Call center efficiency is important in the contact center industry. Better call center efficiency means better ROI, more satisfied customers, and empowered call center agents. There are many metrics and strategies used in the industry to measure efficiency. In this blog, we’ll talk about the technologies that your call center needs to boost call center efficiency.
OMNICHANNEL SOLUTIONS
With the proliferation of new communication channels, contact centers and call center technology had to keep up. Keeping customers happy meant adding more channels for customer support. New channels include SMS/text, email, video, and more. While some call center technologies has kept up with accommodating these new channels, contact centers often have trouble managing all of the necessary channels. The addition of new channels with no unified way of handling all channels meant an increase in inefficiency, higher handling time, longer customer queues, higher average call length, lower average speed of answer, and longer hold times.
A communications solution that will alleviate these problems is omnichannel call center software. With an omnichannel solution, contact centers can streamline their entire operations, lower downtime for agents, lower interaction handling time, increase agent efficiency, and improve contact center metrics. An omnichannel solution allows your agents to provide customer service on any channel, and seamlessly switch between various channels at any time. A conversation that starts as a live call can be switched to email, which can then be switched to text message. Implementing an omnichannel solution is crucial for businesses handling multiple channels of communication, and can boost the efficiency of a call center greatly.
Omnichannel is the Next Step in Customer Service
QUALITY ASSURANCE AND TRAINING
An important component of the contact center are the call center agents. Properly training call center agents and new hires in your call center is crucial to increasing efficiency in your call center. By implementing proper training and frequent training sessions, agent efficiency can increase massively, ensuring higher overall customer satisfaction. Training topics for new hires can include how to best meet the customers’ needs, what scripts to follow for certain issues, how to properly route to the right agent or department, what to do with customer information, and the best practices in handling dissatisfied customers. Ensuring your call center agents are properly trained will increase customer satisfaction and boost call center efficiency.
A comprehensive quality assurance system will also make your call center more efficient. Implementing a meaningful quality assurance system enables call centers to utilize meaningful metrics, advanced analytics, and key performance indicators (KPIs) to rate each interaction on every channel. A comprehensive, advanced QA system can give you insight into your contact center, boosting agent performance, decreasing agent occupancy, and increasing efficiency. Here are some performance metrics, efficiency metrics, and productivity metrics that your call center should implement to ensure maximum call center efficiency:
- Average Speed of Answering (ASA)
- First-Call Resolution (FCR)
- Average Handle Time (AHT)
- Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
A comprehensive, advanced quality assurance system also gives your contact center the ability to perform live call monitoring and agent reporting to ensure interactions are consistently excellent. Comprehensive quality assurance can improve contact center efficiency and improve the customer experience that you deliver.
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IMPLEMENTING BASIC CALL CENTER TECHNOLOGY
Businesses and their contact centers are often split into multiple different departments, each with up to hundreds of agents handling massive call volumes. It is crucial to the call center technology allows agents to process inbound calls efficiently and connect agents to customers in a timely manner. Modern day call center technology has many tools that provide automation to your call center, boosting contact center efficiency and improving agent performance.
One call center technology that should be in your call center software is interactive voice response (IVR). IVRs allow customers to be routed to the right department through an automated menu, meaning contact center agents don’t have to waste time routing customers to the right department. It also prevents customers from being routed to the wrong department, improving your efficiency metrics. Implementing IVRs can also help customers with basic inquiries without having to connect them with a call center employee, allowing agents to spend more time delivering great customer experiences and improving customer satisfaction.
Another powerful feature that should be standard in your contact center software is an automatic call distributor, or ACD. ACD distributes incoming calls in the queue to the next available contact center agents. This boosts efficiency metrics and increases the amount of time your agents spend helping customers. Implementing ACD also increases the talk time that each agent has with customers. Increasing talk time means more callers are being helped and agents experience less downtime.
CRM INTEGRATION
Customer relationship management systems, or CRM, are a great tool to help improve contact center efficiency. CRMs give call center agents the ability to track the customer’s journey with your business through the entire call or interaction from their desktop computer. The customer’s entire interaction history with your agents, from the first contact to the current issue being resolved, is at your agent’s fingertips. CRMs allow agents to deliver great customer experiences while ensuring customer satisfaction with your business. Implementing a comprehensive CRM system also boosts contact center efficiency by allowing your agents to gain insight into the customer’s journey, meaning agents don’t have to constantly ask clients to repeat their issues or requests. Implementing CRMs ensures that your call center is at peak performance and can handle heavy call volumes while delivering personalized customer experiences.
BOOST CALL CENTER EFFICIENCY WITH BRIGHT PATTERN
Call center efficiency is an important factor when providing great customer experiences and empowering agents. The technology you implement in your call center can have a major impact on how efficient your call center is.
Bright Pattern’s omnichannel contact center software provides the latest call center technology in the cloud. Bright Pattern provides businesses of all sizes access to omnichannel solutions, quality assurance systems, and all necessary call center features, in the cloud at an affordable, pay-per-use price.
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