3 Smart Call Center Software Features You Should Consider
A reliable and efficient call center software is of immense importance for business which keeps clients communication first.
It’s an open secret, that powerful call center software features are exactly what distinguishes virtual call centers from traditional business phone systems and landlines. Very often, the variety of features impresses beginners, who want to get acquainted with them all, and can seem too complicated, as it’s easy to get lost in all the available options.
To better understand the benefits of top features that could help your call center growing faster, we’ve prepared for you the ones, which are the most popular among our clients.
Let’s dive right in.
1. Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
IVR is a smart technology that directs calls by customers’ selection. It helps to interact with callers first, before redirecting them to the right person that can assist them best.
We consider IVR feature #1 to use for the call center for a few reasons.
First of all, it lets you gather the basic information about the caller and the purpose of the call, and route it to the most suitable agent at the time based on this information.
For example, you can add a few options to press to connect your caller with the required department, and Nectar Desk will provide you with the text-to-speech conversion for your IVR, automatically giving a voice to your message. Once your caller tries to reach out to your company, he’ll hear the choice of actions to press, for example:
Hi! Welcome to Virginia Dental Clinic.
To set an appointment with Doctor Baker, please press 1.
To set an appointment with Doctor Bachinski, please press 2.
To set an appointment with Doctor Morales, please press 3.
If you have a question and want to talk with the medic, please press 4.
Here is how it looks when you set up the IVR in your Nectar account.
Moreover, if set up correctly, IVR call center features can help your callers to resolve their issues without even talking to your support team – the IVR menu can be as simple or as complicated as you need it to be. This doesn’t change the outcome – more satisfied customers and more productive call center agents.
2. Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)
ACD distributes calls to agents based on their skills, activity, or priorities. It automatically pinpoints the aptest operator or employee on-call and distributes phone calls, thus improving company productivity.
This ACD call center software manages the contacts from all accessible channels including chat, social networking, website, mobile, and email.
Since Nectar Desk is in the cloud, your Call Center is not limited to any physical boundaries. As a result, it is inconsequential whether you have only one Call Center, multiterminal network software, or remote operators.
Nectar Desk ACD Contact Center determines the most fitting operator to manage (answer) every caller’s request.
Automatic Call Distribution means the division of the calls you receive according to the custom made regulations made by you and ACD software is designed to help you do so. On basic standards, your calls are dispensed in hunt group styles or linear priority. ACD software system could also make the organizational structure based on when the call is placed, the percentage of users, or the knowledge of a person in charge.
No matter the exact settings you configure, ACD can actually improve both caller & agent satisfaction. One of the biggest frustrations callers experience is waiting to be connected with an agent, only to discover that he doesn’t have enough knowledge or ability to help out.
With ACD implemented properly, you can not only shorten the waiting time but also make sure that the most suitable agent takes the call, every time.
3. Predictive dialer
When the call center agent needs to dial one phone number, it doesn’t take much time. When he has to dial hundreds of numbers per day, the voicemails he has to listen to or a huge number of unanswered calls call literally kill his time.
We at Nectar Desk want help agents to make more calls in a shorter time. Here’s when the predictive dialer comes in useful. In general, it automates the process of dialing phone numbers to some extent.
With the Nectar Desk Predictive Dialer feature, you can be sure your time is never wasted. This dialing process begins before any agent is available to take a call so that he won’t spend time listening to phone rings, leaving voicemails, and hanging up unanswered calls. Nectar Desk Predictive Dialer will automatically dial your contacts from the list only in case there is an agent available so that your customers could be connected with the live agent to discuss their questions.
You can set up the number of concurrent calls per the available agent and our system will dial multiple numbers at the same time to ensure maximum agent utilization. Additionally, Predictive Dialer depends on voicemail detection to appropriately handle calls. Our systems study pauses, opening phrases, and other common conversation traits to either assign a call to a representative or leave a voicemail.
Some more useful call center features
The above-mentioned call center features are one of the most prominent capabilities of any call center software. There’s more to add to the call center features list, though. Depending on your needs, you might also want to consider the following:
- Call queuing – sorting inbound calls in call queues based on pre-defined rules and steering them to available agents,
- Call recording – automatically recording all calls for monitoring & training purposes,
- Voicemail by mail – giving the ability to the callers to leave a voicemail, and for your agents – to receive the notification about the voicemail left via email,
- Custom messages & music – creating personalized greetings played to the caller based on specific situations (outside business hours, on-hold, etc.),
- SMS/Text messages – sending customers personal messages or general notifications,
- Callback – automatically calling customers back whenever there’s a missed call,
- Call statistics – generating reports that are relevant to your call center.
You can find all these call center software features and much more in Nectar Desk.
In case you’re looking for some or all of the above-mentioned call center software features to help you streamline your operations, let us know and we’ll be glad to tell you everything in details 🙂