In today's business world, offering outstanding customer service is essential. As a result, contact center solutions have become a necessary tool for organizations of all sizes. Organizations can use contact center solutions to manage client interactions across all channels, such as voice, email, chat, and social media. Not all contact center solutions, however, are made equal. This is why choosing the right one can be a challenging task. In this blog, we will explore many valuable features your contact center solutions should have to ensure the best Customer experience possible.
We all know that relationship with customers is what makes or breaks the business. Therefore, a contact center is the core of any business because it serves as the primary point of communication between a company and its customers. It manages all customer interactions, including inquiries, complaints, and feedback. It is also important to note that contact centers are changing as well. With the rise of digital channels, contact centers have evolved to incorporate various communication channels, such as email, social media, chatbots, and voice calls. In fact, 85% of businesses believe that increasing the use of digital channels is the main objective in running their contact center.
With an increase in the complexity of running a contact center, gathering customer data is essential for improving customer service, identifying trends, and driving business growth. By providing an efficient and effective customer experience, contact centers can build brand loyalty, attract new customers, and drive revenue. Therefore, a well-functioning contact center is critical to the success of any business, regardless of its industry or size.
Choosing the right contact center solution is the first step to ensuring a well-functioning contact center. At first glance, each solution may seem quite similar to the other. Still, only some solutions have all it takes, so it is vital to look at your needs well.
There are many features to look for, and it's critical to seek specific characteristics to ensure your organization provides the best possible customer service. Here, we'll look at some of the features to look for when selecting a contact center solution that suits your company's and customers' demands.
The previous client activities timeline is a powerful feature that can enhance your customer journey by providing a quick and easy way to access your clients' historical data. This feature gives you an overview of all previous interactions, including communication, tickets, events, etc. This provides valuable insights into your customer's needs and preferences, enabling you to offer personalized and effective solutions. By having more accessible access to your client's history, you can respond to their requests faster and more efficiently, improving customer satisfaction and loyalty. Whether you're a small or large business, the previous client activities timeline can help you better understand your customers, streamline your operations, and drive business growth.
Benefits:
• Quick overview of client activities
• Easier access to history
The embedded softphone is a game-changing feature that can revolutionize how you provide customer service. With this feature, customer service agents can make and receive phone calls directly within the app, eliminating the need for additional softphone software or a hardphone. This translates to a more streamlined and user-friendly experience for agents, enabling them to focus on providing fast and efficient customer support. With an improved UX and fewer steps to start working as an agent, the embedded softphone helps agents stay focused and productive while interacting with customers. Moreover, this feature eliminates the need for agents to switch between multiple applications during a customer interaction, enabling them to provide a more seamless and personalized experience. For enterprises, the embedded softphone is a must-have feature that can take customer service to the next level.
Benefits:
• No need for additional softphone software
• Improved UX (fewer steps to start working as an agent)
• Less need to switch between multiple applications
• Great alternative to traditional hardphone
Deep linking is an essential feature for any live customer service app that aims to improve the user experience. With deep linking, users can access specific features and conversations within the app through a simple link without navigating through the app's menus or interface. This can save users valuable time and streamline their interactions with customer service agents. The feature enables more straightforward and quicker access to standard quick actions, allowing users to perform routine tasks more efficiently, such as responding to messages or updating their profile. With deep linking, your live customer service app can provide a more personalized and efficient experience, leading to higher customer satisfaction rates. Regardless of the size of your business, deep linking can help you enhance your app's functionality and provide a smoother user experience. Benefits
• Easier and quicker access and navigation to standard quick actions
With the Pin Call feature, users and supervisors can mark specific moments in a call, helping them to identify critical points and easily reference them later. This way, users can highlight and bookmark important parts of a call. The Recording Audio Wave feature provides users with an easier way to find specific call details, allowing them to locate and review particular moments quickly. This ensures that users can find the "talking time" more efficiently, improving their ability to analyze and act upon the information discussed during the call. With Pin Call and Recording Audio Wave, your live customer service app will provide a more efficient and personalized experience, helping users to make the most of their interactions with customers.
Benefits:
• Educational purpose, easier onboard of agents (supervisor can teach agent and show where and how to improve)
• Easier navigation and finding of specific moments that happened in the communication
Customer service agents often deal with multiple customer-related tasks at the same time.
It takes a lot of work to keep up with all customer inquiries. This is why some communication needs to be more apparent. This is where notifications play a significant role. The Desktop Notification feature in a customer service solution enables users to receive real-time alerts and updates even when they are not actively using the app. These notifications can include new chat requests, incoming calls, or updates to existing conversations. With this feature, agents can stay informed and responsive to customer requests, improving their ability to provide timely and efficient customer support.
