There are two instrumental aspects of any call center: the technology and the people. If your call center is deficient in either aspect, your company will suffer. In order to handle call volume, many companies have switched to VoIP.
What Is a Call Center?
In simple terms, a call center is an office with a phone system that only handles incoming and outgoing calls. A contact center, on the other hand, does calls but also handles fax, email, and chat.
Typically call centers are used for customer support. Sometimes they also handle tech support, billing, etc. Obviously call centers tend to field more calls than most offices. For this reason, it is imperative that your team has a system that can support them.
What Happens When You Have a Bad Call Center?
Customer Frustration
Call Centers sometimes receive a bad reputation for poor customer service. Sometimes customers experience long wait times, multiple transfers, or experience the same issue again after receiving assurances that their problem has been corrected. Problems such as these can turn loyal customers against you.
Damage to Brand Image
Poor customer service can lead to greater consequences than just a single annoyed customer. If it happens too often, your entire company will receive a bad reputation. Once your reputation sours, it can prove difficult to fix. Having a great brand image can dramatically help your business, but the reverse is true as well.
Profit Loss
A poor call center can harm your profit margin. The longer your employees have to stay on the phone because of poor call quality, lack of features, long queues, the less deals they can close. It can also cause your team to miss deadlines and customer issues can fall through the cracks.
What Happens When You Have a Great Call Center?
Reliability
Having a great call center means that it should work regardless of what happens. Outages cost you money, and you should ensure that any provider you’re looking to switch to has service agreements that state their action plans during service failures. You should also make sure that a provider has reliable equipment and backup centers.
Call Center Features
There are some Business Phone System features that are the same regardless of what specific system you get. However, there are some unique features that can be useful for call centers. For instance, you should look out for skills-based routing. This feature lets managers send calls to specific agents. This is useful if a customer has a unique issue that a particular agent has special knowledge on. You should also look for hunt groups, hold queues, and IVR systems.
Integration with Software
Most call centers have CRM software and ticketing tools. It’s important to select a call center option that integrates seamlessly with whatever software programs you currently use. It will make the transition that much smoother.
If you have any questions regarding Business Phone Systems, please contact Advanced Communication Systems today at 800-750-3624. Please feel free to also follow us on Facebook.
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