Modern call centers are equipped with cutting-edge tools that can effectively cater to the needs of increasingly demanding customers. Competition is fierce and with so many options to choose from, delivering great customer service is more important than ever. To maximize the chances of success, call centers are implementing smart features that help resolve customer issues efficiently and provide a better overall experience.
Ever reached out to customer service and been blown away by the fast, personalized assistance? That’s call center software at work. With this in mind, here are four clever call center software features you’re probably oblivious to, but are there working behind the scenes to make your life so much easier.
Intelligent Routing
Intelligent call routing is a call center software feature that identifies who the caller is and their reason for calling in order to assign an agent who can provide the appropriate assistance. It takes the agent’s skills, training, and track record into account to ensure the caller connects to the best person who can help them resolve their query.
Intelligent call routing also factors in caller data. This includes the caller’s:
- Priority level based on metrics like customer lifetime value, for example.
- Previous interactions with the company.
- Personality based on the company’s internal records as well as external sources like social media.
This handy feature helps to increase first contact resolution, minimize wasted time, and improve overall CSat (customer satisfaction) scores.
Omnichannel Support
The days of calls and emails being the only methods to get in touch with companies are long gone and customers are increasingly interacting with businesses across multiple touchpoints. Ever raised a query via live chat and then made a call at a later stage and the agent you’re speaking to ‘somehow’ knew about your prior contact? They’re using omnichannel support.
The omnichannel feature means call center agents have a history of all your communications at their fingertips, whether your interactions were through phone calls, email, live chat, social media, or SMS to name a few. Omnichannel support increases front-line efficiency so that they can deliver a consistently seamless service for customers.
Live Call Monitoring
The call monitoring feature allows managers or team leaders to join live calls between agents and customers without the customer knowing. Having some backup if needed can be very reassuring for new agents and also provides a great opportunity for real-time training. Call monitoring typically has three levels outlined below:
- Call listening – managers can join live calls and listen only without influencing the agent-customer interaction.
- Call whispering – managers can join live calls and provide live guidance to the agents without customers knowing
- Call barging – managers can join live calls and directly speak to customers. Agents can forward or transfer the call to the manager and there’s even an option to make it a conference call between all three parties.
Call monitoring places the customer at the center, which helps to increase CX (customer experience) by identifying problems quickly while also developing agents to improve future performance.
Call Scripting
Call scripting gives agents written prompts that help them provide a better overall service. In a similar way to a chatbot, this feature picks up on keywords during conversations with customers and then offers troubleshooting guidelines that provide helpful answers to the issues at hand.
It’s rare that an individual customer is the only one facing a certain problem. By the software picking up on similar queries while agents are speaking to customers, it helps to reach effective resolutions faster. So, the next time you’re left super impressed by how quickly an agent resolved your seemingly complex issue on a call, you might need to save some praise for the call scripting feature running in the background too.
Conclusion
The cost of bad customer experience makes a huge dent on a business’ bottom line. As a result, modern call centers are increasingly turning to call center software that improves responsiveness, increases accessibility and helps deliver better overall customer service. While you’ve probably never realized it, some of those great interactions you’ve had with customer service teams are thanks in part to call center software features like intelligent routing, omnichannel support, live call monitoring, and call scripting.
