Technology & Trends in Call Centres That Every Business Leader Should Know

The everyday call flow of your small business is now a lot more structured and manageable thanks to recent developments in contact centre technologies like automation and AI. To keep support and sales teams productive, lucrative, and to reduce frequent contact centre issues, it is essential to take advantage of new call centre software capabilities. Over the years, these technologies have evolved and appeared in a variety of fashions, and VoIP companies have subsequently changed their own offers to keep up.

However, there isn't a one-size-fits-all approach to call centre solutions. Your software application should take into account the distinct goals and demands of your support crew.

Everything you need to know about call centre technology will be covered in this article, including their history, current trends, sophisticated call centre technology, and which suppliers are the best in this market.

What is technology used in call centres?

Technology utilised in call centres for customer service and support is referred to as call centre technology. Traditional phone lines, which allowed for both inbound and outgoing calls, were for a long time the primary tool used in contact centres. With time, these phone system features become more sophisticated and technological, including VoIP (which makes online calling possible) and IVR (which facilitates call routing).

The utilisation of a phone system is no longer the only advancement in contact centre technology nowadays. New digital channels like live chat and video chat are becoming more and more popular as the customer experience becomes more of a priority.‍

CRMs and WFO (Workforce Optimisation Software), two call centre software programmes, currently play a significant part in contact centre operations. The key call centre technologies and their significance for your company are broken down here.

Digital Voice Response Call Centre 

The IVR (Interactive Voice Response), also known as hosted IVR or multi-level IVR, may improve your customer service by directing your callers through a self-service menu.

Depending on your caller's responses, the system starts the call routing procedure to connect them with the appropriate department or sends them the required messaging. You can manage your contact centre more effectively with the help of this tool.

What makes IVR crucial for call centres?

By providing callers with a sequence of automated prompts, this software automates your customer support offering. These messages frequently aid your callers in resolving their own problems. However, they will be immediately forwarded to a helpful agent if problems can't be resolved by themselves. This allows your agents to spend more time on difficult requests while yet providing a swift and efficient customer journey for your callers. It is a crucial component of your customer care programme as a result.

Distributing calls automatically (ACD)

ACD is a feature that directs incoming calls to the agent or division most qualified to answer the question. Based on preset criteria and routing schemes, the best call path is selected. Routing options that are popular include time-based, round-robin, idle, skills-based, and even VIP client status.

What makes ACD vital for call centres?

One of the most common complaints from consumers is having to again explain their issues to different customer service representatives after being transferred since the initial representative they spoke to was unable to help them. ACD eliminates this problem.

Instead, the best agent is matched with each consumer, frequently doing away with the need for a follow-up contact. Furthermore, utilising various routing techniques guarantees that each agent working for the same department has an equal opportunity to sell or offer help to each incoming caller. In addition to being fair, this also aims to keep agents from getting frustrated.

Over 60% of consumers want an agent to be able to address their particular needs, and 40% of customers want customer service representatives to handle their needs more quickly, according to Go4customer. It is conceivable because of ACD.

Record calls

A common call centre tool known as "call recording" records phone calls (or video calls) either automatically or on demand. The utilisation of these call records for quality control, staff training, and misunderstanding resolution is possible.

For what purposes are call centres using call recording?

Businesses record calls in 69% of cases in order to regularly assess how well customer care representatives are doing and how satisfied customers are in general.

Data from call recordings may be used to learn about typical customer care issues, grievances, and even future services that consumers might be interested in your business providing.

The ability to monitor calls in real-time allows managers to listen in on calls that are being recorded by several call recording capabilities. Managers can give advice to the agent while the customer is speaking, but they can do it privately using the call whisper function. A manager or higher-up can take over the current call when necessary using the call barge capability.

Data Analysis and Reporting

The unique ability to track a variety of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) by gathering both real-time and historical data is provided by call centre reporting and analytics.

Users may keep an eye on KPIs for call centres such as average call time, call abandonment rate, first call resolution, daily or agent-level call volume, CSAT, call quality, customer retention rates, and more. Along with pre-made or configurable report templates, top-notch call centre companies also automatically send out fresh reports at certain intervals.

Why are analytics crucial for call centres?

You can determine where a team, agent, or department needs to improve using data and analytics. One might use this knowledge to teach certain agents or carry out fresh objectives. On the other hand, you may make use of this function to determine your areas of strength and validate that you are achieving your objectives.

Managing the workforce

Workflow management, workforce asset management, schedule management, task balancing, predicting future client behaviors/trends, and other functions are all part of workforce management software, which helps to boost staff efficiency.

Additionally, it facilitates the onboarding of new employees, expedites data entry through the use of features like pre-filled form fields, automatic data validation, automated reminders, and more.

Administrators have the ability to modify access control, provide validation criteria, and give some activities priority over others.

Why is it crucial for call centres?

Workflow management technologies give a bird's eye perspective of current staff work, ongoing projects, customer/agent behaviour, and trends via KPI analytics.

It guarantees that the best and most available agents are assigned to jobs, enhancing total team productivity and making sure that important players aren't overworked. WFM also aids in the management of situations like an abrupt increase in call volume or the start of an escalation matrix.

Workforce management solutions automate the routine "busy work" of agent scheduling, PTO requests, data entry, and other tasks, saving a substantial amount of time.

