CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service)

Contact Center 101: A Comprehensive Guide

Introduction

Customers expect the brand they shop with to be more proactive and responsive in reaching out and speaking with them; 93% of service professionals say that customer expectations have increased drastically as compared to previous years.

Brands have already made the move to upgrade from basic call centers to contact centers for the agility and flexibility that they provide.

Addressing this gap between expectation and capacity, contact centers offer extended functionality and better efficiencies. Let’s understand everything there is to know about contact centers.

What is a Contact Center?

A contact center is a facility in a business that enables it to manage all its customer interactions happening over multiple channels.

Telephonic conversations can be integrated into contact centers; however, these departments are majorly responsible for managing digital communications.

Imagine functions such as the automation of a variety of processes, like data collection and management, placing calls, collating customer information, and suggesting further steps at a business.

This is what a contact center hub helps with.

Contact centers enable your business to be agile and leverage all possible digital touchpoints to reach the target audience.

Furthermore, the real-time communications facilitated by contact centers enable higher levels of customer service.

Difference Between Call Center and Contact Center

A contact center may sound the same, but it is different from a call center.

There is one very basic difference between the two: while a call center must manage incoming and outgoing calls, a contact center doesn’t necessarily feature any calling. It can be incorporated if required through CTI integrations.

The second major difference is the number of channels. While a contact center is capable of managing multiple digital channels of customer interactions at once, a call center majorly deals in calling through telephony.

Contact centers perform better overall because they allow customers to reach you across multiple channels.

How Does a Contact Center Work?

Six crucial components work in complex tandem at a contact center to manage customer communications in three simple steps.

Let’s begin with these six components of contact centers:

  1. Hardware and software
  2. Data tracking, monitoring, analysis
  3. Scripts and messaging templates
  4. Self-service
  5. Cloud-based contact centers
  6. Superstar call agents

These components facilitate the contact center process in three steps, as discussed below.

1. Calling

A call is initiated, either by the agent or the customer. Using software and hardware, the customer representative leverages scripts and messaging templates to understand customer queries.

2. Resolution

Using data tracking, software, and cloud-based contact center tools, the agent then gathers the resources and services to address the query the customer has raised.

3. Follow-Ups

Superstar call agents make it a point to follow up with the customers they interact with to ensure that the solution delivered worked for them.

Contact Center Technologies

Contact center solutions are actually a stack of multiple technologies that help streamline the total operations at the facility. You can expect to see six crucial technologies at a contact center hub.

1. Automatic Call Distribution

Better known as an ACD system, this technology is pivotal to the efficiency of a contact center. It is through this technology that a contact center automatically distributes incoming calls between call agents.

It can also be programmed to distribute calls based on the skills of the agent or team.

2. Customer Relationship Management

Better known as a CRM, this software is a customer relationship technology that gathers the following data:

  • Past interactions with the brand
  • Reason for the interaction
  • The channel on which the interaction took place
  • The subject matter of interaction
  • Customer details
  • Tickets raised
  • Assistance required
  • Customer insights

This data helps the contact center agent assist the customers better.

3. Computer Telephony Integration

Better known as CTI, this technology enables the connection of telephone systems to the computer. It helps to facilitate functions like automatic dialing, screen view of the call, details of the call, and much more.

The agents can operate the call from their dashboards on the computer screen.

4. Predictive Dialling System

Predictive diallers are intelligent telephony technology that help agents automatically dial the numbers on a list.

The system moves past the numbers that are non-responsive or return a failed connection, helping to save a lot of time for the agent. This time can then be spent on live calls.

5. Call Recorders

Automatic call recording systems record customer-agent conversations. These call records are then stored in the repository and can be played back during training sessions to equip call agents with strategies during a difficult call.

Call recording systems are automatic and keep the records organized.

6. IVR Contact Center

You may know of IVR if you have placed a call to Amazon or other major eCommerce companies. This technology helps customers listen to a help/support menu and select their concerns using either voice or button-press responses.

It is a self-service technology that helps take some workload off of call agents by automating the basic queries that customers can solve by themselves (like order status or shipment location).

What Do You Need: A Call Center or Contact Center?

Are you struggling to decide whether a contact center or a call center is better for your business? There are some considerations you need to go through to make the best selection.

To recap, a call center is for calling, and a contact center is for managing communications over multiple channels. Contact centers inherently are more agile, modern, and more in line with the needs of the modern customer.

If your business model is such that your customers expect responses on social media channels, then a contact center is the better choice.

For example, many skincare and cosmetics brands interact with customers over Instagram – they use contact centers.

Additionally, you can track a lot of KPIs through the system. If your business has a growth trajectory planned around customer interactions, contact center solutions are the better choice for you.

