Small Business Inbound Call Center Software to Improve Customer Service
As a business owner, you must never underestimate the power of your phone system. It can make or break your business. You will not only need it to make various outgoing calls to your suppliers, business partners, and customers but also to receive incoming calls.
Customer-facing businesses need to be a little extra careful about their incoming, or inbound calls. That’s because recent data suggest three out of every five customers prefer to establish contact with brands, particularly small and medium businesses, over the phone. A CallRail survey found that at least four out of every five customers look forward to connecting to a brand over the phone within the first five minutes of searching for them online.
When a majority of customers get prompt answers to their queries, resolve their issues, as well as receive round-the-clock support, they are more likely to stick to the brand. As per a recent Forrester Research study, businesses that prioritize inbound calls register at least a ten percent rise in customer retention.
This blog post explains what inbound call center software is, how it can benefit your business, and how you can handpick the best inbound call center software that fits your needs. Read on to get valuable insights.
How does Least Cost Routing Work?
As the name suggests, inbound call center software enables easy management of incoming calls, which can range from inbound sales, queries, and requests to customer service issues and customer calls seeking technical help and support.
Now coming to the technical part of how inbound call center software works, it integrates with a business’s existing phone system extremely well and routes all incoming calls to the right available customer service agents.
It also integrates with Customer Relationship Management (CRM), which enables it to provide customer service representatives with the right customer information, such as the name of the customer, purchase history, transaction details, and account details. It also provides agents with many more resources such as product information. The software also enables customer service representatives access to automated response systems, which decreases wait times for customers.
How the right inbound call center software benefit your business?
The right inbound call center software for small and medium businesses can make all the difference between dropped calls, high waiting time, not directing the calls to the right contact center agents, efficient management and routing of all inbound calls, and excellent customer service and satisfaction scores. Here are a few benefits of investing in suitable inbound call center software.
1. Efficient streamlining of calls
In an inbound call center, efficient routing of calls is extremely important. When the torrents of incoming calls get channelized to the right agents, the resolution time is fast and the customer satisfaction level is high. That’s precisely where having sophisticated call center software in place helps all sizes of call centers streamline their incoming calls and ensure that the customers are patched to the right customer service representatives most efficiently.
2. Boost agent’s productivity and efficiency
Sophisticated inbound call center software automates a wide range of repetitive tasks such as customer account maintenance and time-consuming data entry. By doing so they save a lot of time for customer service representatives, which they otherwise would have spent on mundane and unproductive tasks, and help them to focus on the thing that they are best at. That is speaking with the customers and resolving the issues.
3. Advanced features
It isn’t surprising that sophisticated inbound call center software is equipped with many advanced features such as:
- Interactive Voice Response: This feature provides self-service options to callers so that they can save time with readily available solutions. It also allows callers to provide more details on the purpose of their call so that the call gets connected to the right department or team.
- Skilled-based routing: This feature ensures that every call is transferred to the right agent who can resolve the issue as efficiently as possible. The feature determines why the call is being made and what the customer wants. Based on that, it transfers the call to a suitable agent who has the right skills and expertise to handle it.
- Automatic Call Distribution (ACD): This feature routes customer calls to customer service representatives at the right time. It is extremely useful when it comes to enhancing customer experience.
- Call recording: This feature is extremely useful when it comes to performing quality checks, keeping calls for future reference, and training agents to perform better in high-pressure or difficult situations. The call recording feature tracks and records every call and customer interaction.
- Call forwarding: This feature is extremely useful for organizations that allow their customer support executives to work remotely. It redirects inbound calls to a different number based on the availability of any agent or any other requirements such as the better resolution of calls.
- Real-time analytics and monitoring: This feature monitors all key analytics such as the number of calls, wait time, missed calls, etc. This feature enables you to gain real-time insights into your call center’s performance.
4. Cost savings
You don’t have to break the bank to purchase high-quality inbound call center software. Even though good things come at a price, some of the best inbound call center software is priced nearly the same as their competitors. You just need to be discerning and do your research to get the right software that would not just save you a lot of time and money on mundane tasks but also give you a high ROI.
Read Also: 7 Best and Effective Inbound Call Strategies For Call Centers
How to select the best inbound call center software for your business
When it comes to finding the right inbound call center, many factors come into play. The needs of your business, the features you want the software to have, the money you’re willing to invest, and so on. We have listed five useful tips that’ll help you find the best inbound call center software you can get as per your budget.
1. Determine your needs and objectives
While looking for the right inbound call center, keep the size of your call center in mind. You need to set a reasonable budget so that you can make the right investment in the right software. Also, be very clear about the software’s purpose and the features you want it to have. If you intend to run a full-fledged and well-functioning call center, then advanced features such as ACD, skills-based routing, multi-level IVR, call forwarding, call recording, and real-time analytics and reports are necessary.
2. Research reliable inbound call center software providers
When it comes to researching trustworthy call center software providers, a quick internet search can be extremely handy. Type in high-intent search terms like “best inbound call center software,” “free demo inbound call center software,” or “inbound call center software for small businesses.” You can also make the search more location specific by finding the top inbound call center software in your country or locality such as “best inbound call center software in the UK” or “best inbound call center software in South Africa.”
As soon as you click on the search button, about ten to eleven websites will appear on the first search engine result page. That’s where you need to search. If you want a free demo then look for companies that are providing a week-long trial. If you can find a list of trustworthy inbound call center software providers, then visit the websites that list 10 to 20 software providers. There you can compare the features, prices, ratings, and reviews.
3. Connect with the service providers and dig into the details
After listing out some reputable call center software providers contact their team and ask them more about their products and features. If you want a free demo, make your customer service team try out the software and ask them about their experience. If the feedback is positive, then buy the software and get started.
In conclusion
Since its inception, inbound call center software revolutionized the way call centers and many other businesses handled calls from their customers. In the present time, they have evolved a lot and are extremely popular among a majority of businesses that deal with a huge torrent of incoming calls. That’s why call centers and customer-facing businesses now need to invest in sophisticated inbound call center software to remain competitive.
At HoduSoft, we have helped many customer-facing companies and call centers efficiently manage their incoming calls with our HoduCC inbound call center software. If you’re in search of the right inbound call center software, then contact our team of experts to find out if we just have the right solution for you. Better still, book a free demo to use our software and make a decision.