Telephone and Computer Integration (CTI)

The term Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) refers to the technology that enables computers to communicate with your phone system and other channels of communication, including texting, social media, and live chat. On a desktop phone, computer softphone, or mobile device, users can place calls in this way.

For what purposes are CTIs crucial in call centres?

The calls your team makes are more effective thanks to CTI technologies. Call centres get a lot of calls each day, and CTI offers fast access to previous client information including order history, historical agent notes, contact information, and more to enable more productive discussions. To provide as much customer data as possible, these "CTI Screen Pops" interact with your current CRM system. The productivity of the agents is increased by CTI capabilities like call transfer and click-to-call.

The importance of conversational AI for contact centres

According to Juniper Research, by 2022, AI technology is predicted to save company expenses by more than $8 billion yearly. Due to the fact that conversational AI doesn't have the same limits that even your best agents do, you can grow your team and avoid having to make new recruits. By using these technologies, you may provide a more customised client experience without overtaxing your team and automate daily chores with ease.

Most Popular Call Centre Technology Trends

While call centres have undoubtedly advanced, in the modern world, service quality isn't enough to stay up with, much less surpass, rivals. You can stay ahead of the curve without going bankrupt if you follow the top call centre technology trends we've listed below. They assist keep your personnel from being overworked or burned out, in addition to raising client satisfaction levels.

Omnichannel Solutions

An integrated omnichannel experience is seen by 91% of contact centres as being the best feature of any call centre, according to Cisco. Customer service must be accessible to clients whenever, wherever, and however they want.

Nevertheless, omnichannel assistance entails more than only being available to consumers on many platforms. The basic minimum is that. Customers expect an experience that is consistent across all channels, which means they don't want to have to repeat themselves every time they switch platforms or customer service representatives. From email to phone to chat should be seamless for them.

You need cutting-edge call centre technology that enables you to deliver a unified approach to the customer experience if you want to offer omnichannel service. To provide the service and outcomes the customer expects, there should be a single repository of all client data that any agent may access at any time. Your CRM, QA, sales, and other systems must be completely connected with omnichannel.

Quality Control Technologies

One of the most effective resources for gauging contact centre ROI is QA technology. When done properly, it makes it simple to measure both hard and soft benefits so that you may decrease agent attrition, raise revenues, cut down on customer churn, shorten debtor days, shorten agent engagement, and boost training efficacy.

With the proper quality assurance technology, you ought to be able to monitor, control, and enhance:

• operative performance
• Training needs, failures, and successes
• Efficiency of operations
• both within and outside
• client encounter
• corporate goals and call centre alignment.

Go4customer's quality assurance solution, for example, is perfect for tracking crucial KPIs that enable your call Centre team to assess the customer experience while giving them the resources they need to monitor and manage productivity. Scorebuddy does more than just log performance statistics; it also gives you a QA management structure so you can act on every discovery. Your QA technology should aim to identify trends and patterns so you may base business choices on current information more wisely. Read this before deciding which QA technology is best for your contact Centre.

Digital scorecards

One of the finest methods for assessing the success of your call Centre's employees, customers' experiences, business procedures, and overall contact Centre operations is through the use of digital scorecards. They give you crucial input that you cannot acquire in any other manner, enabling you to spot contact Centre trends, highlight areas for development, identify best practices, and raise customer satisfaction. Utilizing totally individualized scorecards created especially for your call Centre is the key. It is not a good idea to use a scorecard template since the scorecard should reflect your business objectives, agent strengths and weaknesses, and the factors you believe are most important for success.

Instead, your digital scorecards should be created depending on the industries you work in and your company goals. Make sure you at least list these four areas for routine review:

• Soft skills for agents include trustworthiness, emotional intelligence, professionalism, and the capacity for effective communication.
• Call Centre Procedures: These include how calls are taken and ended, updating the CRM, and providing the appropriate remuneration.
• Compliance: managing credit checks, identity and validation, and security for vulnerable clients.
• Results: such as how well your agents achieved their objectives, resolved client issues, adhered to all procedures, and boosted sales.

Monitoring and Reporting

A successful call Centre must have data analytics and reporting. In fact, 90% of call Centres view customer journey data analytics as a crucial contact Centre function. Analytics and reporting software is one of the most significant developments in call Centre technology because of this.

Your contact Centre can no longer just rely on supervisor abilities to monitor agent performance and customer satisfaction. There is a role for human observation and monitoring, but your contact Centre requires far more data to enhance how your call Centre functions. To swiftly and simply make any necessary modifications, you require powerful analytics that are given in real-time.

Read More: Role of Call Centre Outsourcing in the Growth of Business

Centres based in the Cloud and the Remote

The 2020 Global Contact Centre Survey found that 62% of contact Centres intended to use cloud computing during the following 18 months. Additionally, cloud-based and remote contact Centres are becoming commonplace due to the coronavirus epidemic.

In addition to being more cheap for organizations because they reduce administrative expenses, cloud-based and remote contact Centres also provide greater flexibility. More flexible work schedules allow agents to maintain a better work-life balance, and your call Centre is not confined to a particular location. Your company may grow across time zones and geographic boundaries using the cloud, gaining access to a wider talent pool without compromising client service.

Another crucial component of this is mobile functioning. Agents might not always have access to computers. Because of this, it's equally crucial to have a mobile app and VoIP that let your agents manage calls and other client communications on their smartphones. This is a crucial function, even if you never use it other than as a backup.