How Has Contact Center Technology Evolved? (VIDEO)

 This video takes a look at the changes over time in call center technology, from how customers interact with businesses to the tools businesses use.

Customers are changing the way they interact with businesses. Gone are the days where someone’s first reaction is to pick up the telephone and call a prospective business. Often times, people start by doing a little research online, messaging with an online chatbot, and finally, reaching out via telephone. With all those steps, it is important that your business is on top of every user touchpoint!

For your contact center to truly be an asset to your business objectives it must run smoothly at all times....efficiently and cost effectively. Competition is fierce and you can't afford any issues at any time. Performance, or lack thereof, shouldn't keep you up at night. To the contrary....you should sleep like a baby knowing everything is running like a well oiled machine. To learn more about all the technology options available to help make your contact center operations soar to new heights simply ask us at the following link. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3. Contact Center Technology

Insights For Implementing A Remote Contact Center Strategy (VIDEO)

Working remotely is here to stay and while so many contact centers have been forced to make this shift, the decision presented challenges for some businesses.

If you’re still on the fence about taking this decision for your call center and you have the right tool, there are advantages and disadvantages you should consider.

Jim Rembach shares with us What Happens Next: the Remote Contact Center, in this podcast episode:

Whether you're a big enterprise business or a small shop, the way you interact with your customers is vital to your business success and customer loyalty. Finding the right contact center technology solution for your organizations specific needs can be an exercise in total frustration. But it doesn’t have to be.

Simply tell us what you need accomplished at the link below (including WFH and cybersecurity requirements)....and we’ll help help you source and design a custom contact center solution just for you. Plus.....our services are FREE. Contact Center Technology

Indepth Buyer's Guide For Contact Center Software And Technology

 There are a number of different software tools that the best call centers use to increase productivity, process service tickets, manage customer accounts, and support telecommunications infrastructure, all of which contribute to improved and successful call center operations.

To help prospective buyers come to a decision, an accurate call center software comparison is vital. This guide will provide an overview of four main categories — CRM, Help desk, VoIP, Gamification — as well as industry trends, common features, a case study covering a leading call center software solution, and a list of top call center software vendors.

Indepth Guide On Contact Center Software

Whether you're a big enterprise business or a small shop, the way you interact with your customers is vital to your business success and customer loyalty. Finding the right contact center technology solution for your organizations specific needs can be an exercise in total frustration. But it doesn’t have to be. Simply tell us what you need accomplished at the link below....and we’ll help help you source and design a custom contact center solution just for you. Plus.....our services are FREE.

Contact Center Technology

The 6 Most Important Call Center Technologies

 Here are the 6 most important call center technologies every business owner should use for better results. These call center softwares will help you to improve productivity and efficiency. In this video, we are going to discuss the most essential technologies every call center business needs.

Whether you're a big enterprise business or a small shop, the way you interact with your customers is vital to your business success and customer loyalty. Finding the right contact center technology solution for your organizations specific needs can be an exercise in total frustration. But it doesn’t have to be. Simply tell us what you need accomplished at the link below (including WFH and cybersecurity requirements)....and we’ll help help you source and design a custom contact center solution just for you. Plus.....our services are FREE.

Contact Center Technology

CENTURYLINK ENGAGE IS DIFFERENT....A CLOUD SOLUTION AND SO MUCH MORE

CenturyLink Engage is a simple cloud solution that offers business calling, collaboration, and call center support, no matter where or when you do business.

• Stay Engaged Anywhere, At Any Time – Your workers and sales force remain effective while traveling, using their tablets and smartphones to serve customers.
• Complete Flexibility – Mix and match calling, collaboration, and call center features power your brand and business. Bring your own internet or use theirs.
• Inclusive, High-Value Plans – Three easy-to-understand packages deliver high value with simple billing.
• Low Risk to Use – We’re so sure you’ll love CenturyLink Engage that they back it with a no-cancellation fee satisfaction program regardless of your agreement type.
• Maximum Reliability – Built over-the-top but optimized for performance and call quality when bought with CenturyLink connectivity.
• Deliver Exceptional Customer Service – Add affordable call center capabilities to your business without the need for on-premises equipment.

