Finding the right call centre solution for your business is one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make. Call centre programs aren’t just about technology and speed, they’re also a means of providing your business with valuable insights into how well it’s performing externally and internally.
A thriving call centre will address the needs of your business, your agents and your customers in equal measure.
With so much to juggle, it’s not surprising there are several aspects you need to take into account when choosing the right call centre solution for your enterprise.
Effective Equipment
Today’s businesses are moving away from the traditional in-situ call centre with multiple on-site agents, computers, hardware and large buildings. Instead, they’re migrating across to a cloud-based solution that can be used both on-premises and remotely.
Taking this approach means you don’t have to budget for hardware, an IT team, ample office space or continued maintenance.
A cloud-based solution not only saves space and money, but it also gives you the information you need to enhance your performance and boost the quality of your customer service.
Analytics
The right call centre solutions will allow you to measure your agents’s performance, how quickly and successfully they’re dealing with calls and how satisfied customers are.
The right software will allow you to measure performance across all communication channels, including:
- Voice calls (inbound and outbound)
- SMS
- Social media
- Instant chat
- Mobile
Accessing data from each of these channels will give you greater and invaluable insights into:
- Customer satisfaction levels
- The average call handling and “on-hold” times
- First-call resolution
- Call abandonment rates
- Sales rates (if applicable)
- Costs
Customer Satisfaction Levels
You can ask customers how happy they were with the service they received to see how well agents are dealing with customer queries.
Call Handling and On-Hold Times
Your analytics will tell you how long it takes for agents to complete a call (on average). With this information at your disposal, you can then work to reduce on-hold waiting times.
As long as you’re not pushing agents to handle calls so quickly that customers feel dismissed, you should see a boost in productivity.
You’ll even get a better idea of how often agents put customers on hold throughout their calls.
First Call Resolution
Here’s a metric that measures the percentage of calls or (other contact methods) where a customer’s query is handled without escalating the call or returning it at a later date.
Call Abandonment Rates
Your software should also provide analytics on how many calls are abandoned before customers get through to an agent. High call-abandonment rates will potentially lose you sales and lower customer satisfaction levels.
Sales
If your agents have sales targets, you can use call centre analytics to compare the volume of an agent’s calls against their sales success rate.
Costs
Last but not least, all the above analytics will help you see how much your customer service operation costs you year-on-year. With these figures in mind, you can aim towards gaining the highest customer satisfaction levels for the lowest cost.
Using a cloud-based call centre software is a cost-effective way of measuring the performance of your agents, as well as how happy your existing customers are. Analytics will only help you retain customers, which, in theory, should free up your time to focus on attracting new ones too.
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