IT teams face a growing range of challenges, especially when it comes to implementing and managing contact centre technology.
As with every department their budgets are under pressure. At the same time, it takes 44 days to fill tech roles, according to LinkedIn, compared to 34 for a customer service employee. BCS research found that vacant IT positions grew by 191% between 2020 and 2021.
Good IT is vital. Companies know it is key to driving greater efficiency, increased innovation, and a better customer experience.
This raises the pressure on IT directors to deliver, even with limited human resources. 75% of contact centre respondents in a ContactBabel study said that insufficient IT budget was a major/minor problem that held back CX improvement, for example.
IT teams need to deliver more with less. Therefore, when selecting contact centre technology it is essential to choose a solution that is flexible and adaptable to changing customer needs while helping to ease the burden on IT resources. Achieving this requires a focus on four key areas:
1. Fully Embrace the Cloud
Before the pandemic a majority of contact centre technology was on-premise, adding to the management overheads and costs of IT teams. Lockdowns and the shift to remote working led to an overnight switch to cloud contact centre technology.
Now that hybrid working is firmly established, companies should look to fully embrace the cloud. Implementing cloud-based systems frees the IT team up from the nuts and bolts of keeping servers and solutions up and running.
This enables them to adopt a more proactive and creative role and focus on how IT can deliver added value to the core business. As well as providing agility cloud-based solutions also future-proof businesses as they can be easily expanded as needs change.
2. Empower Contact Centre Staff
Managing customer service operations is extremely complex, and very different to other parts of the organisation. Processes, such as call routing, have been developed to optimise both efficiency and customer satisfaction.
However, for companies using legacy contact centre technology making even minor changes requires IT involvement. This slows down the ability of the contact centre to react to customer needs, while adding pressure to IT workloads.
By adopting modern IT platforms contact centre managers can make routine changes themselves. For example, they can alter the routing for inbound calls through the IVR to improve the customer journey, without needing to involve IT.
In the case of one Enghouse customer, IT clawed back, on average, a day a week, showing the potential time benefits.
3. Adopt Unified Communications Solutions for Increased Collaboration
Customer service teams have specific needs. That means they require specialist contact centre technology to do their jobs. However, integrating contact centre systems with unified communications (UC) solutions such as Microsoft Teams delivers real efficiency benefits.
For example, it enables easier management as many backend processes will be the same, reducing the IT time required.
At the same time adopting Microsoft Teams or other UC solutions increases collaboration across the organisation.
It enables greater innovation and provides a unified platform for everyone to work together. IT directors should choose contact centre technology that integrates seamlessly with their chosen UC platform. Ensure it has a development roadmap that allows you to take advantage of future UC innovation too.
4. Pick the Right Partner to Meet Your Needs
Meeting the technology requirements of the contact centre can feel daunting. Switching to a new platform from a legacy system means understanding and replicating complex processes and integrations that have been created over many years.
IT teams may also worry that technology and business needs may change, and they’ll have to migrate again in the future, adding to implementation workloads.
That’s when it is vital to pick the right contact centre technology partner. You need a company that combines deep experience, strong relationships with vendors such as Microsoft, a modular, secure product set that you can implement at a pace you are comfortable with, and a clear roadmap to cover future innovation.
Look for a partner that can show proven ROI and has the skills to make the implementation as straightforward as possible.
The right contact centre technology is vital to improving the customer experience and boosting efficiency. Focusing on these four areas will ensure IT teams empower contact centre staff with the technology they need to deliver superior customer service, while minimising the support time and resources required from their end, now and in the future.
This blog post has been re-published by kind permission of Enghouse Interactive – View the Original Article
For more information about Enghouse Interactive - visit the Enghouse Interactive Website
About Enghouse Interactive
Enghouse Interactive delivers technology and expertise to help bring your customers closer to your business through its wide range of customer contact solutions. Find out more about Enghouse Interactive
Call Centre Helper is not responsible for the content of these guest blog posts. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of Call Centre Helper.
Author: Enghouse Interactive
Published On: 2nd Feb 2023
Read more about - Guest Blogs, Enghouse Interactive
