Nowadays, technology is developing at a rapid rate. This can be invaluable to businesses that are willing to embrace change. In particular, it can be beneficial for call centers.
Keeping up with the latest advancements in call center technology is essential for organizations, especially when it comes to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of customer service operations.
This advanced technology is designed to enhance the customer experience, which ultimately should be one of the main goals of every business.
By using these innovative call center technologies, organizations can gain a competitive advantage and stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly evolving marketplace.
What are the main functions of a call center?
Call centers have many functions that can be beneficial to businesses. They can handle inbound calls, outbound calls, emails, chats, and other customer interactions with the goal of providing excellent customer support.
Call centers are used by organizations in a variety of industries, including healthcare, retail, finance, and telecommunications to name a few.
The main functions of call centers are:
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Customer service: Businesses provide customer service and support, including answering customer inquiries, resolving customer issues, and providing technical support.
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Sales: They can also be used for outbound sales, including lead generation, appointment setting, and telemarketing.
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Complaint handling: Call centers can be used to handle customer complaints, manage escalated issues, and provide solutions to help minimize customer dissatisfaction.
What is call center technology?
Call centers provide an essential channel for customer engagement and support. Lots of businesses use them to keep up communication with their customers.
Although call centers can be useful, without adopting advanced technologies, businesses aren’t using them to their full potential.
These technologies make call centers more efficient, effective, and capable of providing a superior customer experience.
What are examples of customer service technology?
There are many examples of contact center technology that are used to improve the customer experience, namely CRM software like Salesforce. Customer relationship management software can be used to manage all interactions and customer data throughout the customer journey.
Other examples of customer service technology include live chat software, which helps bridge the communication gap between customers and a business.
Customers sometimes prefer to use live chat because they can talk to a representative in real-time without having to stay in a queue for hours on a phone. This allows them to get quick answers to their questions and issues without having to wait on hold.
8 advanced call center technology trends
Here’s a look at eight advanced call center technology trends to watch out for.
1. Artificial intelligence and machine learning
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are transforming the way call centers operate. You may be familiar with AI-powered chatbots, robocalls, virtual agents, and predictive analytics.
These tools can be used to handle a significant portion of customer interactions to streamline the way a business works. They can even analyze customer behavior and feedback to provide useful customer insights.
Chatbots use natural language processing (NLP) to understand and respond to customer queries. They can handle a wide range of customer interactions and are clever enough to understand customer queries without needing a human handler.
They can answer FAQs, provide information about products and services, and resolve customer issues. One of the benefits of live chatbots is that they can work 24/7. This reduces the need for customer service agents to be available at all times.
Virtual call center agents aren’t just limited to chatbots. They can be used for call routing, answering calls, and re-directing callers to the correct departments. What’s more, they can learn from previous interactions, improving their performance over time.
The right agents can provide a seamless customer experience by reducing wait times and improving satisfaction.
2. Cloud computing
Cloud technology has been very beneficial to the call center industry. Because call centers use the internet for connectivity, cloud tech enables agents to work remotely from anywhere in the world; all they need is a strong internet connection. This can help call centers reduce labor costs and improve the quality of service.
Cloud-based call center solutions offer flexibility and are often more cost-effective too, allowing organizations to manage peak demand and reduce operational costs.
In addition, cloud-based call center solutions offer several advantages over traditional on-premise solutions. They’re more scalable for starters, allowing call centers to scale up or down based on demand.
This means call centers can quickly adapt to changing business needs without significant investment in infrastructure.
3. Internet of Things (IoT)
The Internet of Things (IoT) is another advanced technology that’s slowly changing the way call centers function. IoT sensors can monitor customer devices and provide proactive support, ensuring seamless customer experiences. For instance, IoT-enabled home appliances can send notifications to the contact center, alerting agents of a potential problem that can be resolved proactively.
IoT sensors can also track customer behavior and preferences. This allows call centers to provide personalized recommendations and solutions to help improve customer satisfaction, retention, and loyalty.
Lastly, this technology can help call centers to reduce costs. By sometimes pre-meditating issues, call centers lessen the need for expensive onsite technical support.
4. Social media integration
Social media is a crucial channel for customer engagement. Integrating it within call centers is a must. A lot of customers choose to use social media to contact a business as opposed to email or a VoIP phone system. So, you need to be able to keep up with customer expectations.
Call centers are now integrating social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter into their communication channels to provide a better customer experience. This enables agents to engage with customers on their preferred platforms in real-time, with quick and informative answers to their queries.
It also allows call centers to meet customers where they are. With more customers using social media platforms to interact with businesses, call centers must be able to respond to customer inquiries and issues across multiple channels.
5. Speech analytics
Speech analytics is a powerful tool that can help call centers improve the quality of their service. It can be used to analyze voice recordings and identify customer queries. Not only this but it can also be used for agent training.
This technology uses natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to automatically transcribe and analyze audio recordings of customer interactions, which can include phone calls and chat sessions.
It’s able to identify customer emotions, too, to help agents better understand their needs and concerns. It can identify key phrases and words that are frequently used by customers to help call centers improve their products and services.
6. Predictive dialers
Predictive dialers use AI and ML to make outbound calls automatically, reducing the amount of time agents need to spend dialing numbers. This technology can also detect whether a call is answered by a human or a voicemail.
Predictive dialers increase agent productivity and reduce idle time. They do this by predicting when an agent will be available to take the next call and then automate dialing the next number on the list as the agent finishes the previous call.
Predictive dialers can also help call centers reduce the number of missed calls. This is because they use routing to automatically dial the next number on the list, ensuring each call is answered. This helps improve customer satisfaction.
7. Self-service options
It’s no surprise that customers today are looking for self-service options to resolve their issues quickly and easily. No one wants the hassle of calling up a business and spending precious time trying to chat with an agent.
That’s why call centers are increasingly offering self-service options using help desk software such as automated IVR (interactive voice response) systems, online knowledge bases, and bots to improve the customer experience and reduce call volume.
Self-service options offer several benefits to call centers and their customers. For call centers, self-service options can improve agent efficiency and lower costs. When it comes to customers, they offer the convenience of being able to resolve issues quickly and easily from a website without having to wait on hold or speak with an agent.
8. Knowledge bases
As we touched on above, knowledge bases provide customers with access to a database of information to help them quickly resolve common issues or answer frequently asked questions.
Customers can search for answers to their questions or browse through articles to find the information they need. All this can be done without having to contact an agent, which frees up their time to help with more complex customer queries.
The future of call center technology
Call center software has come a long way in recent years, and call centers are no longer just a place for customers to get in touch and have their queries answered (usually after hours on hold) by busy contact center agents.
Now, advanced technologies like conversational AI, cloud computing, IoT, social media integration, speech analytics, and predictive dialers can help provide superior omni-channel customer experiences—to the benefit of all.