a unified communication solution?
Let’s first decode what a communication solution is. Traditionally, businesses used to use conventional systems to communicate with each other, including customers. It all started with personal, one-to-one meetings, and with technological inventions moved to the phone calls, SMS, emails, faxes, and other forms of communication. In the 21st century, a variety of communication channels are available to communicate with businesses and clients, which include the following modes of communication:
- Voice call
- Video call
- Instant messaging (webchat)
- SMS
- Fax
- Social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
- And more
A conventional communication solution is one that lets businesses manage communication with the use of technology. It didn’t have any features other than letting people communicate using a device. For example, the telephone was used as a conventional tool for business communication, which allowed for making and receiving calls.
As technology started inventing better and cheaper modes of communication, several communication tools got invented, too. A unified communication software solution is one of the tools invented in this direction and it is the most powerful and advanced tool at the moment. It gives a central interface to manage all types of communication channels. It also allows the use of these communication channels as a single system by streamlining conversations and recording them as logs or recording files. It can provide the required context for the business user to use pieces of communication as a single stream of communication.
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What is a unified contact center solution?
It is one of the types of unified communication solutions. It gives the interface and features of a contact center solution and in addition to that, it lets call centers or businesses using it manage unified communication channels within this software. As it manages all communication channels, it is also referred to as an omnichannel call center solution.
The agents will perceive all of these communication channels as features of this software. They can even use all features of each communication channel in different modules of this system. This makes it one of the best communication tools for call centers as using this system and multiple communication channels becomes easier. In addition to that, the best call center software with unified communication support also offers additional communication channels like a helpdesk system.
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What are the features of a unified solution for call centers?
As mentioned earlier, a unified call center software solution is a call center solution that supports unified communication channels within the software. Thus, it will have all features of a contact center solution such as auto dialers, live call monitoring, automatic call routing strategies, call scripting, call recording, music on hold, IVR, voice broadcasting, reports, and many more. Along with having all these features of a dialer solution, it will also have different communication channels to consist of all different and popular communication channels within this software.
To make it more advanced, providers of unified communications as a service or this software develop and integrate more features as briefed below:
- Streamlined communication
Even if each communication line is different and works independently, businesses that use this software need to know the context of the last conversation. Thus, this software streamlines all communication channels.
- Single view for all interactions
All bits and pieces of conversations get represented as a single whole conversation regardless of the communication channel used. These conversations are shown within a single screen to give context to the agent.
- Templates
To send some common messages such as greetings, conclusions, etc., the developers build templates, which can be sent via a single click.
- Auto respondents
Some advanced call center solutions include auto responders. This feature responds to common questions. An IVR is a classic example of this feature, which is also available for other communication channels like email, SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook messenger, etc.
- Scheduling
This is an advanced feature, which lets businesses schedule their messages. This is useful in broadcasting a message.
- Channel based reports
As there are multiple communication channels available in this software, it shows channel wise reports. That means for each communication channel, you get some reports to review along with standard call center reports.
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What are the advantages of a unified solution in 2023?
There are several advantages of using a unified call center solution. Let’s explore the top benefits of this software in 2023.
- Seamless mapping of the customer journey
With diversity in communication channels, it becomes very difficult for businesses to match different conversations and they often lose track of the whole conversation. This results in poor customer service. But, with the unified communication software, all conversations will be available to agents and that will help map the complete journey and all interactions of clients with the call center.
- Delighting customer experience
Customer satisfaction is the prime concern of businesses and call centers, which is why they use a contact center software solution. By adding unified communication channels into this software, call centers can let their clients enjoy the liberty of choosing the communication channel they need. It also lets them receive faster and more personalized responses across all communication channels from the support centers as now agents have access to an omnichannel contact center solution, which streamlines all conversations. All of this helps in delighting clients and improving overall customer experience.
- Enhanced agent efficiency and productivity
Often, clients use more than one communication channel to interact with a call center. The omnichannel contact center solution makes it easier to manage all conversations and removes the tedium of opening multiple communication channel windows to refer to the conversations. This makes it easier for agents to know the context and provide more contextual responses to clients. This also helps in enhancing the customer experience with the best customer service standards and methodologies. This helps in improving agent productivity and efficiency in using the software and in general. This can help businesses leverage the advantage of more productive hours with the same manpower.
- Reduced expenses
An undeniable truth is whether you use an omnichannel contact center solution or not, your customers will use those communication channels to connect with your business and support centers. Not implementing these unified communication channels into your software will force you to manage each channel individually. This will increase complications of managing communication spread out across various modes of communication. This not only wastes the time of your agents, but it would also make everything messy and difficult to administer. Thus, by using the unified software, all conversations and communication can be well managed, well administered, and well controlled.
This will reduce costs related to different things such as:
- Managing communication infrastructure
- Agent training
- Agent performance
- Customer management
- Per call or case
- And more
Thus, it is vital to manage things via the best call center software that supports unified communication within the platform.
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Concluding notes
In a nutshell, using a unified call center solution can shower wide ranging advantages for your business. You can delight not only your clients but also your employees and investors or stockholders. This can put you as a stepping stone for your successful business journey in 2023. Thus, to balance out customer expectations with business vision and to leverage several other advantages, it is worth investing in an omnichannel call center solution. One can also use this software to offer unified communications as a service.
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