Businesses understand the need for exemplary, fast and convenient customer service and support. No matter how great their product or service is, or how popular their brand may be, if they fail at customer service and experience, it all comes crashing down around them. That’s not good. So, it’s not a surprise that everyone is scrambling to find better call and contact center solutions. But, are any of these solutions going to help?
Well, before we look at potential call and contact center solutions for the new age, let’s look at what’s wrong with what we’ve been using. Until recently, the only reliable solution has been the classic call center. This concept is a bit problematic, because phone calls are inherently disruptive and inconvenient. Along with this, the phone trees (menus), hold times and the like just add to annoyance.
And, there’s a lot of bottleneck with old call centers. So, it’s no small wonder people want better solutions. But, we can’t abandon the call center entirely. But, maybe some other methods of contact could be brought in to help? Here are three suggestions to consider.
#1 – Virtual Call Centers with Integration
One solution that’s gaining a lot of momentum is the virtual call center solution, which can integrate help desk systems as well as CRM functionality to allow the porting over of the call center to the digital, and also bring in that multi channel solution that everyone who’s sane is trying.
SimplyCT exemplifies solutions like this, and while they can be a bit complex, it’s a good start. But, this still preserves problems to some extent, so there may be some other things worth trying.
#2 – Live Chat Systems
Another thing to consider is a live chat solution. Some virtual call centers offer this, but you’ll want to use a full system if you’re serious about chat as a contact center solution.
There are a number of these, but one of the best is LivePerson, which can integrate with your virtual call center and your CRM. These aren’t a new idea, but they’re growing in popularity as people have become increasingly accustomed to text-based conversations due to instant messengers, email, SMS systems and the like. They’re convenient and they tend to reduce the hold times other systems have.
#3 – Onboard Systems
Another solution which can help in a number of ways is the use of onboard systems like WalkMe. These can help agents coordinate solutions and manage sync between multiple channels and reduce those hold times and the number of redirects otherwise needed.
However, along with those, WalkMe can also be great for self service, since it can integrate with web interfaces and guide users through complex processes step by step. It’s easy to set up, and is programmed by point and click, eliminating the need for programming skills from the picture.
If you combine the first two solutions, and then tie them together with good onboard systems like WalkMe, you have the best answer to call and contact center solutions that is really available right now. Of course, there are other things to try, like help desks (ZenDesk is a good one) and using social networks for less sensitive support issues as well.
