The Best Cloud Call-Contact Center Software: Go beyond IT

Your company is looking for a new Call Center Software Solution. But before you attend a demo, think about going beyond the IT department.

In this video I explain how to take a holistic approach that involves not only the IT department but also other departments like Operations and Marketing. By involving more departments your company can improve your call center’s: 1. Employee retention 2. Customer experience 3. Overall profitability

Want my recommendations on the best cloud call center software solutions to quote for your organization’s requirements? Click the button below to ask me today.

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

Thanks for joining me again today. I’m going to be talking about cloud call center software and some things that you should think about in advance in terms of just getting the proper mindset before you go shopping. So.

Want my recommendation?

But before we get too far ahead of myself, if you like, my recommendation on the best cloud contact center service providers for your company to quote for your company’s specific requirements, don’t Google it. You’ll be on Google forever. Just contact me, by email or by phone (714.593.0011). I’m a broker for all the major service providers and I’ll match you up with the best companies that you should be quoting in the best reps and all that good stuff, and we don’t charge a thing for it. So more information on that at the end of the video. Also, if you like the video, don’t forget to hit the like button and subscribe to the channel. I’d really appreciate it. It’ll also make sure you don’t miss any of the videos I try to publish about 1 to 2 videos every single week, so by subscribing you won’t miss any of them.

More than just a Technology Project

So your company is shopping for a new call center software solution. So maybe, maybe you just are getting rid of your old call center software. Maybe you want to upgrade it and do some more fancy things. Or maybe you’re getting rid of your phone system and your current call center software is attached to your old phone system. No matter what the reason you’re taking a look and you’re wondering, Hey, which vendor should we be quoting? Who’s the best at doing this and all this stuff? But one of the first things that you should think about that I really want everybody to try to do is before you start getting into quoting and all that stuff, really think of this project as more than just a technology project. So a lot of times I get a call from an I.T. department in the I.T. department. It’s like, Hey, you know, will you help us find new vendors for our cloud software solution? And absolutely, yeah, I do that. That’s great. But when the IT department is the only department involved it, we’re really missing a lot of information there. So because technology has changed so much, cloud call center software is really, really involves a lot more things than just technology. So you want to think of this, it’s not just a technology decision. It’s a technology decision, but it’s also an operations decision. It’s also a marketing decision.

Why it’s an operation decision

So let me explain a little bit about that. All right. So technology, we know why it’s a technology decision. It’s software. So it’s technology centered, all that stuff. I’m not going to go into detail on that. But operations, let’s think about it. So some of the cloud call center software out there can help you with training employees. It can help your management with making sure that they’re finding opportunities to train employees on phone calls instead of so before. With the old technology managers, we’re having to go in and randomly listen to a call once in a while to see how their employees were doing. Now there’s AI technology out there that will automatically detect something going on in a call that you want to know about, and it’ll send that clip to a manager for them to to review that recording. Well, that’s huge. It really helps the efficiency of the call center. So that’s one way operational efficiency can be increased.

Workforce Management

Also, there’s software out there that will allow you to do workforce management, meaning if you have call center agents running different shifts, the software will be using AI can learn. So it can decide, hey, these are typical trends that we see. This is how you should staff. Here’s some suggestions of how to staff the call center. You need a few more people at this time of the day, this day of the week. Then this time of the day, this day of the week. So it can help you out there. So that’s more of an operational thing. So definitely something you want to talk to somebody in operations about who’s in charge of staffing the call center, if this might be something that would be helpful to them.

Employee Turnover

Right. Also, think about employee retention. How much turnover is going on within the actual contact center in terms of agents? Well, that’s not an I.T decision, right? It’s not in charge of that. But operations is human resources are in charge of that. You know, overall just the company in general. The CEO cares about that because that costs a lot of money, right? So if there’s a way that the the cloud call center software can improve employee retention, that’s something you want to get other departments involved in so they can do things like gamification and improving the customer experience actually makes employees happier, which makes them want to stay if they’re dealing with angry customers all the time. The the customer experience is low and they don’t have the tools that they need to help customers. Yeah, you’re going to have a higher turnover. So there’s things you can do to retain those employees longer. That’s obviously going to help the business in a lot more ways than just technology. So those are some things to think about in terms of operations. So maybe you want to go to those folks and start asking them some questions, get them involved in the process. So it’s not just an I.T budget item, it’s operations, it’s overall profitability of the company.

Why it’s a Marketing decision

Okay, so then what about marketing? So as I mentioned before, the customer experience can be dramatically improved with the technology that’s out there compared to what was available ten years ago. So, for instance, do any of your customers want to reach out to you on Web chat right now and they can’t? Or do they want to text you and they can’t or they maybe want to text you a picture and they can’t, or maybe they would benefit. They’re having trouble doing something and they would love it if a customer service agent could take over their their computer screen and walk them through something, maybe that would be useful. Or maybe they emailed your company for support and they didn’t hear anything back for a week and then they had to call and they were angry because they never heard anything back. Or maybe they they did. You do have a web chat and they actually tried to engage you on web chat and then there was nothing there and they got mad and they had to call you. And then they went to call you and they sat on hold for a long time. So if there’s things you can do to improve customer experience, absolutely that’s a marketing thing.

How long does it take you to respond?

And taking it even a step further into marketing. What about social media? If somebody is on Instagram or any social media platform and they tag your company, maybe they have a complaint or maybe they have something good to say. Either way, they tag your company. How long is it taking an employee to respond to that? If it’s a negative comment, if somebody goes to your tags on social media and sees a bunch of negative comments that were never replied to, what does that say about your customer experience now?

What are your competitors doing?

What about your competitors? What are they doing when it comes to that stuff? So are your competitors responding to complaints right away and solving those issues and retraining employees quickly so that that stuff doesn’t happen time and time again? Are they noticing those things? Well, these are all things that cloud call center software can do. But if you leave it just as a technology decision, then it’s on the I.T. budget only. And those are going to improve the company in a lot more ways than just I.T. But it’s going to cost a little bit more money, so it’s going to blow the budget sometimes. But if you get the other departments involved, they’ll see that, hey, this is something really important, is something that we need and it’s not just a technology decision. So why don’t we cover that stuff today and just let you know that that cloud call center when you’re shopping for it today, think of it as more than just a technology decision. Even if you only have to contact center agents or call center agents, think of this as more than just a technology decision. It’s really a multi department, whole company decision on what technologies you can utilize to make your company better.

Conclusion

Okay, I hope that helped a little bit. So don’t forget to hit the Like button and subscribe to the channel so you don’t miss a video. And oh, by the way, if you’d like my recommendation on the best cloud call center software vendors out there, I can totally direct you to the right ones. They all have a different niche, and you’ll never know if you just start googling on the internet. You probably end up with the wrong ones. Instead. Reach out, contact me, by email or by phone (714.593.0011). I’ll ask you a few qualifying questions based on your companies’ requirements. Figure that stuff out and based on your answers, I will match you up with the best handful or small handful of vendors to quote, introduce you to the right salespeople at those at those companies to work with that my customers have enjoyed working with. Also, you know, walk with you throughout the whole process and oversee the coding process to make sure you get the best pricing from the vendor of your choice. And the nice thing is you’re thinking, how much is this going to cost me? It won’t cost you anything. I don’t charge you anything for my broker’s services. I’ve been doing this for over 20 years. I’ve never charged the customer a dime. The service providers pay my company, my broker fees. So there’s absolutely no excuse not to at least reach out and get my opinion on this stuff. Okay. Again, I hope it helped and I will catch you on the next video. Thanks for watching.