Call Center Solutions Lead the way at Contact Centers Worldwide
Call Center Solutions Lead the way at Contact Centers Worldwide
By: Jennifer Hanna Gross
The continuing march of technology is having a massive impact on the operations of contact centers worldwide. Solutions that were unheard of several years ago are now extremely prevalent throughout the industry, allowing for businesses and consumers to communicate like never before.
From worldwide inbound phone numbers, to hosted call center solutions, software based noise cancelling technologies, voice broadcasting, and predictive dialing- the choices are diverse and powerful. Call center operations executives are being presented with tools that make a big difference in productivity at call centers."It's amazing that we are seeing demand from all corners of the world for the most advanced call center solutions," said Lloyd Gomberg, Senior Vice President of hosted call center provider Freedom TeleWork.
"We have a call center in Kenya seemlessly handling inbound calls for a United Kingdom based manufacturer" said Gomberg. The technology at work here: Internet based DID's, or direct inbound dialed numbers. These are phone numbers associated with a particular country and city which are "local" to the caller but which ring into a comapany or a call center anywhere in the world. 'The call ends up hitting a server somewhere, where the call is re routed to another location anywhere in the world, even being routed to any regular phone line in the world," said Gomberg.
The pace of innovation and change in the industry is almost dizzying. Whereas once headsets with noise cancelling technology was the latest and greatest call center solution, even this technology is in the throes of being dramatically improved. New software is allowing companies to record voice files of at home Call Center, which is then used to sample any audio input sent through the headset. "If the audio does not match the voice sample it is disregarded. It's a great approach to avoid having a screaming child, or a barking dog or a bus turning the corner being broadcasted to customers on the other end of the line" said Gomberg.
Hosted call center solutions are another huge area of growth in the industry. "This solution saves dramatically on long distance costs, telephone line costs, hardware based switches, and increases agent productivity and satisfaction. It is almost unheard of today for a new call center or a call center expansion at an existing facility to take place today without using these call center solutions" said Gomberg.
The growth of these technologies is being fueled around the world in every region, but it is particularly appealing in emerging markets where there has already been less of an investment in fixed infrastructure of switches, lines, and every thing else that goes into traditional brick and mortar call center solutions.
The move towards utilizing at home Call Center Agents is another emerging trend coming on strong as a call center solution. It answers the problem that call centers have experienced for years- massive turnover of their workforces. "It used to be that an average call center based agent wouold have a longevity on the job of about 90 days. The work was stressful, and demands of young children at home and aging parents competed with their jobs. Now, using call center solutions such as whispermode, and barge in mode, and recording every call, or random calls as MP3 files, call center managers have become more comfortable in expanding their workforce using at home workers" said Gomberg. It is one of the most important trends in using technology to implement call center solutions, according to Gomberg. This is because at home workers do not add to call call centers real estate footprint, or use up bandwidth, or even drink the coffee at the call center. "The savings are enormous in this call center solution" said Gomberg.
One thing is for sure-call center solutions will continue to evolve and play an ever greater role in bringing cost efficiencies and productivity enhancements to call centers. Even something as mundane as creating the screen that a call center agent uses has now benefitted from the march of technology. "We allow our customers to upload calling lists with field definition labels at the top of the list" said Gomberg. "Then by selecting which fields they want to appear on the agent screen, the administrator is able to create dynamically any number of agent screens on the fly for their campaigns. It wasn't that long ago that all of this had to be programmed up, said Gomberg.
Summary
Call center solutions are usually associated with those services that most call center and other companies offered to create the best feedback from customers and other people inside the call center cosmos. Several call center solutions are being conceptualized and processed to serve those call centers that are in need of prime call center solutions for their company. In fact, this reality does not only take place in the actual world but also in the world of virtual reality. Many web sites today are offering call center solutions for those call centers that look for a high quality call center solutions.
As such, call center solutions usually involve all the things that a call center needs. Most of the call center solutions include the human resource desire of the call center industry in general which sometimes provide reviews and apprenticeship services for call center solutions. Such call center solutions do sometimes create a better outlook for a certain company since in that case they further provide some effective tool for the assessment or evaluation of the call center agents and oftentimes support the call centers to handle the hiring process. This assessment made by most call center solutions is done through a careful review on the customer service and computer skills of each call center agent.
Furthermore, the call center solutions create a better output on the company’s costs because most call center solutions offered ways on how to reduce the call centers’ hiring and training costs, and on the other hand increase productivity. It is considered that in all cases the success of a call center lies on the hand of its agents. This is in fact true because the customer service representatives are the mere channel that connects the customer and the company. A customer service representative, outside from simply handling calls, therefore perform a vital role in the world of call centers’ competitive advantage.
In addition to the above mentioned information, the call center solutions not merely provide simple evaluation of the call center agent and its work but also create a major support for the hiring professionals to meticulously select and screen job candidates and in the end come out with a decision based on the candidate skills. In this mode of call center solutions, the company will in turn reduce turnover, which is in fact the biggest problem that most of the call centers experienced. This type of call center solutions are done through a simulation activity wherein the job candidates are placed into an “imagined” call center with recorded common service problems and requests, in which the candidates will choose the best choices from several potential recorded responses.
In call center solutions, this system is required to test the five competencies that a successful representative must acquire: customer service, problem solving, investigative skill, influence, and speed and multitasking. With call center solutions, the call centers will in turn promote the best customer service, as more experienced customer service representatives can provide a higher level of service, perform more productively, in the end promote the best image of the company.
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Improving Contact Center Service and Performance
