What is Contact Center Software?

Contact center software allows companies to manage a high volume of inbound and outbound customer communications across a range of channels. This includes call center solutions, which focus on managing and handling incoming calls based on the number called and an associated database of handling instructions. Contact Centers, and related call centers, are typically part of a company’s overall customer relationship management (CRM) processes and strategy.

Many products offer the ability to track and store individual caller data. As such, previous call histories can be accessed by the agent each time a customer calls. This can reduce call average handle time (AHT) and time spent manually entering customer data. Contact Center software is ideal for small, midsize, and large contact centers. It is used in a wide variety of industries.

Cloud-Based and On-Premise Solutions

There are two main Contact Center deployment options: cloud-based and on-premise. Cloud-based solutions, also referred to as Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS), offer the benefits of outsourcing software and maintenance costs and being easily accessible from anywhere with an internet connection. Buyers can typically choose different features and capabilities on demand.

On the other hand, more traditional on-premise solutions are often hardware-based and incur upgrade and maintenance expenses every few years. Some benefits of on-premise contact centers are that they are typically located on the same site as the company and are highly customizable.

Omni-channel Contact Center Software

Most Contact Center products are now omni-channel, or multi-channel. These products are typically cloud-based and have expanded their capabilities beyond traditional call center activity. Omni-channel software has the capabilities to handle and integrate customer communications across all potential touchpoints and channels. These can include voice, VoIP, email, fax, video chat, SMS/text, and social media platforms.

Contact Center Software Features & Capabilities

Many products offer a set of basic features that focus on voice communication:

Validate callers
Outbound calling
Call forwarding
Click to call (allows one-click calling for agents)
Warm transfers
Interactive voice response (IVR)
Call scripting
Call tracking
CRM software integration (allows agents to access aggregated customer information and call history data)

Many leading Contact Center software vendors also offer a range of workforce optimization features that enable managers and team leaders to analyze and track agent performance to increase contact center efficiency.

Inbound call routing
Call recording
Quality monitoring (monitoring conversation content to track and improve agent performance)
Predictive dialing
Call analytics (KPIs such as average time in the queue, average call abandonment rate, and average handle time)
Historic reporting
Real-time reporting
Customer interaction analytics (aggregating unstructured interaction data across channels (audio, video, email, text, etc.) and formatting it so that it can be searched and categorized based on interaction patterns)

Recently, vendors have also started to offer more advanced predictive analytics and omni-channel support features such as:

Multi-channel integration (ability to collect, store, and share customer data across communication channels such as voice (phone), email, fax, SMS/text, video, live chat, and social media)
Intelligent call routing (uses machine learning to connect calls to the correct agents based on previous interaction data)
Digital Agents (Chatbots enabled with machine learning that are used to handle more routine or simpler customer requests.

Key Features

Analytics and Performance

Contact center software often includes features for analytics and performance measurement, which are essential for businesses to gain insights into their operations and make data-driven decisions. These features provide a comprehensive view of key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics, allowing businesses to track and evaluate their contact center's performance. This enables them to identify areas for improvement, optimize resource allocation, and enhance operational efficiency.

Analytics and performance measurement can also help businesses gain insights into customer behavior, preferences, and satisfaction levels. By analyzing customer interactions, businesses can identify trends, patterns, and areas of concern, enabling them to tailor their services and improve customer experience.

Different contact center software products implement analytics and performance measurement functionality in various ways. For example, some software offers interactive dashboards that provide a quick overview of important KPIs, allowing users to monitor performance at a glance. Other software provides in-depth reports that enable users to dive deep into specific metrics and analyze every aspect of their campaigns.

Certain contact center software incorporates automatic analysis and categorization, leveraging advanced analytics capabilities to pinpoint and evaluate interactions effectively. This can provide valuable insights into agent performance, customer satisfaction, and the overall efficiency of the contact center.

By leveraging these features, businesses can make data-driven decisions, optimize performance, and enhance the customer experience.

Conversational AI

Contact center software can be instrumental in leveraging Conversational AI to enhance customer service. While not all contact center software products offer Conversational AI capabilities, it is increasingly common in the industry. Several references highlight the use of Conversational AI in customer service.

One notable benefit of Conversational AI is the seamless handoff between chatbots and human agents. When customers interact with a chatbot and find it unhelpful, or when the chatbot recognizes its limitations, the conversation can smoothly transition to a human agent. This handoff retains all the context from the bot conversation, enabling agents to assist the customer effectively and provide a faster and more effortless customer experience.

AI Agent Assist is another valuable application of Conversational AI. It provides agents with guided workflows, offering step-by-step talking points and next-best actions. Real-time conversational analysis allows AI Agent Assist to suggest live responses, relevant knowledge base articles, and similar case records. This empowers agents to deliver personalized and efficient customer service.

The implementation of Conversational AI can vary across different contact center software products. Some organizations use AI to intelligently triage phone queries, enabling bots to hand over to a human when necessary. Others employ AI to provide predictive support to customers online and on mobile devices. Furthermore, AI can offer suggestions to customer service staff, facilitating comprehensive and prompt query resolution.

Benefits of Using Contact Center Software

Some benefits of using Contact Center software include:

Reductions in average handle time (AHT)
Eliminating manual searching
Allow agents to access customer data histories

Pricing Information

Some vendors offer free trials of their Contact Center software. The paid versions are typically subscription based. Basic cloud-based packages typically start at $10-$20 per agent per month, with more extensive plans ranging between $50-$200 per month.

On-premise Contact Center products usually include a one-time licensing fee and subsequent software upgrade and maintenance costs. Most on-premise Contact Center software vendors do not openly disclose their prices but offer a quote upon request.

More Resources

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