What Does Your Call Center Software Say About Your Organization?

An organization’s call center software is as much an element of its brand as its logo. When a person’s call experience is good, the result is a positive brand association. When a person’s call experience is bad, the converse is true.

Like it or not, your call center software has the power to determine your organization’s reputation, regardless of the efforts you make toward marketing. Customer experience—especially with regard to low-effort customer service—is king.

While a prompt response, timely resolution and the friendliness (or lack thereof) of your representative are the most important pieces of the puzzle, speed and amiability are just starting points.

How Important Is It Really?

In today’s competitive business environment, just offering a great product or service isn’t enough to ensure success. Customer service counts so much that the type and quality of call center software you use can make or break you. Inefficient call center systems result in customers being passed from agent to agent without a resolution 26% of the time.

Customers are four times more likely to leave a brand for a competitor after a poor customer service experience than other factors like price or product quality. The math is clear: Your call center’s effectiveness is paramount to the health of your bottom line.

Handle Complex Needs More Simply

When solutions are difficult, your organization becomes associated with that difficulty. When solutions are simple and streamlined, those adjectives will form the bulk of what customers say about you. Customers don’t like complicated solutions anymore than you do. So why saddle either of you with anything but cutting-edge technology designed to solve problems efficiently?

To accomplish that simplicity, choose a cloud-based call center software with a powerful interactive voice response (IVR) system. You’ll minimize customer hold times and maximize resolution without needing to hire and train additional staff.

With a robust IVR solution, calls can be handed off to a real person in less time and with more valuable data. And they can be routed to the agent best able to handle the customer’s needs, too.

How Many Channels?

More and more, people expect to be able to communicate with an organization via multiple channels. From the web and text messaging to email and social media, “call centers” need to offer a lot more than just phone service.

According to Gartner, just ignoring customer service needs expressed on social media can result in a churn rate as high as 15%. The flipside of that churn, however, is that customers whose needs are acknowledged and met on social media spend as much as 40% more with that company than its other customers.

Imagine, then, the wealth that awaits offering customer service on other channels and platforms. Of course, simply offering a multi- or omni-channel customer service option isn’t enough. Those options must fire on all cylinders all the time, and they need to result in resolution—not just fast communication.

Position yourself to hear and respond to your customers regardless of the manner in which they want to communicate. Choose a call center software that offers the solutions your customers need.

For more information on how to work smarter with business intelligence solutions for the modern call center, check out our Top 10 List When Considering a Cloud-Based Contact Center Solution whitepaper.