9 Core Competencies Of Top Ranking Call Centers Agents

 Nowadays, top-ranking call centers are always well-equipped and latest call center software solutions. However, they must also pay attention to hiring the agents for their call centers. They seek for few core competencies while interviewing them. It will ensure that they would provide excellent customer service. 

Here is a list of core competencies of top ranking call center agents.

•    Communication Skill

It is very essential for a person to talk with others without affecting the personal feelings during a conversation. An agent attends many calls in a single day. Thus, verbal and non-verbal communication skills must be very effective. They should manage right choice of words and good audible voice tone during the conversation.

•    Calm in any situation

A top-ranking call center agent is not easily confused. A successful agent must remain calm even when somebody is shouting at them over the phone. In such times, unless a call center agent has a mature and calm demeanor, even handy tools like the best call center software will not help much. Thus, it is very important to understand their ability to handle stress and high-pressure situations during the recruitment process. 

•    Understanding the larger processes 

Many successful call centers have a team of agents who understand the entire process, which takes place in office. They know the importance of over-arching elements like customer relationships for the company, using tools such as the contact center software solutions and work-flow dynamics (etc.)

•    Flexibility

In a busy call center, the agents manage several calls in a single day as well as they talk with people with challenging personalities. In order to ensure your agents are able to manage such work-pressure not only must you use efficient tools such as the best call center software but also ensure that your agents are capable enough to be flexible to suit the diverse customer base requirements, you need to hire those people who may go with the flow.

The agents should easily manage an angry customer as well as a chatty customer. Moreover, you may have few of the call center agents’ work challenging hours such as weekends, nights and holidays. So, you should always remember it when hiring new agents.

•    Confident competency

Top ranking call centers should analyze this competency during the screening of applicants. Sometimes, while talking to a call center agent, customers can be abusive or rude. In this case, the confidence of agent becomes very handy. With this skill, he may handle the circumstance very well without getting annoyed as well as ensure customer satisfaction.

•    Comfortable using technology 

Today’s call-centers are complex and large organizations that use modern technology including cloud customer service software to create efficient and disciplined work processes and environments. Agents must be comfortable in using technology in proving good services to their customers. The call center management must also ensure constant training and refresher courses for their staff and agents in such areas.

•    A good listener

In a service industry, the agents must be great listeners as it is essential to pay proper attention to each word of the caller or customer so that quality service can be provided accordingly. The agent must understand how to make ideal responses while listening. Moreover, all modern outbound call center software today provide facilities like call recording that agents can listen to before making follow-up calls. This helps the agent to deal with the customer in accordance with their history.

•    Goal-oriented

Agent must be goal-oriented, whether he is utilizing a cloud contact center software or the full operation is done without the software. With the management, he will be able to reach the targets given to them. If an agent is goal-oriented, then he can focus on his work and increase productivity at the end of the day.

•    Friendly

Call center agents must be able to manage a positive behavior and keep a sweet smile on their face throughout the day.

In addition to giving your agents the best infrastructure, working environments and tools like the best telemarketing software, the above-mentioned core competencies of top ranking agents in call centers are also extremely important for efficient execution of tasks and responsibilities.

How to benefit by hiring outbound telemarketing services

Call center software solutions is your card to strengthen your business effectively. An effective sales strategy involves keeping your customer updated on the freshest services. A business also needs to make them aware of the various offers and benefits it is giving.

This aspect is known as marketing which if done properly can increase the revenue of the business. An Outbound call center software has been designed solely for this purpose. It helps the business in not having to go out of their way to market their services.

Contact center software solutions enable an effective form of “via phone-marketing” or “tele- marketing” where the call center personnel sells your business services to the customers over the phone.
Some of the benefits of resorting to out bound call centre software are stated below:

1.    Turning queries into sales:

The services offered by the customer contact centers in the form of telemarketing have extremely trained personnel. They are capable enough to close a sale and turn the tables on your client. they see every phone call query as a marketing opportunity.

