Dialing in on Success: Finding the Best Call-Center Software Solutions

If business is a battlefield, then your call centers are the front lines. Call centers are where your agents encounter the most pressing client dilemmas, dealing with problems as they arise and giving customers a chance to judge your business on results, instead of promises. But while customer support, problem solving, and conflict resolution are all important, they aren’t the only responsibilities of modern call centers.

When properly leveraged, today’s call centers can be used to promote ongoing sales opportunities — such as taking order requests, upselling and cross selling, improving client product knowledge, and taking appointments. Call centers can also take the role of the dispatch department, assigning employees to tasks and ensuring that work-order logistics are being handled correctly.

With so much responsibility being placed on modern call centers, it’s no wonder that jobs for customer service representatives are expected to grow 12.6% by 2022. In fact, currently 1 out of every 25 jobs (or .04%) in the U.S. is a part of the call-center industry. This means that in order to remain competitive, successful businesses are adopting call-center software solutions.

One of the most attractive aspects of call centers is that they are an efficient, low-cost solution for handling high volumes of clients. Unfortunately, in order to keep them low cost, many companies are forced to rely on fewer call center employees. Which can lead to burnout, ineffective service and support, and high turnover rates commonly associated with call centers.

Digital call-center solutions allow service representatives to better serve their customers. More specifically, call-center solutions provide service representatives with easy access to relevant data. This allows them to quickly and effectively provide solutions to problems, answer questions, and establish a relationship of trust with clients.

Are these tools and systems absolutely necessary? In a word: yes.

Your call center is an extension of your organization’s sales and marketing departments, and is tasked with assisting the customers who keep you in business. Inadequate, poorly supported call centers can do significant damage to your brand’s reputation, and drive customers away in droves. In fact, given that 58% of customers will refuse to do business with an organization following a negative customer experience (and 49% will caution their friends against doing business with the company), even a single client lost as a result of call-center clumsiness can really cost you.

When it comes to providing the solutions that keep your call centers running and your clients happy, you need a software provider you can trust. However, there are a lot of options to choose from. How can you be sure that you’re investing in the right one? As with many aspects of business, you can start by focusing on the customer.

Customer relationship management (CRM) technology is a term used to describe the various tools and systems that businesses use to manage customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle. As such, it is uniquely suited to improving the effectiveness of call centers. CRM puts the focus on the customers, and empowers companies to go above and beyond in all of their client interactions.

A call center solution that is built on an established CRM framework will allow you to leverage the same proven technologies to optimize your call-center processes. Of course, to do that, you’ll need to know what features to look for.

Call-center agents are often busy trying to assist multiple customers at once, and may well be entry level employees without an in-depth understanding of computer systems. Forcing them to comb through multiple confusing programs in order to help individual clients wastes valuable time. Your call-center solution should bring all of your tools together in a single place, and feature a U.I. that makes it easy to access and control without a significant amount of training. This will help your agents provide service that is not only effective, but also prompt.

Fast service is certainly something that most customers can get excited about, but there are other client preferences that you will need to consider. While 68% of customers still use the telephone when contacting businesses, the rest rely on a variety of channels, such as email and live chat. Some clients would rather not contact a business at all, and would instead prefer to find their own solutions using an online knowledge base or ‘click-to-call’ support automation. A call center solution that can be used to deliver support seamlessly across every available channel is one that won’t see you losing clients as a result of contact preferences.

Omni-channel support (support options that are available across every channel) optimizes call center efficiency, ensuring that when customers reach out, they can do so in the way that is most comfortable for them. As an added bonus, call centers enhanced with omnichannel technology allow agents to track interactions and histories across all channels. This gives your representatives a unified, highly accurate ‘picture’ of the customers and their individual needs, and ensures that your clients enjoy a one-on-one customer journey — rather than one that is fractured between various service agents.

In addition to these factors, your CRM-enhanced call-center solution should be flexible, powerful, and integrated with your business’s existing processes. With that in mind, the most obvious solution is Salesforce Service Cloud.

Reliable CRM is a vital part of an effective call-center solution. Salesforce has been the most widely recognized leader of the CRM industry for years, making their CRM platform a prime foundation for any call-center solution.

Salesforce Service Cloud is more than just customer service software; it’s a complete case management, employee productivity, data tracking solution designed to give representatives the support they need to provide optimal service.

Cloud-based call center solutions like Salesforce Service Cloud make it possible for users to access the data and support they need from anywhere in the world in real time. Every agent shares a single view of each individual client, and any changes made to the shared data is updated instantaneously across all platforms.

Using advanced data visualization, Service Cloud brings all of the relevant controls and data together on a single, user-friendly dashboard. Agents can retrieve information and find solutions quickly, without forcing their clients to endure repeated requests of “hold please.” The design is intuitive, and with multi-channel support options, operating Service Cloud is a something that even those who aren’t technologically gifted will be able to use effectively.

Bringing artificial intelligence to call-center software, Salesforce Einstein is capable of gathering data from a variety of sources, and using that data to provide highly accurate predictions and next steps. For customers, the only thing better than a fast solution is an instantaneous one; Salesforce Einstein predicts problems before they happen, and creates solutions before they become emergencies.

Perhaps best of all, Service Cloud enjoys the same level of support as any Salesforce tool, which means that it is regularly updated and improved upon, so that your call center will never have to worry about falling behind the curve. Service Cloud is the world’s top-ranking customer service solution, and the most effective way to optimize your call center.

From data tracking to intelligent predictive analysis, Service Cloud call-center solutions for small business startups and established enterprises bring it all together, along with a full complement of superior tools for process management, call scripting, entitlement and service contract tracking, and even social customer service — tracking and and responding to customers across social platforms and automatically routing support cases to the service agents. With a call center powered by Salesforce Service Cloud, the telephone is only the beginning.

Your call center doesn’t have to be a battlefield. By providing your service representatives with the right tools and support, you can help ensure that every customer interaction is another opportunity for client satisfaction.

Salesforce Service Cloud gives call-center agents the power to engage with their customers. Don’t leave your customers or your service agents hanging on the line; take advantage of the Salesforce Service Cloud free 30-day trial, and dial in on call-center success.