10 characteristics that a Contact Center system must meet

Before starting, it would be convenient to first understand what is a Contact Center? and therefore to know the differences with another term with which it is often confused: Call Center.

People tend to use the two terms interchangeably, but they are not identical.

In fact, it is the historical evolution of an activity called "telephone marketing", which was born in the 1980s in our country, twenty years behind the Anglo-Saxon countries.

What is the difference between a Contact Center and a Call Center?

Customer expectations have increased dramatically, they require a quality service and that companies have a presence in all contact channels, as a consequence, it is necessary for companies to develop a much broader set of capabilities for their interactions with customers, thus enhancing company/customer communication.

The Call Center handles large volumes of inbound calls, makes outbound calls and makes the telephone channel as efficient and optimized as possible.

The Contact Center has the same purpose, but its purpose is to serve the customer from the omnichannel. Therefore the relationship with customers / users is managed from a variety of channels, not only the phone, but email, web chat, or social networks.

To be successful today, any organization must be able to respond quickly, efficiently and accurately to its customers no matter which communication channel or combination of channels its customer chooses.

If you're in the market for a new phone system and want to be sure you're buying the right thing, here are some signs to look for:

1.- Advanced technology

Technology solutions related to the Contact Center are moving at a dizzying pace.

Your system must have technology designed to comprehensively manage the interactions that are generated in the various channels, complementing it with various solutions:.

• Cloud-based
• Empowering self-service (IVR and Bots)
• Easy expansion based on the needs of the operation and without stopping it.
• Incorporation of Artificial Intelligence

As well as operational management tools such as scripts and knowledge managers, analytical management tools such as statistics and real-time dashboards.

The company as a whole has to integrate the management technologies of the different departments, to identify the full context of the customer in each interaction, leverage data from the systems and manage to provide a proactive service.

2.- Multichannel solution

Nowadays customers want to be served by the method they choose or that is closest to them so it is important that your Contact Center tool is multichannel in a single unified tray for voice, email, social networks and chat.

It must offer optimal accessibility in all communications and channels through which our customers contact us.

3.- Dialers

There are three types of dialer software: predictive mode, preview mode and progressive mode. These tools allow outbound calls to be made automatically and assigned to agents.

It is essential that your Contact Center system includes "Dialers", as it helps make employees more productive and provides more opportunities for revenue generation.

4.- Dashboards

It is important to have screens with real-time information of your operation such as agents, campaigns, calls, etc., allowing immediate adjustments, when necessary, to maximize the availability and productivity of your Contact Center.

5.- Optimize the operation without IT support

Operations managers and supervisors work continuously to improve the customer experience. This requires regular adjustments and changes that can be time consuming for IT staff members.

While the IT team must make major changes to a phone system, look for a contact center system that allows those responsible for the operation to update call queues, IVR, greetings and other settings easily and without your help.

6.- Users management

As well as with changes in the operation, managers and supervisors must have the ability to create or modify agents, from a single place and distribute them across campaigns allowing multi-channeling (agents can be voice agents, email, chat or all of them differentiating by priorities, specializations, etc.). The configuration of new users should take minutes, not hours.

Look for a contact center system with a browser-based administration portal that allows you to log in from anywhere and quickly select the options you need. Some even allow you to create templates for different types of users, such as sales reps, customer service agents or administrative assistants, which helps to speed up the user creation process by displaying only the options that are relevant to that specific type of user.

7.- Skills based routing and assignment prioritization

Allow you to define and prioritize campaigns based on your business strategies as well as assign calls based on who is the best qualified agent to handle that type of call, based on media type, experience or previous contact with a customer.

8.- Historical reports

Information is instantly available and reports are easily generated.

As organizations evolve, so do their information needs. Being able to quickly analyze usage trends and historical data will allow you to understand how employees are using the phone system and any problems callers may be experiencing. Look for a phone system that gives you easy access to your operation's information and allows you to create reports as needed or schedule them.

This will enable you to make data-driven decisions about operations based on information from longer periods of time, helping to identify, measure and exploit opportunities, and uncover and resolve problems or outages.

9.- Call recording

The ability to record calls for training, quality or conflict resolution purposes is something that few systems offer, but it has to be an important point when choosing a contact center system.

10.- Remote workers

Enable multi-site agents and supervisors to be included in the phone system directory.

Today, many employees choose to work outside the office walls. While this trend has been growing for years, many call center phone systems are not yet equipped to gracefully handle this type of employee.

The ideal is a contact center system that includes all employees in one directory, regardless of location, and offers a mobile option. These two attributes will give you a central location to administer to all users, as well as a seamless user experience for employees and a united front end for callers.

The thought of upgrading to a new contact center system can be daunting.

Having dedicated call teams, such as sales and support, whose entire tasks revolve around inbound and outbound calls adds a new level of complexity to your migration plan and places additional importance on the ongoing maintenance of the required system.

Selecting a Contact Center system that is easy to set up and maintain will save you a lot of headaches and wasted time in the future.

uCONTACT is the software solution for Omnichannel Contact Center, to offer the best experience to agents, supervisors and administrators. Contact us without obligation and request your DEMO right now.