The 1950’s can be claimed to have brought the call center into being. What started off at that time as a mere initiative to handle customer contacts has emerged to be a successful business in recent times. Employees merely trained to handle the telephone booking system for Continental Airlines through the Automatic Call Distributor developed by the US firm Rockwell Galaxy is a stark contrast to the customer associates or call center employees of modern times. Call center as is known nowadays has the capacity to handle million dollar businesses with their well trained and so to say technical resources. All throughout its journey, call center has also evolved. Handling outsourced business to serving as customer contact centers, call center nowadays have started relying on call center software to simplify tasks further.
But what really is call center software? In general parlance, it can be software used in any call center. However, those who are using it nowadays prefer to call it a powerful system in your hands. That is quite an impressive one liner, especially for those considering implementing the same in their business. What can be better than call center software that has got built in features to make and handle customer contacts easy as well as real time monitoring?
The classification of call center software and which one will work for your business is however dependent on various factors like:
- The type of call center
- What technology is being used in the call center
- The number of agents in the call center
These factors are important as it can influence your decision of picking the correct call center software that fits your needs and well as your bill. For example, the type of call center like whether it is an inbound one or an outbound one will help in demarcating the features clearly. Say for in bound call centers, call center software might have some of the following features:
- Automatic Call Distribution
- Inbound/Outbound Blending
- Inbound Hang-up Auto Callback
- Dynamic Scripting
- Direct Phone Extensions
- Voicemail to E-Mail
- Call Tracking
- Overflow Routing
- Custom Greetings/Hold Music
- Inbound Color Notifications
- Custom Agent Audio Prompts
- Inbound Campaign Reporting
- Custom IVR Menus
In comparison, call center software for an outbound call center can include the following features:
- Multi List Dialing
- Dynamic Scripting
- Pop Webpages w/ Lead Info
- Customer on hold options
- Alternate Number Dialing
- Agent or Campaign Callbacks
- Lead Import via Web API
- Campaign/List Custom Caller ID
- Local Caller ID Mapping
- External/Internal Call Transfer
- Custom Greetings/Hold Music
- Answering Machine Detection
- Agent Login/wait time/Call Stats
- Agent Time Cards
- Outbound Campaign Reporting
- Call Recording
Call center software can be a good addition to your successful business. Irrespective of the type of calls that a call center handles, call center software can mold the communication system to match all your requirements.
Idania is a freelance writer based in the United States. Idania has researched the options in call center management software using the web. In her spare time, Idania enjoys online shopping and spending time with her family.
It is amazing when you look at how far both the job and technology has evolved in such a short period of time! Customer care representatives play an expanded role now in many companies. Keeping the customer satisfaction up is goal one. There are so many different applications that could be/would be needed depending on the type of business and function you are supporting. With this renewed focus on customer care, it will be interesting to see what new developments become released to further assist this growing and ever changing industry.
An important component of call center software is that is provides call center managers with important data that can be used for decision making. Managers need to know how agents are performing. Call center agents are an important touch point for any business and calls need to be handled in a professional manner.