Many people might be interested in a particular business and call up to enquire about it. The personnel supplied to you by the contact center software solutions will first patiently listen to the query or questions that customer has. After they’ve heard the query, they design their answers in such a way that will convince the customer to make a purchase.

This indirect form of telemarketing is extremely effective and the best outbound call center software has inbuilt features and a natural workflow to convert your leads through to closures and, thereby, employs this way to increase your business sale.

2.    Satisfied customer:

Gratified customers are the surest way to catapult your sales. It is essential that all your customers are satisfied with the kind of services they get.  By using customer contact center software solutions for marketing you can lend a personal touch to your customer services since these software enable you to record the history of your interaction with a prospect and easily refer to it during subsequent conversations. 

With this, you are able to communicate directly to the customer to tell them about your business. One This eliminates any ere can be no misunderstandings or trust issues involved, if you eliminate third parties, and resort to by using the best telemarketing software. The personnel appeal to the customer and create a good impression.

3.    More leads:

Using an outbound telemarketing software is a good way to increase leads, or potential customers. The personnel call up target audience, give them the necessary detail them about your business’ services and find what they are interested in. This way, they fish are able to search for genuine prospective customers.

Once they have a list of leads, they will keep updating them about offers, invite them to events and gradually start to convert them. All the best call center software gear streamline their products efforts toward into converting leads to customers. Leads are persuaded when given lucrative and relevant options disguised as solutions to their problems.

4.    Cost effective:

Unlike marketing through newspapers, Television and radio, call center software solutions that are outbound, can be are cheaper and more effective. They enable you can eliminate any third parties and directly appeal to the leads. Any leading cloud customer service software will provide you telemarketing benefits. You get a total package at highly competitive rates. The customer service is 24 hours.

5.    Market research:

By allowing for easily editing the available information on a prospect, the best telemarketing software not only handles the marketing aspect of your business but also the market research. Market research is where you get data about market conditions and target audience. A lot of the data available can be inaccurate and sometimes inadequate.

The telemarketing services of the call center solutions personally go through all the data, verifying them and sometimes collecting data of their own. This will aid in better marketing.

Using the best telemarketing software will help you in managing your resources optimally. You can concentrate on other aspects of business and not worry about how your customers are being managed. The personnel, are skilled to do their job effectively and efficiently, are now equipped with the correct tools, too.

What are the Main Benefits of Cloud Contact Centers?

Call center software solutions should be your new best friend if you want to save some expenses and reduce hassle. Every business requires a call center to stay in touch with their consumers, though the cost and hassle of maintaining the centers tax your business resources.

Most businesses are now adopting the contact center software solutions as the cloud is opening new arenas of business possibilities. Moving your call center to cloud is not only economic but it provides greater control over the operations and flexibility. The business has more control over cloud operations than a bunch of people that they traditionally hired to handle contact centers.

Cloud customer service software does not compromise on quality or efficiency. They work towards providing you the same and even better customer service. The best part is that you can monitor personally the kind of customer service that is being provided.

 Businesses can adopt the services of cloud customer service software to completely refurbish the infrastructure of customer servicing. It is currently being used by 18% of business organizations. Here are the benefits one can reap if they make the switch.

1.    Simpler:

Unlike traditional contact centre, setting up a cloud contact centre is far simpler. It only takes a few days for the customer contact center software solutions to set up a cloud customer service. The best part is that it can be customized according to your needs.  The whole operation is centralized and can be easily monitored by the personnel. One doesn’t need to set up centers in a variety of locations. Everything will be in the cloud, where it can be updated and edited. One can easily access it as long as one has an internet connection.

2.    Integration:

The cloud is being increasingly exploited for a variety of reasons as it is extremely lucrative. The services offered by the best call centre software helps the business to integrate the best elements of past and future systems. It makes the experience all the more better for both the business and the costumers. The business organizations can deploy a number of services in their cloud centers. They can even use third party tools so that their customers get a 360 solution to all the problems that might have. One can easily direct their customer to a third party service if one’s own don’t cover it.

