The Worst Call Center Technology Advice

It’s impossible to create and sustain a call center environment that leaves employees engaged, customers satisfied, and profits soaring without the use of state-of-the-art, cloud-based, VoIP call center technology.

Unfortunately, not everyone agrees. For various reasons, technically challenged corporate decision-makers and traditionally minded call center managers are reluctant to embrace today’s advanced technological solutions and resources. What’s worse, they force their opinions and advice upon others.

“Technology? You don’t need to worry about updating the technology at your call center!”

Old school call center managers will tell you that the only thing call center agents need to be successful is a dialing finger and a “can do” attitude. These folks tend to abide by the approach of “All that new technology is just an excuse to spend money. It’s a numbers game. Dial the phone enough times and you’ll be able to collect.”

It’s also the same logic that results in low call center productivity, stressed out workers, and a high turnover rate. The modern call center utilizes computerized equipment and software that ensures employees are productive, successful, and compliant with today’s regulations.

For example, advanced technology makes it possible to minimize idle time between calls. In one case, TCN’s inbound and outbound blended dialer helped reduce wait times between calls by 56% across the entire enterprise. This saved resources and resulted in happier agents.

Aside from increasing agent productivity, using the most advanced technology available enables call center managers increased visibility into the processes of their call center. With manager barge in and cloud storage, managers have access to their agents’ conversations instantly. This enables to nip bottlenecks and customer service oversights in the bud.

By utilizing automation to improve both inbound and outbound productivity, modern call center technology keeps customers moving through the queue as quickly as possible, limiting hold time, and increasing client satisfaction. Old systems can’t do that. Twenty-first century features such as auto redial, predictive dialing, and on-screen agent prompts make the modern call center an efficient way to resolve customer issues and increase sales.

“Premise-based platforms are the way to go.”

Premise-based call centers are disproportionately expensive. They require a large up-front capital investment, and worse, they require updating nearly every five years. Hardware wears out, or because of unforeseen market adjustments — either legal or technical — platforms require updating to remain competitive. According to a 2013 study by Beta News, by its fifth year of use, premise-based hardware costs $6,190 more than its cloud-based alternatives due to maintenance, replacement and installation costs.

In contrast, cloud-based solutions enable organizations to pay as they go and tie fees to the use of resources. Due to its lower costs, smaller organizations can get access to state-of-the-art technology. Just as importantly, instead of replacing hardware or uprooting business operations when it’s time to update software and operations, cloud-based platforms update automatically.

“The Web has no place in a call center!”

It’s true that customers don’t like recorded calls, but you can’t argue with success. Robocalls are utilized by most major political campaigns with great success and efficiency.

By using human callers, it takes about 10 people an hour to deliver 200 messages. Recorded calls can deliver 500 times that amount in half the time. By using robocalls, you ensure the same, consistent personalized message goes out to each person in an efficient manner.

Although you might think that people immediately hang up when receiving a robocall, quite the opposite is true. According to a recent study by Emerson College in Boston, 97% of people listen to at least six seconds of a robocall message, enough to indicate that the strategy is cost-effective. Robocalls are not only used for political campaigns, but also for notifying people of doctor’s appointments, upcoming school events, and community functions.

Just like in life, every piece of advice for call centers isn’t always a gem. Cloud-based call center technology can actually be a boon for contact centers looking to increase productivity, improve customer satisfaction and reduce overall expenses.

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