Three primary offerings that are available with Engage:

Below you can take a look at what is available in each of the three packages:

To learn more about CenturyLink and take advantage of a comparison of 100s of other business calling, collaboration, and contact center solution vendors ... including FREE network design and sourcing support ... simply ask at FreedomFire Communications.

Call Center vs. Contact Center.....5 Benefits CCaaS (VIDEO)

Call centers have evolved into contact centers, yet every business has not quite caught up.

5 Benefits of CCaaS:

1. Improved Customer Experience Multichannel communication strategy inbound and outbound. Skills based routing, crm integration - know your customers.

2. Better Agent Experience Integrate with critical apps; crm software, salesforce, sugar, hubspot, zoho, pipedrive, base, dynamics, sap, netapps.

3. Substantial Cost Savings Save money vs. traditional premise based call center hardware and complex maintenance contracts.

4. Reliability, Flexibility, & Scalability Up to 100% uptime service level agreements from select providers. Provision new agents around the world in a matter of clicks.

5. Business Intelligence; live dashboard, reporting, & analytics

Whether you're a big enterprise business or a small shop, the way you interact with your customers is vital to your business success and customer loyalty. Finding the right contact center technology solution for your organizations’ specific needs can be an exercise in total frustration. But it doesn’t have to be. Simply tell us what you need accomplished at the link below....and we’ll help you source and design a custom contact center solution just for you. Plus.....our services are FREE.

Contact Center Technology

How To Make Your Contact Center Run As Smooth As A Swiss Watch....Even Better!

A contact center is an integrated, and usually automated, communications system that coordinates all telephone and electronic contacts between an organization and the public. The goal when talking about contact centers has always been to connect your business to your customer. Some of the questions you should consider as a business with a contact center are:

• What do you want your business to look like?
• How do you want your business to be perceived?
• How will people talk to you? Who should they talk to? How do you connect them?
• How do you measure your effectiveness?

HOW TO SPOT AN OPPORTUNITY FOR IMPROVEMENT TO YOUR CONTACT CENTER OPERATIONS

Customer experience has become the new battleground for competitive differentiation. When you look at customer needs they involve social media, self-service, mobility, texts, chats and email. These are all newer methods of communication, not usually associated with call centers, but nowadays call centers are really contact centers. In the past businesses have competed through products and pricing, but they now find themselves having to compete through service. One of the key factors for a business is the need to be able to interact with its customers in a manner which makes the customer want to interact with them. Therefore, the cloud contact center industry is expected to grow within the next three to five years as more businesses start to move into the cloud in order to be able to offer the features, functionality, and the type of customer experience their customers are demanding.

For your contact center to truly be an asset to your business objectives it must run smoothly at all times....efficiently and cost effectively. Competition is fierce and you can't afford any issues at any time. Performance, or lack thereof, shouldn't keep you up at night. To the contrary....you should sleep like a baby knowing everything is running like a well oiled machine.

To that end the best decision you can make is to implement a robust cloud based system which covers all your requirements and enables you to not only beat your competition, but to look like a real hero and invaluable asset to your organization's bottom line.

This system should make it easy to cut costs, improve business continuity and support business growth. It should give you the freedom to build your ideal communications solution without having to start from scratch. You should also be able to customize anything it does to fit the exact needs and processes of your business. 

To learn more about just what this perfect contact center solution can look like for YOU...and how to make it happen for your organization...simply ask us at the link below and we'll help design a custom solution for you. 

Contact Center Technology

How To Spot An Opportunity To Improve Your Contact Center Operations....Efficiency And Effectiveness

A contact center is an integrated, and usually automated, communications system that coordinates all telephone and electronic contacts between an organization and the public. The goal when talking about contact centers has always been to connect your business to your customer. Some of the questions you should consider as a business with a contact center are:

• What do you want your business to look like?
• How do you want your business to be perceived?
• How will people talk to you? Who should they talk to? How do you connect them?
• How do you measure your effectiveness?

