The focus has shifted from profits to customer experience. Businesses realize that delivering better customer experience leads to loyalty, referrals and more sales. One tool that every business should have if it aims to deliver a superior experience to customers is omnichannel contact center software.
Do businesses really need omnichannel contact center software?
As the name implies contact center software is primarily meant to serve the needs of call centers. However, its features can prove just as useful for businesses. If customer service is a priority then you will want a CC solution. If communications are of prime importance, you will prefer call center software over IP PBX due to its advanced set of features. Here are the various features and how these can be transplanted into business operations and make it an indispensable part of your operations.
Omnichannel
- The omnichannel contact center software enables communication through voice, voicemail, fax, SMS, chat, video, email, and social media with a centralized user interface to let you know of conversation on one channel and switch over to any other channel with ease. Businesses can easily make this the crux of their business strategy. It can blend together marketing and sales with a service component for seamless customer experience.
- Sales, marketing and service support form one wing of the possible uses of omnichannel contact center solutions. Another use area is interoffice and intra-office collaborations where communication along different channels becomes easy and easily managed through a single project manager. Stakeholders may not necessarily be in the same office premises. Collaboration gains coherence and power when you have a seamless communication platform that allows you to send emails one moment and then take up the matter further through video conference and chat.
- Another perspective is the vendor and supply side. Businesses rely on vendors and contractors to provide goods and services. Business officials at various levels may need to interact with vendors as well as between themselves in which case the omnichannel feature can prove to be a boon for fast and smooth interaction.
Launch and manage campaigns
Why leave it to call centers to launch and manage your marketing campaigns and carry out your business surveys? You can do it in-house with just one or two employees using the predictive dialer, auto-dialer and omnichannel feature. You can initiate cold calls, follow it up with emails and then with social media tweets and posts. Handle responses and funnel them into the CRM for sales follow up. Record calls and analyzes them later to know performance. There is a lot that the call center software with omnichannel features can do for you in your campaign strategies.
Handle existing customers and inquiries
The customer care is where the omnichannel contact center solution shines. If it is a new lead you can view such a prospect on social media or email or handle an incoming call by routing it automatically to the most skilled person for immediate conversion. The Creative Cloud (CC) software keeps track and “listens” on social media and you can anticipate issues in a proactive way.
Make a video call and your customers will enjoy the “face to face” experience. Does someone have a grievance? Address it to their satisfaction and share on social media for everyone to see. Use the WebRTC feature to engage in video chats and share video within video or share documents and conference. Customers will appreciate this quick and superior method of resolving their issue at one stroke. Use the same feature carried forward to your mobile for any time, anywhere engagement.
Interactive Voice Response (IVR).
IVR mearns an Interactive Voice Response. is built into the contact center software. The smart IVR enables callers to enjoy the satisfaction of self-service and frees your employees to take on more productive tasks. Of course, if a caller wishes to speak to someone, he gets access immediately. There are other uses for IVR such as using it for surveys once the conversation between caller and agent is over. You can just as well use this feature to launch surveys and impress customers that you do value their opinion. You get data and that is an added bonus you can leverage to fine-tune marketing or upgrade products.
These interactive voice response systems don’t need a complex or expensive IT infrastructure. Existing mobile phones and desktops transform into superior communication centers.
Still wondering how omnichannel contact center software can help your business in 2019? It is a good idea to try out a hosted package for which you simply sign up, get it set up, receive training and start using it. There is a productivity jump. Your customers and vendors will appreciate the vastly improved communication facilities. Your business leapfrogs the competition in 2019. And the best thing is you pay as you go, which means you pay out of your earnings.
