Business and IP PBX have a long association. Talk about business communication and you are likely to think of it being based on the IP PBX software solution. However, today’s situation is different and businesses need to do more, communicate effectively and pursue sales as well as customer service. For this the call center software is a better option given its many features. 

 

A brief overview of call center software features

You could have in-house or hosted call center software but its typical features include: 

  • Ability to handle hundreds of concurrent calls, call transfer, call monitoring, eavesdropping and conferencing
  • Automatic smart call distribution directly or through the IVR
  • IVR as the first port of call for prospective customers or existing customers
  • Dialers for outbound calls to conduct campaigns and surveys or send out reminders
  • WebRTC audio-video chat and conferencing
  • Call forwarding to mobile phones, call bridging and transfers
  • Call recording, analytics, reports

 

Communicate and collaborate

Teams or individuals within a business just cannot operate in isolation. Typical call center solutions offer better tools for communication and collaborations between teams. For instance, you could use WebRTC internally for connecting in-office and remote workers, exchanging documents and even for training. Your workforce becomes better informed and efficient when you use call center solution with this tool. 

 

Let IVR take the load

Majority of calls are routine. Existing customers may wish to have questions answered or post a complaint or ask for a service. Shift the load to the IVR instead of your employees. Customers can resolve most questions through the IVR, even make payments when the IVR sends out automated reminders and offers phone payment with integrated payment gateway. Your employees are free to do more productive tasks. 

 

Effortless powerful campaigns

Call center solutions include a dialer. You may have different types of dialers to handle different tasks. 

 

The more campaigns you conduct the better it is for your business. You generate leads to keep orders flowing in and you conduct surveys to gauge customer sentiment. The software at the core is the dialer of which there are different types: 

Power dialer: This type of dialer refers the selected list of numbers and dials a number when an agent is free. You can use it for outbound sales campaigns. 

Click to call: This is manual type of dialer in which the agent clicks on a number to initiate a call once he is finished with an existing one. It can be used for outbound campaigns and it is well suited for customer service when you do not know how much time will be spent on each customer and each must receive full attention. 

Predictive dialer: Smart call center software usually includes artificial intelligence powered predictive dialer that keeps track of employees and interaction with called parties. When it senses a call is about to end it will initiate an outbound call or several calls and connect the employee to the first one picked up by a human at the other end. This type of dialer is perfect when you wish to conduct high volume outbound calls as in sales campaigns. 

Progressive dialer:  The progressive dialer is smart and will initiate a call when an agent is free and it will disconnect if a call remains unanswered. This dialer is good for mass sales campaigns. 

Preview dialer: The employee gets to view complete data of the target on the screen before dialing is initiated and call is connected. When the called party answers the employee is ready with details and can get down to the task at hand. This type of dialer is ideal for customer service. 

 

Then there is full automation in some call center solutions. You can set up an outbound campaign for surveys or to send out offers by picking a list of phone numbers, linking the list to the IVR and then setting a schedule for outgoing calls. Record a voice message and the dialer will dial the number, send out the voice message and record the response in the CRM for later follow up. 

 

You get much more than leads or excellent customer satisfaction through the use of the right dialer. Your system automatically gathers data about performance of employees, time they spend on calls, results, strategies that work and so on. The call details analytics will give you a full report. 

 

Omnichannel

Good as the above features are, when you pick omnichannel call center software, it gets even better. All channels such as voice, SMS, chat, fax, and social media channels link together and can be managed through a single console. Your prospective or existing customers may use Whatsapp or Facebook or email separately for one topic but all these link together to maintain continuity. Plus, you can use the social media channels for campaigns and branding too besides timely responses. 

 

It is time to switch over to call center software. You and your team can do much more, with less effort and with better results.