HOW TO SPOT AN OPPORTUNITY FOR IMPROVEMENT TO YOUR CONTACT CENTER OPERATIONS

Customer experience has become the new battleground for competitive differentiation. When you look at customer needs they involve social media, self-service, mobility, texts, chats and email. These are all newer methods of communication, not usually associated with call centers, but nowadays call centers are really contact centers. In the past businesses have competed through products and pricing, but they now find themselves having to compete through service. One of the key factors for a business is the need to be able to interact with its customers in a manner which makes the customer want to interact with them. Therefore, the cloud contact center industry is expected to grow within the next three to five years as more businesses start to move into the cloud in order to be able to offer the features, functionality, and the type of customer experience their customers are demanding.

If you are unsure whether you have a contact centers with opportunities to improve operations, or if you don’t know what an opportunity looks like, the tips listed below will help you. 

• Most contact centers will have an 800 number, and this will be one of the easier ways to find out if there is a functioning contact center behind your business. By simply calling the number you will be able to figure out what what your functionality looks like, feels like, and if it makes sense. If the logic and the routing makes sense to you then you are most likely in good shape, but if it is confusing to you just imagine how it would be for a regular customer who is not technically inclined.
• If your business has a website, specially with chat or email functionality, that is another sign a contact center exists with an opportunity to improve.
• If your business uses a large amount of bandwidth it's likely Your existing contact center consumes a good portion of that...this is another opportunity for improvement.

Some other tips to consider when evaluating your contact centers for improvement:

• Contact centers are more of a business outcome discussion. This mean you will want to have this discussion with somebody in the C-Level or someone who is in operations.
• Always remember that moving contact centers to the cloud is a business culture, economic, and business outcome decision.
• If during your discussions you find you are moving other items to the cloud, the contact center might make a compelling argument supporting shift to the cloud.
• With AVAYA filing for chapter 11, there are a lot of businesses who are nervous about this and what it means. Many businesses might have antiquated AVAYA architecture in this premise space, so moving off of a premise system and into the cloud makes more sense.
• Some of the benefits of moving to the cloud for a contact center are:
• an increase in revenue;
• cost reduction;
• customer satisfaction improvement;
• true business agility.

If you are comfortable when it comes to looking for the opportunity to improve, and know what to look for but don’t know how to start the conversation, here are some conversation starter tips: 

WHY INCONTACT? 

The inContact business model consists of having professional contact center experts in their direct sales and engineering departments who team up with their client partners. 

Q&A 

Q: What is it that the cloud provides to contact center and to SMB that perhaps people don’t know about? 

A: When you move the contact center to the cloud, much like other missing business technology services, you get tremendous efficiency gains. Often times when you look at a premise space contact center, you’ve got a lot of people that are tasked with running it. They are tasked with break fixes, upgrades, and more, in order to keep the contact center running. All of this is very labor- and cost-intensive so that when you need to make upgrades or changes it will take days or even weeks as opposed to the cloud where these can be made instantaneously. In the cloud you can scale your business up and down based on business demand, which means that you are paying for what you are using as instead of overbuying technology. For companies with multiple locations or at-home agents, the cloud is an ecosystem for the contact center and enables greater efficiency. Another great thing about the cloud is that it gives you the capability to right-size your business based on customer demand.

Q: What can inContact bring to the table to help a client determine an ROI story their company leadership? 

A: Part of inContact’s sales model is providing an ROI analysis. This analysis consists of looking at what the client currently has, finding where the gaps in efficiency are, and using that information to put forth inContact’s proposal for service. You can see right away what the you have been paying, what you are using, what you are getting for your investment versus what inContact can do. Some of the cost savings associated with the cloud deployment are so sizable that the ROI is almost immediate.

To have a custom InContact call center solution designed for you...simply ask at the link below.

Custom Contact Center Solution