Cloud call center solutions are increasingly popular due to increased demand for a range of features that are difficult to achieve with traditional, on-premise options.
Competitive business environments push businesses to explore new ways to track their success – and in most cases, those businesses must equip themselves with better software to keep up to date.
It’s easy to become overwhelmed by the range of products on the market these days. How can you pick the best among them?
In this guide, we’ll look into the most important factors buying points you should consider before investing in cloud call center software. Overlook these factors at your peril! The result will be lost revenue and poor customer experience.
Business Needs
Firstly, you need to be clear about your business’s needs when it comes to cloud call center solutions. Answering the following questions can help:
- Why do customers typically contact you?
- Which channel do you use for communicating with your customers?
- How important is it that your new cloud-based solution can integrate with your existing applications?
The most successful software acquisitions don’t think about only the present. Where will the business be in a year? Or five years? Or ten?
That’s why integration is so important – it’s how you future-proof your business and any change in requirements or tooling that happens down the line.
In general, modern customer service teams need to integrate their call center solution with their marketing tools, Helpdesk software, and CRM.
Set-Up Time
Also, consider the ease of software setup; ideally, the vendor should be able to provide a well-defined timeline – with evidence that they can actually stick to it. However, don’t assume that the shorter set-up is always better! A basic tool might take just a few hours to install, after which you will have… a basic tool!
Another key question is what kind of disruption you can expect while this is taking place. Is it a smooth transition, or is there a chance of unacceptable downtime during set-up?
Security
Cybercriminals have a variety of ways to steal important data. Call centers are often seen as a soft target, and they often store huge amounts of customer data. So, compromising on data security is never a good option!
Choose call center software that can demonstrate reasonable security features. Don’t forget to check whether your contact center provider complies with privacy and data security agreements like HIPAA and GDPR.
Configurability is a big issue here. What does that mean, in relation to security?
The ability to configure roles like agent, supervisor, manager – and to define their level of access to customer data – is one of the most important aspects of good security practice.
In the vast majority of data breaches it’s human error and “hacking” that’s at fault!
Customer Support
With excellent customer support, your business can grow exponentially. And, in practice, it can be the smallest things that make the largest differences.
Look out for features like:
- User-friendly interface
- Surveys
- Call recordings
These will be handy for your agents, making it easy for them to provide exceptional customer support without burning out. It can be super helpful to bring agents into the demo process. Basically, let them loose on the UI and see if they can get a feel for the software before you even think about making a decision.
Training & Support
The only cloud call center software solutions worth considering have decent training and onboarding as a core feature. There is simply no point investing in something that your agents and your senior team will struggle to use.
Also, check out the support program of your cloud center solutions. How does it deal with arising operational errors or disruption? Do you have a direct line to someone who can help you?
Excellent Reporting & Analytics
Another vital feature that you shouldn’t neglect is reporting and analytics. These help you track your progress and ultimately make a better decision.
How will you know what you need to improve if you aren’t aware of the problematic areas? Good reporting and analytics tools provide real-time data regarding your employee’s productivity, first call resolution rate, dropout rates, and average call time.
By looking at these metrics, you can develop better strategies to improve your organization’s performance. Choose software that provides comprehensive and user-friendly reports.
Pricing
Of course, you can check out the software’s security, customer support, training, reporting, and analytics. But none of that matters if the price isn’t right.
The approach here is simple: write down what features you need, and what you’re willing to spend. Then it’s research time.
If you come up with a list of tools that meet you criteria, you’ve started strong.
If you can’t find what you’re looking for, you have a decision to make: do I compromise on functionality, or do I spend more money?
