3 Ways to Ensure a Smooth Transition to a New AI Call Center Software Solution

Your company is shopping for new call center software, but you’re worried the transition will overwhelm your agents and make them less productive. I cover 3 tips to make sure that doesn’t happen.

About Me

Mike Smith has been helping companies select the best telecom, WAN, security, and cloud services since 1999. He founded AeroCom in 2003, and has been the recipient of numerous business telecommunications industry awards, including being recognized as one of the top 40 business people in tech-heavy Orange County, CA. Follow Mike on YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit and SpiceWorks.

Transcript

Why Implementation Is Just as Important as the Software You Choose

Your company is in the market for a new call center software solution, but as the person in charge of the project, you’re worried about more than just finding the right vendor. You’re worried about implementation. The goal of new software is to make your agents’ jobs easier — but if the transition goes wrong, they’ll end up working slower and performing worse than before. You’re not alone in this concern. I’ve got three tips that will make a real difference. My name is Mike Smith, I’m the President of AeroCom. Let’s put our heads together on this.

My Recommendations

But first, if you’d like to know which cloud call center software vendors your company should be quoting, and you have ten or more agents taking calls — that’s my sweet spot. Reach out and contact me. Send me an email or give me a call at 714.593.0011. I’m a broker for all the major service providers in the industry. I’ve been doing this for over 20 years and I don’t charge you anything to use me. I will get you better pricing, tell you which providers are the best fit for your organization, and which ones to avoid. Also subscribe to my channel so you don’t miss any of my weekly videos, and go check out our website AeroComInc.com where you can look at providers, filter by features, and read and write reviews.

The Framework: Crawl, Walk, Run

I have a lot of customers that come to me for call center software recommendations, and a lot of times they’re coming off a very basic system — maybe just a regular phone system being used as a call center. Their agents are used to something simple. The concern is that if you launch too much too soon, agents get overwhelmed and end up working slower than before. That is definitely not the goal. The solution is a phased approach — crawl, walk, run. Here are my three tips for making that work.

Tip 1: Start with Analytics

The crawl phase should be getting better analytics into the system first. A lot of companies I talk to have very little visibility into what’s happening inside their call center. They don’t know if agents aren’t answering calls they should be, if volume is too high for the team size, or if post-call work is keeping people off the phones. Before throwing solutions at the problem, get the data first. Spend two to three months analyzing it internally. That data will tell you exactly what your walk phase should look like — don’t skip this step.

Tip 2: Add Only One Additional Omnichannel Channel at Launch

Omnichannel is one of the most powerful features modern call center software offers — phone calls, texts, emails, web chat, and social media like WhatsApp all in one unified queue. It’s a great feature, but it can be overwhelming for agents coming off a basic system. My suggestion is to launch with voice plus just one additional channel. If your team has only ever handled calls, add web chat and nothing else at first. Give it six months, then layer in SMS or email. This also gives administrators time to understand volume and balance workloads across channels. One new thing at a time.

Tip 3: Start Small with AI

All the major cloud call center vendors are offering AI right now and it can genuinely transform your operation — but don’t jump into advanced AI right out of the gate, especially if you’re coming from a basic phone system with no AI at all. The crawl phase for AI is customer sentiment detection and automated CSAT scores. These tools simply monitor whether callers are happy or frustrated and alert managers to trends. It’s passive, low-disruption, and immediately useful. From there, the walk phase would be automated call scoring and AI Agent Assist — small cards that pop up for agents when certain words are mentioned, linking to product info or competitor battle cards. The run phase — voice bots, chat bots, agentic AI — should wait until at least the third quarter of your implementation. Don’t rush it.

Want My Recommendation on the Best Call Center Software Solutions?

There’s a lot more to consider beyond these three tips. Reach out, send me an email or give me a call at 714.593.0011. Especially if your company has ten or more agents taking calls — I can introduce you to the best call center software vendors you should be working with. I’ll oversee the quoting process, make sure you get the best pricing possible, and help your company make a better decision in a fraction of the time. I won’t charge you anything for my consulting services, so there’s no excuse not to at least reach out. I’ve been doing this for over 20 years. Don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel so you don’t miss any of my weekly videos, and go check out our website AeroComInc.com. Thanks for watching. I’ll catch you on the next one.