3.    Automatic:

Apart from the fact that manual labor is decreased to almost zero, cloud contact center software functions are automatic. The software is automatically updates with the latest functions without the company having to sweat about being up to date with their customer services.

4.    Package:

Unlike physical customer service centers that are unilateral, the best telemarketing software provides a package deal. All the dimensions of customer service are incorporated into one. Customers don’t need to be forwarded from one personnel to another in order for their problems or enquiries to be addressed. The hassle of lack of co ordination between providers of one service to another is easily solved by this method. Supervising and monitoring, cellular services are all rolled up into one. Customer has to only get in touch have access all the services. This solves the problem of co ordination and is neater.

5.    Security:

Outbound call center software provides back up for everything. There is enhanced security as you don’t have the risk of losing all the data that you had inserted into the cloud. Your operations are also kept private and so are the details or transactions of your customers.

It is therefore an intelligent decision for businesses to opt for cloud customer service software. By transferring everything to the cloud you would not have to worry about maintenance and increased costs.

Top 8 Features Of A Great Call Center Software Solution

 Contact center software solutions play an important part in the success of any startup business. It improves the productivity and also balances revenue and expenses. Though every feature of the software plays a significant role, it is important for call center software to have these essential 8 features:-

•    Technically Robust

The software must be compatible to work on web, mobile and tablets. It must be lightening fast for user to navigate screens quickly. It must be searchable and provide the needed data or information quickly. The software must run on a cloud server with a secure database encrypted to prevent data loss and maintain confidentiality.

It must give a hassle-free experience to the customer service reps and should have minimum or no downtime to ensure calls are not dropped.

•    Scalable

The software should be capable to add/edit/delete user or sales rep logins with minimum fuss. Call center software solutions must be adaptable to multiple business scenarios and should require minimum set up for sales representatives.

•    Data Security

The software must restrict upload/download documents and media of any nature to its agents. The infrastructure must be strong with facility like number masking to protect data hacking of any nature. Sales rep must call/email to numbers mentioned in their excel sheet only. Business can also purchase screen capture software so that no data leakage happens.  

•    Affordable

Pricing is the most important factor. The software must be affordable and the business should not bear additional cost of PRI lines, expensive servers or GSM Gateways. 

•    Boosts Sales

Sales is the most important stage of the customer life cycle and outbound call center software must be equipped to generate reports for lead generation, qualification, average call handling time, conversion rate, hot leads so that manager can quickly prioritize the lead process and close deals fast.

The software must be compatible to work with mobile devices through an app so that sales representatives can accommodate important requests to call elite customers to close deals faster than the competitors.

•    Quality

The software must be equipped for the managers to hear LIVE calls from their mobile phones and should insist that customer reps enter feedback after the call so as to maintain proper notes in the system. Software must restrict the calling hours so that no unsolicited calls can be made to leak data or leads. The application must be equipped with a locker application to restrict openings of any other application without permission.

•    Email and SMS Integration

Not just through calls, Customer Service and Sales Reps can reach out to customers by sending email templates and catchy SMS through the software. They can attract the customer by sending discount offers or prompt them to give missed calls so that they directly qualify as a lead. It also improves personalized touch and help to retain customers. This is possible through cloud customer service software, which can easily integrate SMS and Email gateway.

•    Training and interactive forms

Business can upload all product updates, videos, documents, customer feedback forms, test papers, and survey forms in the cloud contact center software to motivate employees and train them on the recent updates. 

Interactive forms help to get timely feedback from old and new customers to shape up the customer strategy in an agile manner. Above all, it helps to cut expensive costs to train people from multiple geographies and the associated marketing cost. 

In a nutshell, the best telemarketing software should have these 8 essential features for healthy business growth.

How Does Outsourcing Contribute to Organization Growth?

Today, various corporate conglomerates outsource their calling functions to balance cut-throat competition and retaining/acquiring new customers. Vast improvements in available contact center software solutions allow vendors to offer such solutions efficiently. This, in turn, empowers organizations to make customer-centric strategies and a budget plan with important (and supporting) functions outsourced. As it is important to render quality and minimize costs, hiring outsourcing units for your Business Service and Generation Processes is a great option to maximize growth. There are even other reasons to hire an outsourcing unit.

