Many organizations rely on their contact center for positive, productive, and lasting customer relationships. All too often, though, companies treat their contact center almost as an afterthought, thinking, “as long as customers can reach us, that’s what matters.”
But it’s 2024, and the customer experience is as important as ever. Organizations should be thinking long and hard about how to elevate their contact center experience before their customers start seeking out the proverbial “greener grass” with a competitor.
So, what does it take to get it right? If you’re wondering this, you’re in the right place. In this article we’re going to discuss the modern contact center, including contact center services, and examples of how the right technology can be a game changer for any contact center.
What Is the Role of a Contact Center?
As it relates to customer experience, the role of a contact center is to facilitate communication between an organization, its sales reps, and its customers. At a minimum, this means using a basic telephone system to answer customer inquiries and/or make outbound sales calls. That setup, however, would better be labeled a call center rather than a contact center—which uses communication channels other than just the phone.
What Are the Functions of a Contact Center?
The modern, omnichannel channel contact center is equipped to handle both inbound and outbound functions, supporting the sales and support sides of the business. An established contact center typically has a combination of sales representatives as well as service agents, though these responsibilities sometimes overlap—especially in smaller operations.
Contact Center vs. Call Center: Is There a Difference?
Yes, and the distinction is quite simple: a call center is designed to handle customer interactions via phone only—whereas a contact center offers communication channels like email and chat/messaging as well. Regardless of whether they’re engaging with a call center or contact center, customer expectations don’t change: they expect a seamless experience no matter what channel they choose.
Who Is a Contact Center Agent, and What Does a Contact Center Agent Do?
Whether focused on sales or support, today’s contact center agent plays a significant role in delivering a quality customer experience. They are the vanguard of whether the customer has a productive, positive experience.
Whether someone is calling in with a complaint or filling out a web form to solicit more information, the contact center agent is often the first point of contact. It’s their job to greet the customer, determine their needs, and process the interaction accordingly. That may mean directly solving their problem, efficiently routing the call to the agent or department best-suited to assist the customer, or something else entirely.
What Are Contact Center Skills?
The most important skills of a contact center agent include being courteous, knowledgeable, and relatable. The best contact center agents are listeners and problem-solvers that build trust and achieve results. They should also, of course, be articulate and empathetic, capable of making any customer feel heard and valued. People want to feel like more than just another member ID or account number—and agents are the ones responsible for making that happen.
What Is a Contact Center Software Platform Used For?
It’s difficult to overstate the impact contact center technology has on a contact center’s success. After all, the only way for an agent to provide a personalized and streamlined experience is through technology.
Ideally, a contact center will leverage a single, comprehensive platform, like ConnectIV CXTM powered by Amazon Connect, which includes features like:
- A user-friendly interface for optimizing workflows
- Omnichannel and self-service offerings to meet customers’ expectations
- Seamless integrations with CRMs and other core business technologies
- Dynamic call routing possibilities, based on criteria like agent skills
- Real-time and historical metrics for monitoring performance
A point worth noting: despite the fact that AI and automation are transforming the contact center, employing empathetic human agents is still of paramount importance. While AI can help with many tasks, it’s not a replacement for human connection—especially in the world of customer service.
What Does Contact Center as a Service Mean?
Contact center as a service (CCaaS) refers to a type of software that is delivered—and supported—via the cloud. Rather than purchasing and installing a network of hardware, CCaaS is both simpler and more cost effective for the average contact center. Benefits of the CCaaS model include:
- Reduced Costs: Using cloud contact center software provides better value than more traditional setups. CCaaS pricing is subscription-based, and contact centers will often only pay for the features they actually use. Another great advantage of CCaaS is that it can reduce IT costs, since support and troubleshooting services are included.
- An Omnichannel Experience: Even customers who prefer engaging with a brand via phone appreciate having options for how they reach out. Working with a CCaaS provider makes it easy to not only offer additional channels, but to ensure a consistent customer experience no matter what.
- Actionable Insights/Analytics: Put simply, you can’t improve what you aren’t measuring. Another major advantage of CCaaS solutions is their robust real-time and historical reporting capabilities. With the right solution in place, contact center leaders are able to gain actionable insights into a wide range of contact center metrics.
Elevate Your Contact Center with InterVision
As a managed services provider, we’re ready to support your contact center. From traditional contact center solutions to more comprehensive and versatile Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) offerings, we’ll partner with your organization to find the best contact center software to meet your needs and budget.
While chances are we’ve worked with a company like yours before, we also understand that every contact center is unique—and we treat them that way. Our decades of experience inform our consultative approach to managed contact center services. Learn more about InterVision, or get in touch with us today.
