Virtual Call Centers – A Need for Today: Blog Series [1/7]

How Virtual Call Centers Provide a Remarkable Customer Experience

The well-being of your business depends on the experience the customers have. Once the services are delivered to the customers, and further, the span of time the customer is going to remain loyal to your service depends on the efforts made towards giving flawless customer support.

But before that, the very first query that comes from the customer side as an inquiry about the service or the product, the role of call centers start coming into play. The agent-customer communication and the quality of it has always been a touch point of supreme importance because it involves negotiation, understanding, delivery, and care. Care for the customer’s needs, precisely.

The traditional call centers made the initial platform and also made the customers capable to judge a service coming through the corridors of customer support. Skipping one single point could cost the business a loyal customer. But as they say, with innovations coming in, tradition takes a back-seat.

The traditional call centers lagged behind in many stakes and there were many touch points that remained unattainable through the traditional ways and means. The need of customers grew with time and the scope of the online transaction, internet usage led to higher number of users reaching out to the customer care agents to arrive at a final decision and complete the transaction process.

The arrival of cloud technology was a big game changer as it brought new heights to the call center environment and customer experience. With the passage of time, the customers have grown and same goes true about their understanding and awareness of the service and the business solutions. Their needs have grown at an alarming rate and that’s why to keep the customer support synchronized with such needs, change was necessary.

And when cloud technology started making its presence felt in the call center environment, the call centers took a virtual route to reach the customers and meet their expectations. Let’s look at what major changes were brought in by the virtual call centers in the call center environment.

Pain Points

There are various touch points that remain unattainable in traditional call centers. Let’s look at them in details and understand the gap between customer support and user expectation.

1. Not being able to meet Customer Call Volume Demands

The growth of internet users and the online transaction happening globally is the main cause behind the upsurge in call volume. Traditional call centers have always struggled while dealing with such demands. And with such an upsurge, the quality of customer service goes down and further it leads to customer dissatisfaction.

2. Missing out on Customer specific Information

The conversation does not meet the expected results as the agents miss out on customer specific information. Because then the message is clear to the customer that he is not well acquainted to the service provider. And this thought itself defeats the whole purpose of a good customer experience.

3. Inappropriate timing to access the Customer

The traditional call centers have had the same old approach of collating the customer contact numbers and trying to reach out the customers randomly without considering the specific details such as the demography and time zones they are currently in. In such cases most of the customers find such agent calls involuntary and unwanted.

4. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is not on par

The long-term relationship depends on the fact, how well you manage your relationship with the customers and it totally depends on the insights of the customers and the way they are used towards a better customer experience. CRM helps because then the customer needs are taken care.

5. Lack of Expert Opinions to the Customers

As customers look for a support, they look for the best possible solution available. Traditional call centers lagged in this stake because connecting to experts is not easy in a traditional setup. And in this way, most of the times, customers miss out on the expert opinions.

6. Lesser Value to the Customer’s Time

The most valuable aspect of the customer support process is time. The more they see value being given to time, the more they are likely to become loyal to the service. Traditional ways of customer support didn’t carry the idea of valuing the customer’s time.

7. Bad Call Connection

It’s a big turn off if the call gets disconnected while the conversation is on. Traditional call centers have always faced such problems and this has been one of the biggest reasons behind an irate customer, losing interest in the service.

8. Need of Re-Explanation on a Callback

This situation is very painful for any customer if on every occasion of speaking to agents, the customer has to explain everything again and again. This situation is bad for customer experience.

Solutions

With the arrival of cloud technology, most of the pain points of the customers got plausible answers. Virtual call centers work based on a call center software and agents can be located anywhere as they just need a good internet connection and few equipment to carry on the customer support.

With such autonomy to the agents and the call center managers, the whole scenario of the call centers got a totally new perspective. Let’s look at the scenario and understand the importance of Virtual Call Centers in contemporary times.

1. Call Routing according to Agent’s Availability

Virtual call centers work based on a call center software that routes the customers to the available agents, in this way the call waiting time for the customers reduces significantly.

2. Using the customer related Data

The call center software uses the customer related data and the deductions out of it help to manage a specific individual customer data base. During the agent-customer talk, such specific information bring personal touch to the conversation.

3. Predictive Dialing

Predictive dialing is such a feature that approaches the customers very intelligently. Predictive dialers work based on an algorithm and after a thorough analysis of the customer related data, they choose a particular time to call the customers, considering their demography and time zones. Such appropriate timing makes the customers likely to take the call with a more possibility towards a fruitful conversation.

4. Customer Relationship Management

The call center software integrates the CRM very well and with such customer relationship management, the idea is to maintain an effective conversation with the customers. The call center software has turned out to be one of the best tools to make the services more promising in terms of retaining the customers for a long time.

5. Agents working as a Team

Well, as a customer you always look for the best solution to your problems. So the ideas is, if the agent gets stuck at some point then he should be able to contact the experts and come out with the best solution, immediately.

6. Effective Use of IVRs

Interactive voice response (IVRs) save a lot of time for the customers and it is an effective self help tool. With the better understanding about the customers, hosted IVRs have become more helpful as they are designed according to the customers’ needs.

7. Better Call Connection

The arrival of cloud brings in a better call connection. Gone are those days when the conversation would get disconnected because of a bad network line. Cloud ensures the agent and customer communication to be as glitch free as possible.

8. Better lead Management

Once a customer has shown faith and is there in the circumference of your service then it is essential to take notice of every lead that comes in the ongoing customer relationship. The conversation history gives many cues to keep the conversation more productive.

Remarkable Customer Experience in Real Sense

If you have already understood the need of the customers then the remarkable customer experience is imminent. The question for consideration is, how well you are using the available resources in its best way, be it technology or people skills. Cloud technology has brought the call center environment way ahead of the customer’s expectations and virtual call centers are looking at the future, promisingly.