Reason # 1 - Educated and professionally trained Customer Sales Rep

Tough screening process - The task force at contact centers is handpicked through a series of custom designed screening process including multiple rounds like Voice Modularization as per client geographical condition, customer service/problem solving skills, interpersonal skills to check if rep can withstand pressure, long-term stability and other rounds based on client’s business process.

Comprehensive On-the-Job Training - Selected candidates go through a complete training workshop which includes process, communication and management training (Email etiquette). After completing this training, candidates are introduced to client’s products and services. They go through online tests with mandatory option to secure minimum passing grade. Once the rep is aware of the products, they go through a series of dummy mock and live calls to become familiar with the customer issues and ways to tackle them. Once the entire training process is over, they are screened and the best customer representatives are appointed to work on live calls with tools like quality call center software solutions.

Reason # 2 - Low on Costs and High on Quality Delivery

The outsourcing unit is equipped with managers and center head with years of experience in handling similar business process. Organizations can outsource both contact center and business development process to outsourcing units with ease. Inbound contact center receives customer qualms and calls. Contact center rep utilizes their extensive product and problem solving knowledge to assist customer and resolve their queries 24 * 7 * 365. Outbound sales representatives use their extensive knowledge and are divided in teams. These teams include Lead generation, business development, sales, marketing and appointment setting with C Level employees to sell organization's product and services to increase the growth factor substantially. They use high quality outbound call center software to maximize productivity and quality.  Various IT companies even outsource their IT maintenance services by hiring IT engineers offshore.

Example # 1- TCS hires Mainframe Support engineers to receive calls from UK Corporate customer using TCS’s Vendor product and engineers provide technical support by resolving issues with the product.

Example # 2- Telemarketing/Inside Sales Consultants utilize cloud contact center software to check customer history stored on the cloud and understand the customer requirements and pain areas. They propose a customizable win-win solution keeping budget and pain areas in mind. A deeper example will be a business client looking to develop a chat application as a start up business. Inside sales will receive this client’s contact through the uploaded excel file in the call centre software. They will call, understand the features of chat application and convince them to get this chat product developed by their organization.  

So, inbound contact center services improve customer experience through cloud customer service software while outbound sales representatives help to grow business and educate customer about client’s product and how it can help them to resolve their issues. 

The icing on the cake lies in using the best telemarketing software for agents to dial only the required number while managers can check LIVE RECORDING, fetch Dynamic Reports on average handling time, send feedback templates to customers, and define call hours to organize and maximize business generation activities.

5 Pointers Guide to Maximize your Call Center Operations

High quality and cost-effective contact center software solutions play a significant role for a lean call center management. However, it is also important to leverage few prominent pointers to maximize productivity and customer experience. Adopting the 5 points below will ensure the organization’s motive to hire an inbound or outbound call center team to be successful.

Pointer # 1à Estimate the Right Number of staff

As a manager, it is important to analyze the business process, number of customers across the globe, call flow volume and forecast the right number of staff required to meet the call volume with utmost quality.

If you use efficient call center software solutions, you can create freelancer logins, give them daily target of calls/leads and maintain their productivity data in the software. For a small business unit, this plays an important part in maintaining low operating costs and high-quality deliverables.

Pointer # 2à  Take One Step at a time

Do not outsource all the business services to your call center team. You must ensure to keep the high level escalation services at your end and train the outsourcing team about low level business process.

Using cloud contact center software, organization can upload training videos, PDF’s and word documents and organize them in a course format. This will save huge cost for training 1000’s of employee and freelancers, and will help you save a lot of money for other important business purposes.

Pointer # 3à Go Mobile

Yes, sounds unfamiliar; however call center of small and medium business are going mobile. With the help of cloud customer service software, you can install the software on the web without leveraging high costs for telephony services. Managers can upload excel sheet, create teams and divide the work load among team members. In case of emergency, customer reps can download the mobile application in their phone and take calls easily.

