Call Center Software: Ten Features That Give You Edge Over Competitors

As per Hubspot, 69% of customers prefer telephone support over any other channel. Despite the rise of live chat, chatbots, self-service etc., customers prefer calling on phone support to get their questions answered or problems solved. On the other hand, a good phone support is critical to the success of any business — 95% of respondents rank customer service as a determining factor in their loyalty to the brand, and 61% say they’ll switch brands if they had a bad experience. (Source: Microsoft)

Whether you’re a traditional product/service business or a new-age internet business, efficient phone support can be your competitive advantage. This blog post will show you how you can achieve that with robust call center software.

What to look for in a call center software?

A good call center software can dramatically improve efficiency, agent productivity, cost savings, training effectiveness and customer satisfaction. But, to realise these benefits, you need feature-packed software. Here’s what you should look out for:

1. IVR systems

Interactive voice response (IVR) serves two essential purposes: Self-service and call routing. Through an IVR-based self-service menu, you can let customers get answers to standard questions such as balance in the bank account, the outstanding amount on the credit card, confirming appointments etc. This way, you can resolve a significant part of customer queries without involving an agent. For instance, Redbus saved Rs. 3 million by automating its ticket cancellation process with Exotel’s IVR solution. 

With an IVR-based call routing system, you can redirect customers to the right agent based on their response to a pre-recorded menu.

2. Intelligent call routing

The IVR-based call routing is for specific customer preferences. For instance, if a customer chooses Hindi as their preferred language, the IVR routes their call to an agent who speaks Hindi. On the other hand, an intelligent Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) feature automatically identifies the user based on predetermined conditions and routes them to the proper team. Exotel’s ACD system offers you different call routing options—sequential, equal, emergency, and preferred agent routing. 

3. CRM integration

When agents have better context about the customer, they can offer them personalised support. Integrating your call center software to your customer relationship management (CRM) software lets your agents to have all customer information like names, products/services they use, previous interactions, open complaints etc. Exotel offers easy one-click integration with Zoho, HubSpot, Vtiger, Salesforce, and more. 

4. Call recording

Recording a call helps in training, compliance, complaint resolution and much more. A good call center software must automatically record both inbound and outbound calls, giving you the flexibility to choose which kind of calls you want to record. In addition, it must allow your agents to access, listen to and download these calls at any time.  Exotel stores all call recordings for six months from the day of the call.  

5. Auto-dialing

The autodialer does what the name suggests—automatically dials phone numbers from a selected list of contacts and connects to an agent when the customer picks up. Auto-dialling saves time spent by agents in identifying and dialling numbers, waiting while the phone rings, or wasting time on unanswered calls. 

6. Remote readiness

Call center teams need the flexibility to work from anywhere—whether staff working from home or field teams working remotely. Therefore, your call center software needs to be remote-ready. It should:

• Be easy to set up without much capital investment
• Dynamically scale based on your needs
• Allow your teams to make calls directly from their mobile phones while protecting their and your customers’ privacy
• Include multi-level IVR, call recording, call routing, auto-dialer etc. 
• Enable visibility with advanced analytics and reporting

7. Omnichannel support

Customer service teams use multiple channels such as SMS, WhatsApp, email, live chat etc. Customers demand that their communication transfers seamlessly from one channel to another. Studies show that unified customer service improves front-line efficiency and reduces customer conflicts. (Source: Hubspot) A good call center software allows agents to handle all customer communication across channels from one interface.

8. Data-rich analytics and reports

Customer service can have a significant impact on the organisation’s bottom line. However, you can’t optimise your call center performance if you don’t have visibility. Call center software must give you analytics around metrics such as call volumes, call times, wait times, customer sentiments, agent productivity, etc. It also helps to receive daily reports with call statistics for your company and individual agents and groups.

9. AI and automation capabilities

A call center software with automation capabilities can eliminate repetitive tasks and improve efficiency. 

• Intelligent IVRs can route calls effectively 
• AI chatbots can resolve simple and common queries automatically
• In addition to offering visibility, analytics solutions can also forecast future needs and facilitate capacity planning
• AI-based reporting tools can also identify keywords from live calls as well as call recordings

10. Security

Call centers store and manage large volumes of confidential customer data. A call center software needs to have security features such as data encryption, firewalls, access control etc. that protect data and customer privacy. It must also be compliant, protecting you from regulatory issues. 

A call center software with the above features is fundamental to offering stellar customer service. You can set up Exotel’s feature-rich Cloud Call Center Software in just a few steps to manage your remote sales and support communications effectively.