Does your business need to handle a heavy volume of technical queries? A call center is the best option in such cases, because telephonic guidance is the best way to help a customer troubleshoot problems with the product.

You can also choose to have remote desk software installed in case customers need software assistance.

Types of Contact Centers

There are, in total, eight types of contact centers:

  • Inbound contact centers
  • Outbound contact centers
  • Multichannel contact centers
  • Omnichannel contact centers
  • Blended contact centers
  • Virtual contact centers
  • Cloud-based contact centers
  • Offshore contact center

However, the first five in the list above are the major and the most common types that are prevalently deployed by businesses.

1. Inbound Contact Center

Inbound contact centers, as the name suggests, respond only to incoming messages and calls that are initiated by customers.

Some common channels used are website chatbots, social media messages, support emails, and IVR systems. There is no room for agents to initiate a call in an inbound contact center.

2. Outbound Contact Center

As opposed to an inbound contact center, an outbound contact center only places calls or sends messages to customers.

It is the call agents that proactively volunteer the conversation from their end, using a variety of digital channels like email, SMS, or social media. Outbound contact centers cannot receive incoming calls or messages.

3. Omnichannel Contact Center

Contact centers are purposed to manage customer communications across a variety of digital channels.

An omnichannel contact center, thus, helps the call agents stitch a seamless customer journey across all the brand’s digital channels using this communication technology that integrates all the channels.

The customer experience is greatly enhanced in this way, and it helps to improve retention.

4. Multichannel Contact Center

A multichannel contact center is similar to an omnichannel contact center in that it helps the agents manage multiple sources of interaction.

However, in a multichannel mode, the digital channels are not integrated with each other. All the communication is siloed, and the information thus gathered must be centralized at a CRM.

5. Blended Contact Center

A blended contact center is the best of both worlds – inbound and outbound contact centers. It allows the customer representatives to initiate communications as well as respond to incoming ones.

This is the kind of contact center that businesses prefer the most. However, if your business only needs to plan marketing campaigns using contact centers, then an outbound mode would be more suitable.

Starting Your Own Contact Center

Starting a contact center at your facility needs thorough due diligence and a clear purpose. For example, if your purpose is to only provide technical support, a blended contact center may become costlier than you had planned.

The right contact center can be set up in the simple three-step process described below.

1. Create a Business Plan

Why do you want a contact center?

A business plan for a contact center helps you identify the purpose of your contact center. It is the starting point of the goals and objectives that your business needs to fulfill from such a facility.

A business plan should tell you about the following aspects of your contact center:

  • How many employees would you need?
  • What kind of operations would they handle?
  • What processes would you be implementing?
  • What are the costs?

The budget you set out for your contact center should align with the objectives it will help you achieve; otherwise the facility wouldn’t be beneficial for your business.

2. Determine the Setup

After the business plan is ready and you know what you want from your contact center, the second step is to understand how you are going to achieve it.

There are multiple setups of a contact center, as discussed earlier in this post: inbound, outbound, blended, omnichannel, multichannel, etc.

You need to consider whether you have real estate to spare for the contact center. If not, a cloud-based contact center would be the best option.

If your goal is to provide support, you should opt for the inbound mode. If you wish to deploy marketing campaigns, select the outbound contact center.

3. Choose the Right Tools

The last step in setting up your own contact center is selecting the most suitable tech stack. As discussed earlier, a contact center deploys a variety of technologies that help it work efficiently. You now need to select:

  • A suitable contact center software that can be deployed in the mode you select
  • A good CRM
  • Data analytics tools
  • Agent performance monitoring tools
  • Data storage and management tools

Each of these tools help you run your contact center smoothly. Sometimes you may find software that is a full contact center solution in itself, like JustCall or Salesforce; with such tools, you don’t need anything more.

Staffing Your Contact Center

What use would your contact center be if you don’t have a staff that is skilled and trained to use it?

It’s not simple to recruit such professionals who know the tricks of the trade and are versed in operating the contact center software you have chosen for your facility.

Let’s discuss how you can handle the staffing question for your contact center.

1. Determine the Roles and Positions

A contact center is comprised of the following roles:

  • Director of customer services
  • Operations manager
  • Contact center agent
  • Contact center manager
  • Quality analyst
  • Trainer/educator
  • Team lead

Your business would need to float a recruitment advertisement with talent hunters to help you find the right talent.

2. Develop a Recruitment Process

The recruitment process greatly depends on the mode of contact center deployment.

For example, for an on-premise contact center solution, you would need to recruit local candidates. On the other hand, for a cloud contact center, you can work with remotely-located global talent.

