Description: How to find out if your contact center needs to upgrade? Ask these questions to see if it’s time to make changes.
Any software inevitably gets outdated and becomes history. Can you even imagine someone still using Windows 95 or the first Excel versions? The same goes for contact center solutions. Contact centers constantly need to keep up with the pace of technologies to retain customers and stay productive. How can you do that? We’ve prepared 5 questions you can ask yourself to see if it is time to upgrade your contact center and how the cloud call center solution from Voiptime can help you with that.
“How wonderful it is that nobody needs to wait a single moment before beginning to improve the world.” Anne Frank wrote. We are sure that this inspirational quote can be applied to more humble things, such as upgrading your business. Nowadays, technology gives the contact centers flexibility that was unimaginable just a couple of decades ago. Multiple channels of communication, self-service tools, cloud-based solutions – all these options enable companies to give a significant boost to their customer service. On the one hand, all this abundance of technology makes you check in with tech and customer service trends all the time. On the other hand, it makes every interaction with a customer more important.
But let’s move to these 5 big questions and try to find out if you need to upgrade your contact center as quickly as possible.
1. Are you experiencing customer churn?
It is the primary factor that shows if something is wrong with your business. The simplest way to calculate the customer churn rate is to divide the number of customers you lost during that time period by the number of customers you had at the beginning of it. For example, you had 300 customers at the beginning of the quarter but ended it only with 200. Therefore, your customer churn rate is 33%. This loss definitely affects your bottom line but it goes beyond that. Poor customer service makes your business less trustworthy so it becomes harder to attract new clients. No one likes waiting in the queue for ages or being transferred from one agent to another with no result in the end. They will simply go to the company that provides them with better service. Therefore, quickly solving customer problems should be one of your business priorities. It will help you to build long-term relationships with your customers. Don’t wait until they start leaving you in numbers.
2. Are your calls being tracked properly?
Poor customer service stems from the inability to predict customer needs. The first call (contact) resolution rate (FCR) has to be one of your key quality metrics. It is obvious that you cannot solve every customer request at the first contact but your contact center should strive for it. That’s when the good contact center solution really matters. When you try call center outsourcing, you will notice that they invest on high-quality tools for monitoring to make sure every calls are being evaluated. Such features as seamless CRM integration, user-friendly IVR menu, and efficient ACD system can significantly improve customer satisfaction. Voiptime Cloud contact center software allows you to identify customers on the IVR and route them to the queue processed by the agents with the required qualification. It also creates a universal queue for all channels. Therefore, regardless of how your customers contact you (via webchat, email, call), their requests will be handled as quickly as possible.
Good tracking capabilities are helpful not only in improving customer service. Analyzing customer queries, you can develop your product or service more effectively by preventing the recurring support requests and frequent issues that your customers encounter.
3. Is your customer support omnichannel?
Omnichannel support is more than just a passing trend. Many businesses implement it because it is a good way to boost customer satisfaction. Some of your clients may prefer contacting you by phone while others may use web chat or support email for that purpose or even switch between channels a few times. Moreover, different types of queries require different communication channels. Your customers don’t have to wait in the queue to check their delivery status or account balance: self-service IVR or chatbot will be enough to answer their questions. So, if your company hasn’t gone omnichannel yet, it’s time to do it.
4. Is your software up-to-date?
Outdated software immediately reflects on support quality. If there are no regular updates, it will have a negative impact on customer satisfaction. To avoid that, keep an eye on current tech trends. Your software shouldn’t be an obstacle for your business growth and its costs mustn’t exceed its actual value. For example, the Voiptime Cloud contact center solution is updated every month. You won’t miss a single opportunity to upgrade your contact center. Besides, its advanced features will make any support team way more effective.
5. Do you have the required options for emergency plan implementation?
Much as you’d like to be confident in your hardware and software, having some emergency plan is a necessity. Even if most cloud-based contact centers guarantee 98-99% uptime and provide decent data storage facilities and data recovery capabilities, unpredictable things happen. This year showed that unpreparedness is a luxury for every business. So if you still have no backup plan or it lacks some options for implementation, think it through. Discuss these options with your vendor or consider moving to another, more reliable solution.
If you have decided on moving, evaluate your prospective vendor by several parameters. Firstly, examine their expertise and track record in the field of customer experience technology. Secondly, assess their level of stability (how long they have been in business, are their valuation and revenue consistently growing, if their vision aligns with your business priorities, etc). And last but not least, find out how good the vendor is in customer migration. If they have a fine-tuned migration strategy you can easily switch to their solution without causing too much discomfort for your customers.
These are five questions that will help you to assess the need in upgrading your contact center. Do not hesitate to replace your current solution with more effective tools if you find out that it can’t meet your needs anymore. After all, putting your customers first is the thing that helps you to succeed in this rapidly changing world.
