If you are an owner of a call center or any customer-facing business, you know how high the operating costs are in the industry. Despite the rising costs, there is a growing pressure to enhance customer service amid changing customer expectations.
In such a scenario, call center owners need to adopt sophisticated technologies not just to reduce operating costs but also to enhance customer experience and satisfaction with every interaction.
One such technology tool is call center software, which since its inception, has helped many call centers and businesses of all types and sizes reduce their communication and operational costs. In this blog post, we discuss how the right call center software can reduce business costs and how to find the right one. Read on and thank us later.
How can the right call center software reduce costs for your business?
From reducing every inbound and outbound call cost to enhancing agents’ productivity, advanced call center software can reduce business costs in the following ways:
- Improved agents’ productivity
Sophisticated call center software can significantly enhance agents’ productivity by automating many manual and repetitive tasks. Let’s take manual dialing for example. When an agent dials a number manually and waits for the call to get connected with a live person, they spend anywhere between 30 and 45 seconds in the activity. If the call doesn’t get picked up, it’s a waste of agents’ time. Now, just imagine if every agent needs to make over a hundred calls every day, how much time they waste on manual dialing.
The auto-dialer and predictive dialer features of call center software automate the entire dialing process and enable agents to spend the time (which they would’ve spent on manual dialing) on high-value activities.
- Reduces call costs
Call center software can substantially reduce call costs. As the software works on VoIP-based phones, it can reduce local and international calls by at least 50 percent. Moreover, cloud-based call center software brings even more cost savings to businesses than their on-premise counterparts. As per a new stat, medium-sized cloud-based call centers (with over 500 seats) register an average savings of 43 percent on call costs.
Last but not least; the least cost routing finds the least expensive path to handle both incoming and outgoing calls. Just imagine, if a call center, which makes hundreds of calls every day, saves even a couple of cents every day how much money it’s going to save in one month and one year? The least-cost routing feature in call center software enables call centers to save a lot of money.
- No need for specialized hardware or installation and maintenance costs
A few decades back setting up a telephone was extremely expensive. It required upfront investments in a telephone handset, phone system appliances, wires and cabling charges, and installation and maintenance costs. If you set up a traditional analog telephone today, you also have to bear the costs. But you don’t have to break the bank if you start a VoIP-based call center.
All you need is a laptop, a good-quality headset (or headphones), a stable internet connection, and of course, reliable and advanced call center software to get started. Call center software can enable users to make and handle phone calls through their web browser.
- Self-service options
Gone are the days when customers had the patience to dial call center numbers and wait for an agent to receive their calls. In the present time, a majority of customers prefer self-service options for simple customer service tasks. A study conducted by American Express found six out of ten customers prefer automatic self-service options for simple customer service tasks. Another research by Dimension Data revealed, instead of using SMS, social media, and web chat, three-quarters of respondents prefer to use a company’s website.
Sophisticated call center software comes equipped with a wide range of self-service options starting from Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and chatbots to FAQs (frequently asked questions) and other resources. It not only enables call centers to provide better customer service but also to reduce their costs!
- CRM integration
Call centers and many customer-facing businesses use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to access customer information, previous transactions, and other important details. CRMs are extremely crucial for call centers and without them, agents cannot handle both inbound and outbound calls properly. That’s where call center software plays a crucial role in integrating CRM with the calling system.
With efficient CRM integration, agents don’t need to manually search for customer information or do manual data entry. This saves their time and enhances their productivity. CRM integration also enables agents to reduce customer churn by providing them with superior experience and higher satisfaction. This eliminates the costs associated with new customer acquisition.
- Flexibility and scalability
Not long back, when call centers used traditional phone systems they had to spend more if they increased their seating capacity. Every addition of one more seat meant more costs. But that’s not the case with call center software. Advanced call center software enables businesses to adjust their operations as per demand.
During peak time, small businesses can add more agents without substantial extra costs when they use call center software. During the lean time, they can also scale down their operations as per their requirements. Communication tools provide a level of flexibility and scalability to call centers like call center software.
Choosing the right call center software to reduce costs
If you are looking to optimize your business operations and reduce inefficiencies and unnecessary costs, then handpicking the right call center software can make all the difference between success and failure. Keep the following things in mind while looking for call center software:
- Determine the features you want and fix a reasonable budget
The very first thing you need to do before looking for call center software is to define your objectives and purpose. In this case, you want to optimize your business operations and reduce unwanted costs. For that, you need to determine the must-have features in your call center software. Some of the key features are:
- Automatic call distributor: Distributes incoming calls to available agents as per their relevant skills. This enhances first-call resolution and agents’ productivity.
- Automatic dialers: If you plan to make outbound calls, then automatic dialers will automate your entire dialing process.
- Call recording: This records all incoming and outgoing calls and helps in training and quality analysis purposes.
- CRM integration: Integrates existing CRM system and enables agents to provide personalized service to customers.
- IVR: This provides customers with various options to select and help them connect with the right agent. It also provides a wide array of self-service resources to choose from.
- Least cost routing: It selects the least expensive path to handle all incoming and outgoing calls.
Apart from these, many more features can help you reduce costs. Once you determine the features you want in your software, it will help you to set a reasonable budget.
- Surf the web to search for reliable call center software
After deciding the features you want in your call center software and setting a reasonable budget, open your computer or smartphone and start looking for call center software. Use relevant search terms that clearly describe your intent. Some examples are:
- “best call center software to reduce communication costs”
- “best call center software to control costs”
- “affordable call center software for small business”
- “low-cost call center software for small business”
You will find a dozen websites as soon as you press the enter key. Some websites belong to software providers and some will belong to aggregators. Select a mix of both types of websites and click on them.
- Compare features and ratings
After visiting the websites, observe the different types of call center software. Look at their features, ratings, and reviews or testimonials. If you are on a software provider’s website, visit the Home Page, About Us, and other pages to know more about the company and view its track record. Also, find out what customers say about the providers. The trustworthy ones will have a distinct ‘Testimonial’ page where they showcase their customers’ written and video-recorded testimonials.
Apart from the software providers’ websites, you can also visit aggregators’ websites to get a bird’s-eye-view of some of the top 10 (or top 20) call center software providers and a comparison of their features, ratings, reviews, and more information. After visiting the aggregators’ websites, you can visit the software providers’ contact page for the following step.
- Contact software providers and ask more about pricing plans and free demos
Once you have shortlisted some software providers, contact them to probe further into their software and pricing plans. Many software providers have different pricing plans for different types of call centers, locations, as well as features. Once you tell them the features you want in your call center, you can get a clear picture of the pricing plans. You can also ask them about free demos.
Even though a majority of call center software providers mention on their websites free demos, some don’t even if they provide them. Confirming this on a call will give you a clear picture and help you make an informed decision. If some software providers refuse to provide free demos, end the call politely and move on to the next provider. Repeat the process till a provider agrees to provide a free demo.
- Use the software and make a buying decision
After getting the free demo, ask your team to use the call center software and seek their feedback. If the software works fine for you, then make a purchase decision without wasting any time.
Everything considered,
The call center industry is infamous for its high operating costs. As a small or medium-sized business, if you are looking to optimize your operations and reduce unnecessary costs, then specific technology tools can help you reduce costs.