3. Know How to Measure Performance

Not every contact center agent you hire would have the same performance – they would all have their own strengths and weaknesses.

You need to set your KPIs in a way that agent performance metrics (like average handle time) align well with business goals and objectives. Set a minimum service level for every agent.

4. Establish Training Programs

Training is necessary for every agent – whether to upskill, to learn how to handle customers in tough situations, or to know how to use the contact center software.

Modern contact center solutions intelligently pair work with live, hands-on trainings, helping agents to improve their skills without compromising work.

5. Define a Team Culture

Remember: a toxic workplace can never be an efficient workplace. You need to establish a positive, supportive, encouraging company culture – even at your contact center.

Promoting healthy competition and putting employee wellness initiatives on priority helps create a good work culture.

Advantages of Contact Centers

The contact center efficiency of your business determines how satisfied or dissatisfied they will be with your brand. In the end, a good contact center experience helps to bring back a loyal customer.

Aside from enhancing customer loyalty, there are more advantages to running efficient contact centers; let’s see what they are.

1. Reduction in Agent Burnout

In the end, all the work at a contact center is repetitive. After some time, your agents would become fed up with the routine and begin to quit.

Well-designed contact center operations give your agents breaks, tools for engagement and enhancing productivity, and gamified experiences to reduce burnout.

2. Lower the Costs

A good contact center employs useful technologies with automation and AI capabilities. It helps to offload the repetitive and mundane tasks from your workforce, reducing their workloads.

Some automation may even help you cut down on workforce requirements. You can easily bring down labor costs in this way.

3. Personalize Customer Experiences

The modern customer does not want generic solutions or responses: you need to be specific. An efficient contact center allows you to collate multi-sourced customer data and provide a highly personalized service to your customers.

The call agents get a unified view of all the customer information, including interaction history, and are able to provide customized services.

4. Enhance Customer Understanding

Contact center software gathers all your customer data in one place using a CRM integration. This helps your call agents track previous issues that customers have had, their purchase preferences, browsing times, and orders placed.

It helps them understand the customer better and provides them with relevant recommendations when needed.

5. Reduction in Agent Attrition and Customer Churn

One of the best benefits of contact center software is that it helps your agents make the best of their time and increase their satisfaction with the job. This helps reduce attrition.

When the agents are able to deliver high levels of customer service, it helps reduce customer churn as well.

Wrapping Up

A contact center hub is important to every business because it lets them understand their customers better with each call.

Knowing how to set one up, how to run and manage it, and how to scale it with the latest technologies are extremely important considerations for owning a contact center of your own.

Use this handy guide to understand all the nuances involved with a contact center. If you wish to understand how technology can help you run your facility better, you can try JustCall’s global contact center.

Get in touch with our team to learn about how JustCall can make your contact centers more efficient.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a contact center a BPO?

BPOs, short for Business Process Organizations, provide umbrella services for your enterprise that cover more operations than just contact center management.

On the other hand, contact centers are used only for marketing and sales purposes. You can say that contact centers are part of BPOs; one of the functions of a BPO is managing contact centers.

Is a contact center a CRM?

CRM is the short form for Customer Relationship Management, whereas a contact center is the department that utilizes this software.

It allows your business to gather, track and analyze customer data to personalize your sales and marketing strategies and to serve customers better. Contact center operators need to use CRMs to ensure that their customer service is good.

What are the five pillars of Contact Centers?

The five pillars of a modern contact center are listed below:

  1. Making customer service seamless using omnichannel technologies
  2. Self-service capabilities to give customers an on-demand support
  3. Advanced technological tools to help call center agents provide better service
  4. Using AI and analytics to make use of gathered data productively
  5. Infrastructure that can be scaled as per needs
What are the four elements of a contact center?

The four elements of a good contact center are mentioned below:

  • Cutting-edge technology to aid and streamline all the operations
  • Emphasis on high-quality and uninterrupted telephony
  • Expert IT personnel and trained contact center agents
  • Data management, analysis, and storage
How to start a contact center?

In order to start a contact center, you need to understand whether your business needs the following:

  • Telephony
  • Omnichannel contact with customers
  • Automation

If the answer is yes, then you can start it easily by opting for contact center outsourcing solutions or software like JustCall.

Vijaya heads the Global Support team at JustCall, where he has played a pivotal role in expanding the support team and diversifying its channels and services. Under his guidance, the team consistently earns top customer satisfaction scores. With a passion for team-building, Vijaya is committed to empowering his staff to deliver unparalleled customer experiences. In addition to his managerial responsibilities, he is a certified Leadership Coach, specializing in helping leaders overcome their unique challenges to achieve success.

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