Some callers seem impossible to please. But that’s never truly the case—call center agents probably just don’t know enough about the caller to adequately assess and solve their problems. This often stems from a failure to connect on a personal level.
Of course, it’s incredibly difficult to connect with a caller when you don’t know anything about them. What are their struggles? How is their problem affecting their life? Agents don’t have enough time to gather this information during a single call.
If business process outsourcing (BPO) agents want to have this kind of data, they need access to the right call center technology.
What Is Call Center Technology?
Call center technology is what every call center should use to organize and route incoming calls. It also helps collect valuable information about callers so agents can make better choices when caring for their clients.
With that in mind, here are three call center technologies ClearSource recommends integrating into every call center’s processes.
1. Customer Relationship Management Tools
Customer relationship management software (CRM) helps businesses manage their interactions and relationships with their customers. CRM solutions accomplish this by collecting data about the caller. This data is used to create a customer profile that agents can reference in the future to better support the caller in every subsequent interaction.
CRM tools are an essential piece of call center technology for any customer satisfaction strategy. It helps agents track your interactions with callers, including details like:
- Questions the caller has previously asked
- Products the caller has purchased
- The number of times the caller has contacted your call center agents
In ClearSource’s experience, our clients already have established customer relationship management (CRM) software that they allow us to access. We recommend this approach. It allows both the BPO and the client to track critical data about callers from the same hub.
Recommended CRM Tools
Here are some CRM tools you could consider integrating:
- Salesforce Sales Cloud: Sales Cloud is highly versatile, allowing call centers and companies of all sizes to increase agent productivity and track meeting data.
- Hubspot CRM: Like Sales Cloud, Hubspot CRM can scale with the growth of a company. It provides sophisticated profiles for each caller.
- Monday.com: Monday.com is a CRM that is simple to pick up, meaning call center agents won’t have to spend hours figuring out how to navigate its interface.
- Zendesk.com: Zendesk.com is a CRM that makes customer service better. They build software to meet customer needs, set teams up for success, and keep your business in sync.
2. Call Routing Systems
A call routing system is a program that automatically queues and distributes calls to BPO agents. Here’s how it works: the company will carry a toll-free number that their customers will call. Those calls will then be routed to the call center, where the calls will be automatically organized by priority or directed to specific agents who are well-equipped for the call.
Again, there will be many times when companies will use their own call routing system, which call center agents can then link to. However, it’s a good idea for BPOs to host their own call routing system in case they need to use it.
Recommended Call Routing System
We highly recommend using Amazon Connect for in-house call routing systems.
Amazon Connect is an affordable call routing solution that is simple to use. Its support is also highly scalable, allowing agents to satisfy callers during even the busiest days.
Amazon Connect will also collect data about calls, including average queue abandonment time and average handle time, which call centers can use to assess the efficacy of their agents.
3. Artificial Intelligence Assistance
While still not widely used in the industry today, artificial intelligence (AI) is on the rise to be a critical piece of call center technology. AI can currently contribute to the following processes:
- Predictive behavioral routing: Using analytics and AI, call routing systems can better match callers with customer personality types—profiles that define a caller’s demeanor and attitudes. Those callers can then be assigned to agents who are best suited for that personality.
- Customer assistance for basic queries: Call center agents will often field a lot of calls that have an easy answer. Unfortunately, these kinds of queries clog the lines, meaning callers with more pressing questions may experience significant delays. AI-powered customer assistance can pick out common queries and offer an appropriate automated response that answers the caller’s question.
- Support for human agents: Some AI programs can feed call center agents with important resources for solving customer concerns. This may include a full customer history, next steps to take, links to product information, and available promotions.
Get the Right Tools in Your Call Center
These three call center tools and technologies will help your agents operate smoothly and address customer concerns promptly. If you want to learn more about how you can innovate your call center support, contact ClearSource BPO today.
