Managing a call center can be a tedious task. You need to have a wide range of call center software features to drive more engagement and maintain customer experience. These tools feed data into performance management tools to improve service delivery.
Essential Call Center Software Features
Call centers require tools and software such as automatic call distribution systems, CRMs, and dialers. With technology evolving, equipping your call center with the right tools remains critical. Call center engagement will likely change, and you need to invest in the best call center software features to remain competitive.
These call center software features will dramatically improve operational efficiency and ROI;
Automatic Call Distributors (ACD)
ACDs are telephony software system that routes call to the right agents and departments. This allows for an equal playing field for your agents. Having an ACD ensures lead distribution is equall among all your agents.
The system receives incoming calls and routes them based on preset conditions to the right agent or department. When there is excess traffic or when a particular is unavailable, the call is routed to another agent.
Some of the features you should look for in an ACD are:
Round-Robin Distribution
ACDs distribute calls evenly to all agents. It routes calls from the first to the last agent to ensure no agent is burdened with many calls.
Skill-based Routing
Calls are routed to the most skilled agent or department. When a customer enters a query before calling, the call routes to the person who is most capable of providing a solution.
Weighted Call Distribution
Agents can be assigned a specific weight based on their experience or skills. The calls are routed to the agents depending on the weight assigned to them. This ensures that more experienced agents handle the complex calls.
Uniform Call Distribution
This call feature aims to create fairness by directing calls to the agent who has been idle for the longest time. It ensures no agents get too overwhelmed while others stay idle.
Simultaneous Call Distribution
This feature sends a call notification to all agents. The first agent to receive handles the call.
ACDs are ideal if you want to create a fairground in the call center. Additionally, they help improve overall customer satisfaction and efficiency.
IVRs
Interactive voice response helps create a seamless caller experience by allowing them to select an option and get routed to the most appropriate agent. This way, the customer can get connected to an agent who is best equipped to handle their queries.
Modern IVR systems are AI-driven to create a better customer experience. Some smart call processing programs can even make accurate decisions and route the call without asking many questions. This technology provides a more natural interaction to reduce costs on the customer’s side.
When combined with skill-based routing, an IVR can shorten queue times for customers and sometimes allow automated responses for common questions. If you want to engage callers more effortlessly, equipping your call center with an IVR remains critical.
Call Recording
A call recording feature is essential if you want to call center agents to operate efficiently. Recording calls helps ensure that agents are abiding by compliance and monitoring issues customers are facing.
With call recording software, you can easily monitor which agents need better training. Also, seeing patterns in customer issues can allow more procedures and processes to be developed to assist customers better.
In case a customer expresses dissatisfaction with the provided response, you can revisit the interaction to see what went wrong. Furthermore, recorded calls help detect weaknesses in your team so you can create better strategies.
Call Barging / Call Whispering
Call barging and whispering help senior agents or managers assist the agent during an ongoing call. Senior agents or managers can use call whispering to speak with the agent on the line, such that the customer cannot hear. This is particularly useful in training new agents.
Call barging allows the manager to take over the call if the agent finds it hard to engage the caller. The manager or senior agent can jump into the conversation and talk to the caller directly. Combining these tools helps train inexperienced agents on how to offer responses more effectively while on live calls.
CRM Integration
It has become urgent that all centers integrate customer relationship management (CRM) tools. CRMs serve various purposes to allow for robust contact management. They help manage vendor relationships, improve marketing capabilities, keeps tabs on operational data, and drive sales and leads.
CRMs provide a vast array of information for agents and managers alike. Without CRM integration agents will spend more time away from calls entering crucial information into a CRM. Integration makes the process seamless and frees up agents’ time.
Advanced CRMs employ AI to automate all processes. For instance, it can identify the context of the conversation and use that data in the future to provide even better solutions.
Gamification
Improving agent’s motivation is imperative to better call-handling. After all, your call center’s success depends on the agent’s ability, motivation, drive, and productivity.
Gamification is the implementation of game mechanics as a way to increase employees’ motivation. It allows your agents to see their statistics in real-time, which is a great motivational incentive. It provides a competitive and rewarding environment for agents.
In this technology, call center agents compete to achieve certain objectives and outscore their colleagues. It gives them the motivation to push themselves to the limits. Managers can also provide incentive programs based on agent statistics.
Omnichannel Communications
Omnichannel call center software features gives customers options to choose the support channels they prefer. Callers can either choose voice calls, emails, chat, video, or even social media. Since not all customers prefer voice calls, omnichannel communication helps create a more robust customer experience.
Using SMS, chat, chatbots, and email support can all help lower your queue times for customers seeking answers. In the digital age, some customers prefer not to have to call a company for information. Consider integrating other channels of support on your website to assist customers better.
Omnichannel communication helps deliver knowledgeable, highly personalized, and long-lasting customer relationships. It improves relationships and customer loyalty, allowing for more sales opportunities.
Computer Telephony Integration (CTI)
Also known as softphones, CTI connects your smartphone or computer to a virtual phone system. This call center feature provides phone service over the internet. It allows the use of dialers to call prospects from your CRM or lists automatically.
With a high-quality VoIP headset, CTI works perfectly. The available software applications offer a wide range of functionalities that are not available with your dialer. In modern call centers, power dialers should be phased out for compliance reasons. Instead, consider using a predictive dialer or preview dialer depending on your campaign to get better results.
KPI Analytics
Analytics are essential to gauging the success of your campaign. With a KPI analytics call center feature, you gain real-time insights into your call center’s performance. It allows you to view detailed reports for individual agents in real-time.
KPI analytics help measure and track analytics so that you can improve your team’s performance and make data-driven decisions. This software feature analyzes metrics such as processing time, missed calls, caller ratings, etc.
Tracking your agents’ metrics, dialing systems, and campaign success can indicate areas that need improvement. You can use also metrics to assign agents to appropriate teams, skill-based routing departments, or even incentive programs.
List Management
Customers’ contact lists are an essential tool for any call center. You need to equip your call center with a list management feature to manage your contact lists at all times. Every list should be scrubbed against the Do Not Call (DNC) to ensure compliance.
It is also a good idea to have an internal do not call opt-out for customers that request this. Abiding by compliance and ethical dialing practices help improve and maintain your company’s reputation.
Recycling lists is also an important feature. Some prospects may not fit a campaign or may be unavailable when they are called. Having list recycling software built into your software’s dashboard helps easily manage these contacts.
The Bottom Line
The above call center software features will help make your call center more productive. As long as you implement them correctly, you can be sure to achieve your goals and KPIs. With all these features, be ready for a more efficient call center.
At Call Tools, we bring you some of the best call center software features to revolutionize your call center. Get in touch with us to learn more about our call center tools and software features.
