Increasing Call Center Profits with Real-Time Agent Analytics
Top priorities for the call center of today should be retaining customers, increasing efficiency, growing revenue and increasing profits. The cost of acquiring customers is at an all time high and this mean that maintaining, expanding and increasing profitability of existing customer relationships is key to success. Call centers are moving away from antiquated systems to real time analytics systems. Most probably, the best real-time systems available on the market today are cloud-based software solutions.
Real-time call center software is designed to take advantage of every customer initiated transaction in real time or very close to it. This happens while the customer is on the line or immediately thereafter and within periods established by the customer to ensure complete customer satisfaction by your inbound sales team. It is a sales and service environment where the agent, customer support executive, manager or supervisor can use the information supplied by the customer in real time.
This has the effect that an inbound call center needs employees that are both well-versed at sales and service. Call center executives need access to real-time agent KPIs and must acquire a system that is able to identify and assess a customer opportunity while the customer is still on the line and supply the agent with new solutions or preservation opportunities to present to the customer. Real time transactions reduce costs, time wasting and surplus actions while increasing call turnover and delivering customer service that goes beyond expectation. A customer support executive can measure the KPIs of agents effectively through the use of a real-time monitoring dashboard available in today’s cloud-based call center software.
What agent KPIs can managers view in real time?
- Workloads
- Call queues
- Agent status
- Visual notification of which area needs immediate attention
- Agent adherence to schedules
Intelligent skill-based call routing uses the dialog patterns and adjusts the dialog with callers to ensure efficiency. Predictive dialing allows agents to have another caller ready as soon as they completed their last call. These are brilliant in keeping costs low and increasing overall effectiveness of the call center. Managers can use inbound reports on an hourly basis to ensure that all KPIs are met and that agents are complying with TCPA and CFPB guidelines. What other factors make your call center profitable?
Speech Analytics
Most call centers record calls, but few review them. When they do review, only about two percent are reviewed for quality and training purposes and not for customer trends and issues. With cloud-based call center software, speech analytics are accessed and reviewed in all recordings. By using powerful word detection software and data algorithms, this technology is able to categorize and trend conversation topics. It also identifies specific words or phrases and provides quantifiable results to resolve contact center issues.
Real time speech analytics allow the engine to listen in on customer conversations and detect topics being discussed for immediate action. A manager can jump into an emotional call immediately or agents can be informed of specific marketing tools like a promotion. This means that customers do not have to be transferred and everything is handled at once without unnecessary delays.
Agent Behavior Analysis
This type of analysis prevents agents from lightening their workload at the expense of the customer, their colleagues and ultimately the business. They can no longer hide behind their averages and summaries for the whole contact center. Agent behavior reports can be drawn hourly, daily, and weekly, etc. to report on agent behavior so the customer service executive or manager can easily spot a problem and rectify it immediately. Factors like manager assists, number of transfers, hold times and disconnections are readily available to management. Timely business decisions can also be made based on changes in customer behavior.
Inbound Call Routing
With a cloud-based platform, you have control over all inbound calls and their flow. Features such as skills-based agent collection, flexible scheduling, and queue flow routing, aid in routing calls to your exact specification. The goal is ensuring the right call is transferred to the right agent and thereby ensuring efficiency with sales and service.
Surveys
You need to gather customer data to improve your business even further. With a cloud-based platform, you do not need to spend thousands of dollars in investing in new staff or equipment. Upload customer information to an account then record your own message and survey. The best feature about this is that the survey results are recorded in real time.
By focusing on key issues that need to be analyzed in real time, you create a productive workforce and managers can easily modify agent behavior and react to customer issues. A hosted platform allows you to track all of the above — all with a consumption-based pricing model designed for the rapidly changing technology scene characterized by the 21st century business world.