6 Signs That It’s Time to Update Your Contact Centre Software

In our digitalized world, it’s more important than ever to rely on up-to-date contact centre software in order to keep up with industry trends and meet constantly growing customer expectations.

If any of the statements below are true about your contact centre’s daily operations, then it’s definitely time to think about updating your contact centre software.

1. You Still Rely on Several Physical Devices

On-premise contact centre solutions require physical hardware and software deployment. They also tend to be inflexible and expensive, requiring costly annual maintenance and specialist IT knowledge.

If you still rely on physical devices, such as physical hardware, server rooms, physical backup solutions and physical telephony services, it’s time to update your contact centre software.

As cloud computing has become the norm in the tech world in the last few years, we can definitely recommend considering a cloud-based solution instead of an on-premise one.

With advanced cloud technology, physical hardware and telephones are no longer necessary, as cloud-based contact centre software can connect via the internet, allowing your agents to be located pretty much anywhere in the world.

Cloud-based solutions are also highly flexible and customizable, meaning that you can add new agents with just a few clicks and customize features based on your business needs.

Using a cloud solution, you can, for example, easily set up and customize your agent scripts and IVR systems – with an on-premise software you’ll need to hire specialists to change your settings.

2. Your System Does Not Support Remote Work

The events of the last few months have shown that unexpected situations, resulting in contact centres having to respond by switching to a remote working environment from one day to the next, can happen at any time.

There can be no doubt that it is essential for any business to be able to keep up business operations during times of uncertainty, caused, for example, by the kind of mobility restrictions we saw with the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition, studies also show that remote work can also lead to increased productivity and lower operational costs.

A modern contact centre system is cloud-based, and therefore makes it easy to switch to a remote working environment, allowing you to seamlessly continue your operations anytime, anywhere.

If your system does not support remote work, it’s time to think about looking for a more advanced solution!

An example of the benefits of a cloud-based system during times such as those recently can be seen through one of VCC Live’s clients, MFO Eurocredit.

The worldwide implementation of mobility restrictions and uncertainty across the globe made keeping MFO Eurocredit’s operations afloat of the highest importance, and thus the deployment of VCC Live’s software had to be carried out with the greatest of urgency.

The result? MFO Eurocredit’s VCC Live-powered software was up and running in just a few days.

3. You Have No Data – What You Cannot Measure Cannot Be Improved

At a contact centre, data is everywhere, with agent average talk time, average handling time, number of handled calls, proportion of closed deals and first call resolution percentages all examples of important metrics that are readily available.

However, if you do not know how many calls you are receiving per day, or how many of these incoming calls your agents can handle, it means that your system is not allowing you to measure your performance.

If this is the case, then it is time to look for a modern contact centre solution.

What really matters when it comes to contact centre processes is to turn data into actionable insights. Advanced contact centre solutions on the market enable you to see the whole picture by allowing you to track your most important metrics in real time.

As a result, you’ll be able to clearly see what you need to change in order to improve your processes.

The benefits of such an approach can be seen by VCC Live’s client, TBI Bank. They were previously using an outdated on-premise system that was not able to measure and analyse their data.

The result was that the company could not leverage any customer information, and often failed to efficiently handle incoming calls during peak times.

Now, thanks to their utilization of VCC Live’s software, and in particular its detailed real-time reports, the company can advise internal teams about upcoming peak periods and manage their workforce accordingly.

“Since we implemented VCC Live, it has had a great impact on our business. We are now able to handle 95% of our incoming calls.” – Darya V. Kotseva, TBI Bank.

4. Your Processes Are Not Efficient Enough

Only one rule matters in business: if you want your company to make more money, increase your company’s efficiency. And one way to increase your company’s efficiency is by automating and optimizing your processes.

Does your system enable automated processes? Do you benefit from a predictive dialler that enables automatic instead of manual dialling? Does your system enable automatic call and email distribution?

If not, then it’s time to optimize your processes… with advanced contact centre software.

Furthermore, can you offer self-service options with your system, such as reminders, notifications, online payment solutions, recurring payments and so on? If not, then again, it’s time to update your system!

VCC Live’s intelligent predictive dialler, for example, is able to help its clients optimize their dialling processes.

Protocall is one company who, by choosing to utilize VCC Live, is now able to set the maximum number of calls its dialler can initiate at the same time, based on the average time that elapses between agent calls.

The more idle time agents have between two calls, the more calls the dialler starts.

“The predictive dialler settings are easy to understand. We’re definitely reaching our highest numbers of successful calls per hour with VCC Live.” – Arnold Vancsók, Call Centre Manager, Protocall.

5. Your Contact Centre Solution Is Not Integrated With a CRM System

Most contact centres use several technology solutions on a daily basis, and one of the biggest challenges they face is to integrate these systems while keeping customer data consistent and up to date between the systems.

If your systems are not integrated, your agents will have no choice but to switch from one system to another during customer interactions. And, of course, making your agents navigate between several systems will negatively affect both your team’s productivity and your customer experience.

With managing customer data manually no longer a realistic option, if your current solution is not capable of automatically transferring data from one system to another, we would definitely advise you to update your solution and choose an advanced system that is able to integrate with your CRM system.

In addition, if you assign your emails manually instead of having them automatically routed to the same system where you handle calls, it’s again a sign that your system is outdated and not capable of integration.

As the largest teleshop company in the European region, trusting their operations to several systems, Telemarketing International realized that integrating these systems was key to managing their logistics in a timely manner.

Now, with the help of VCC Live’s software, the company is able to customize its needs regarding system integrations, supported by a team of VCC Live’s technical experts and key account managers.

6. Your System Does Not Support Omnichannel Communication

These days, businesses are expected to deliver a seamless omnichannel customer experience to maximize personalization. Customers no longer accept that they have to repeat what they said previously to another agent on a different channel.

Instead, they expect the agent they’re talking with to know their interaction history and efficiently resolve their issue.

In our ever-accelerated world, providing customer service via phone and email is simply not enough. If your customers cannot reach out to you on alternative channels, such as social media, webchat or WhatsApp, then it’s definitely a sign that it’s time to search for a new, more advanced solution.

And, although you might not think so, customers are increasingly using social media sites to reach out to a business. WhatsApp, in particular, is another tool that is growing in popularity among customers as an alternative channel for reaching out to businesses.

Due to the ever-increasing popularity of social media channels, you’ll need to leverage a solution that routes your social media queries to your customer service team in order to be able to provide a better digital customer experience.

Author: Robyn Coppell