Call Center Software: Top 5 Considerations
- July 31, 2017
- By: Vonigo
This post was written by our friends at Talkdesk. We use Talkdesk for our own call center software needs, and we recommend it to our clients as well.
As a mobile service company, you have an intimate understanding of the on-demand service customers expect. In fact, you’ve probably spent considerable time and energy creating a clearly defined strategy to meet your customer’s on-demand experience expectations.
Once you grow that customer base, you don’t want to lose them, and, let’s be honest, on-demand customers have high expectations. This makes it important to focus on the full customer service experience: beyond the initial booking, you want them to keep coming back.
“Loyal customers can be worth up to 10 times a much as their first purchase and a new customer is 6-7 times more expensive to acquire.” – White House Office of Consumer Affairs
This means that having a call center software that matches the comprehensive and cloud based elements of your mobile service company is vital to maintaining a high-quality customer service experience. With this in mind, here are five top considerations for your call center software.
1. Type and Flexibility
Different call center software can vary considerably in terms of cost, ease of use, deployment time, security, reliability, and uptime. As a mobile service company, it’s expensive and impractical to develop the infrastructure for an on-premise call center software. A browser-based call center is going to be the most flexible option for you.
Browser-based call center software allows a team to access comprehensive call center features from anywhere there is the internet. So with just a laptop, headset and internet, agents can make and receive calls, access real-time reporting, monitor live calls, engage in call conferencing – everything they can do with their hosted, on-premise or cloud-based solutions.
Additionally, browser-based call center software solutions can be configured in minutes and their features can be customized in seconds. This makes scaling up and down, hiring a remote workforce, working while traveling and employing flexible agents simple. A browser-based call center software solution might be the best option for you.
2. Most Beneficial Call Center Software Features
Once you have decided what type of call center software is right for your team, you should make a list of your must-have call center software features. The following is a list of common call center software features as well as links to information about each:
Take some time to explore each feature and then prioritize them according to your business needs. If you are considering a call center software solution and they do not have one of your must-have features, you can ask if they have plans to develop it or move on to the next solution.
3. Scalability
When selecting your perfect call center software solution, make sure it can scale with your business. Some questions to ask the call center software service provider are:
- Can I add and remove agents in seconds?
- Am I charged per agent per month?
- Is this prorated for flex agents?
- Am I only charged for the minutes that I use?
- Do I have to buy minutes in bulk?
- Can your system handle my call volume?
- How about during the holidays?
- Do you offer unlimited concurrent calls?
- Can I add, remove and customize features myself or does your team have to do it for me?
- Do I need a dedicated IT staff to maintain the call center software?
- How often do I need to download new software, update the software or install plug-ins?
If you are speaking with a sales representative and you don’t like an answer to one of these questions, move on to the next software solution. There are plenty out there.
4. Deployment Time
Some call center software solutions are easy to use, but a nightmare to implement. When choosing your ideal solution, check to see how long it will take to roll out. If the answer is not “a few minutes” for small teams or “a few hours” for larger teams, this is a red flag. Remember, every day that goes by that you are implementing a new solution can cost a considerable about of money, confusion, and worse – customers. Thus, make sure the implementation process does not interfere with customer satisfaction or daily operations by selecting a solution that can be rolled out in minutes.
5. Technical Support
When something goes wrong – and it inevitably will – you must know that your call center software provider will be there for you. Make sure they offer near round-the-clock technical support and that they are responsive. A company that will battle it out in the IT trenches with you will be your best ally. Companies that won’t fight for you will likely lose your business forever. Choosing the optimal call center software solution for your team can often be a dreaded task. But it doesn’t have to be. Keep the five aforementioned factors in mind and dive head first into the selection process. You’ll come out victorious!
Interested in learning about how call center software like Talkdesk and online job scheduling software from Vonigo can work together for your business? Book a demo of Vonigo and we will show you how.