Сall centers are meant to provide customer service, at least in most cases it is how it works. Even though some call centers focus on generating sales and leads via outbound calls, inbound call center solutions are much more popular and widespread worldwide.
As you could guess, the call center is an organization that processes hundreds or even thousands of calls daily, and this is why call centers can’t use general phone lines and normal desk phones or mobile phones to handle such an amount of work. This is why call centers use specific software tools to handle calls and process other call center operations.
For servicing incoming calls from clients, such software tools are generally called inbound call center solutions, and they can also bear different features and capabilities.
So, let’s discover the opportunities inbound call center solutions can provide your business with.
What are the main types of inbound call center solutions?
When talking about inbound call center software, there are mainly two primary types of it you can purchase. In most cases, it is about choosing an infrastructure solution – either it is an on-premises (inbox) call center solution or a cloud-based solution.
On-premises inbound call center software is considered a more secure option for companies that don’t want to put their data and operations at risk. This is quite an outdated point of view because even an on-premise solution can’t guarantee you absolute security – as any other solution too. An on-premise solution is called so because you purchase and set up all the infrastructure of your contact center, including hardware and software. This is a costly investment, especially at the setup stage, and that’s why inbox solutions are losing popularity among SMBs (small- and medium-sized brands). This is a logical consequence of the lifecycle of on-premise solutions which are going to be replaced by cloud solutions in the near future.
Cloud-based solutions have been developed as a revolutionary technology, but nowadays they are a common part of our life. You definitely use cloud services on a daily basis – at least iCloud or others. Cloud computing made life easier, business operations faster and more efficient, and business tools more accessible and affordable for businesses of all sizes. Cloud solutions also provide a great level of security, even though some people still have doubts about that – providers of cloud services are totally responsible for the business continuity of their clients, so the issue of security is also the issue of their image and reputation. Moreover, cloud-based solutions mean you purchase no hardware and pay no maintenance fees, which is a great option for any business. Some providers even provide free setups.
Also, there is another type of inbound call center software, called blended call center solution which bears all the features of both outbound and inbound call center solutions. Nonetheless, it is a topic for another post.
Main benefits of using an inbound call center solution
There are numerous benefits call center software for inbound call centers can offer to you, but let us define the most important ones.
Better quality of customer service
Inbound call center software isn’t only the tool that automates call routing and optimizes the work of your agents, but it is a tool that also provides you with numerous quality assurance and performance monitoring tools. You can monitor live calls in real-time mode using an option that is the most suitable for every single situation – you can do it in hidden mode, help agents with advice that clients will not hear, or step into the conversation as its third party. You will also receive the recordings of all calls to learn the imperfections in agents’ performance, quality of call scripts, and problems with every individual agent to adapt your training and onboarding processes and policies.
Positive customer experience in every interaction
What is customer experience? It is a multi-component metric that consists of numerous aspects of customer interactions and emotions regarding the brand – from customer effort and customer satisfaction to brand advocacy and speed of your service. Thus, inbound call center software provides you with numerous tools to improve the customer experience for your clients.
It relates to intelligent call routing which links callers to the most appropriate agents without unnecessary delays, advanced statistics and reports which you can use to find out the areas of improvement, self-service options and channels for clients, multichannel communications with customers, and finally, call scripting tools to provide your agents with all needed information about the customer even before the conversation begins.
Another part of the story is CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system integration, which means your agents will be provided with the customer data from the CRM software during every interaction with the customer, which opens the way for providing proactive and personalized customer service of the modern era.
All-in-one working environment
As we have already mentioned, inbound call center software has powerful integration capabilities, and the CRM system isn’t the only software tool you can integrate with your call center solution. Integration capabilities also cover such vital tools, as chatbots for providing first-stage customer support on your website, help desk software to manage customer support tickets, payment systems to provide all payment options your target audience wants, and third-party workforce management software if you need more options than your call center software provides you in stock.
These capabilities may vary depending on who your call center software provider is, but in some cases, you can even get an open API option to integrate your call center with almost any tool in the world! With such features, you can build an all-in-one working environment for your agents where all needed instruments are at hand and they won’t spend hours switching between different tools to make their work done.