Benefits
Not all agents have the same skill level or experience the same workload. This is why assigning the right agent to the right customer is essential. Assign communication is a feature that helps teams manage their customer inquiries more efficiently by assigning conversations to the most appropriate team member. This feature can be handy for groups that handle complex or technical inquiries, as it ensures that customer requests are directed to the team member with the most relevant expertise. Assign communication can also help teams manage their workload more effectively by distributing requests evenly across team members. This feature can be customized to suit the needs of different teams, allowing users to set specific criteria for assigning conversations.
Benefits:
• Less time wasted on analysis of mail flows (enabled standard favorites – assigned to me)
• Better organization of user/agent activities
Dealing with a large customer base also means dealing with the risk of having duplicate records in the database. A duplicate check is a feature that automatically checks for duplicate records or entries in a database. This feature helps to eliminate redundancy and avoid the potential for errors caused by multiple entries for the same customer. Duplicate checks can be customized to suit the needs of different teams, allowing users to set specific criteria for identifying duplicate records. With this feature, customer service teams can ensure that they have accurate and up-to-date customer information, leading to more efficient and effective customer interactions. Additionally, duplicate checks can help teams save time and resources by reducing the need for manual data entry and clean-up.
Benefits:
• Clean customer base
• Easy to merge duplicates
Waiting for Approval is a feature that helps teams manage approval processes more efficiently. This feature allows users to track pending approvals and take appropriate action to resolve requests on time. Waiting for Approval is particularly useful for teams needing permission for specific actions or decisions, such as approving refunds, escalating support tickets, or any other customer-related action.
The feature is designed so that a specific email/SMS can only be sent to the client once a supervisor reviews it and confirms its sending. At the same time, the supervisor can reject the proposed email with the additional option of attaching comments to the mail to educate the initial initiator of the email, i.e., with other information that needs to be corrected in the email so that it is of an acceptable format.
Benefits:
• Lower risk of sending "wrong" email / SMS
• An additional tool to educate and correct agents in daily communication (more straightforward onboarding process, better control)
Campaign Metrics is one of the most important contact center features that provides teams with valuable insights into the performance of their campaigns. It enables users to track the success of specific email campaigns. This way, it is easy to follow and calculate the conversion rate between steps in an email campaign. Campaign Metrics is beneficial for teams that run multiple campaigns across various channels. It allows them to monitor and measure the performance of each campaign in real time. This feature can be customized to suit the needs of different teams, allowing users to set specific metrics and targets for various campaigns.
Benefits
• Possibility to track campaign success
• Perform A/B tests – ensure the tremendous success of the campaign
Choosing the right contact center solution may seem like a big task, especially with so many available options. Here are some best practices to assist you in choosing the best contact center solution for your business:
Before you start evaluating different contact center solutions, it's crucial to have a good understanding of your business needs. Consider your current and future customer service requirements, the size of your team, and the channels you want to support. This will help you narrow down the solutions that meet your specific requirements.
As your business grows, so will your customer service needs. Ensure the contact center solution you choose can quickly scale with your business. Look for solutions that offer flexible pricing plans, the ability to add or remove agents as needed, and support for multiple channels.
Different contact center solutions offer additional features, so evaluating what each solution offers is essential. Look for features like real-time analytics, call recording, IVR, and CRM integrations. Make sure the features you need are available in the solution you choose. Also, consider that your business will grow as your customer base, so it is crucial to think about features you will need in the future.
A contact center solution should seamlessly integrate with your existing systems, including CRM, helpdesk, and marketing automation tools. Look for solutions offering pre-built integrations that can easily integrate with your current systems.
Excellent customer service is the backbone of your business. This is why you need a contact center solution that offers reliable and responsive support. Look for solutions that provide multiple support channels, including phone, email, and live chat. Check the response times and ensure the support team has a good reputation.
Choosing the right contact center solution and it's set of features is crucial for delivering exceptional customer service. You should select a contact center solution that fits your needs and growth plan. Start by assessing your business needs, evaluating the features, and considering scalability, integrations, and support.
At the heart of an effective contact center solution is an omnichannel platform that allows you to manage customer interactions across multiple channels. Live is a comprehensive, cloud-based, omnichannel solution that offers a range of features to help you deliver seamless customer experiences. With Live, you can manage customer interactions across channels, including voice, email, chat, and social media. You can also access real-time analytics, call recording, and CRM integrations, among other features.
Live is the perfect choice if you're looking for a reliable, flexible, and user-friendly contact center solution. Contact us today to learn more.
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