As per mandatory and easy to access workflow, sales rep will enter feedback once the call ends and get ready to take another call. These mobile apps have a great User Experience designed and developed by call center experts.

It helps to minimize the workflow, which ensures focused calling resulting in the increase in a number of calls per shifts. The customer reps get a chance to work in emergencies from home while organization and call center outsourcing provider are able to tackle call volume and customer experience.

Pointer # 4 à  Coach and do not manage

Manager can monitor sales rep’s calls and leads. They can use outbound call center software to save time and analyze things quickly. They can generate reports on close/hot/cold lead, average handling time and prioritize leads. Managers can upload feedback forms and videos apart from allocating the leads to other reps. So, training and productivity will go hand in hand. You can upload videos in the software related to practicing neutral accent and customer service/selling skills to enhance productivity.

Pointer # 5 à  Check the Online Presence

Your outsourcing provider must have an appealing, user-friendly and informative website with case studies showing how their call center operations solved other business problems and enhanced productivity. A great outsourcing provider will use the best telemarketing software, and will hire the right customer service reps for a satisfying customer experience.

How Profitable Is It To Set Up A Call Center In India?

In India today, an increasingly lucrative professions happens to be that of a call center agent. Plus, the need for such call center software solutions in India is rising by the day as every company today requires call centers for customer service and you would find both domestic and international call centers. In India, most international call center operations are carried out at night because they have to work according to the time zones of the west. 

With call centers cropping up everywhere, you too must have realized the numerous profits of dabbling in contact center software solutions. This can be an extremely profitable business if done right. If you make an error, you could potentially be ruining your career. That is why it is imperative to have an idea of the steps before you actually take the plunge. Call center regulations are pretty strict in the country; adhering to them is a must. But if you manage to get it right, this could be the smartest way to kick start your career as an entrepreneur.  

In India, since there is an abundance of demand, so is there an abundance of tools and solutions to set up such services including an outbound call center software likely the most important tool sin this industry. These are just a few reasons why starting a call center would be a profitable venture for you: 

1) Location is never a problem in India 

If you have a traditional call center, you will have to decide upon a location first. This is where all your agents would be spending their days, thus you need to make sure it's complete with all necessary amenities. It really helps if your office is in a prominent location that is easily accessible. Plus, this is a matter of impression as well. With a good office, you're likely to make a better impression than a shoddily designed one. Yes, definitely the tools that you use such as a cloud customer service software play an important role, but your office would be the face of your business. 

2) The connectivity factor

Usually, call centers have 2 types of connectivity with the outer world. Sometimes, call centers simply use the International Private Leased Circuit (IPLC) to tend to the calls. In this case, the provider is usually VSNL. In other cases, they make take a PRI (Primary Rate Interface) channel which is provided by BSNL or MTNL. The whole functioning of the call center is based on connectivity. That should be the next thing on your agenda after the location. Without means of connecting efficiently, how do you plan to reach out to a wider audience?  Most cloud contact center software usually employ both the means of connectivity in India

3) Plenty of fresh talent to recruit  

In addition to having an efficient customer contact center software solutions, you need to find call center agents to deal with the same. Now what you must understand is that a call center is a workforce driven field which requires dedication and diligence. While prior experience is always preferred, you must also look for fresh talent who can bring something more to the table than just a bunch of degrees. Look for individuals who are motivated and enthusiastic about this work and are willing to learn from the work. If you're planning to get remote workforce, then you need to pay special attention to the kind of people you recruit because you won't be around to keep an eye on them at all times. The agents are the ones who will be interacting with your customers directly. Naturally, you need to make sure you don't compromise on the quality of agents you hire. 

4) Abundance of training programs

In India, while you might find thousands of people looking for a job at a call center, you need to make sure you're picking the best ones amongst them. Once you've conglomerated your workforce, you need to start off a training process. Some of the agents might have work experience, while some may be rookies. All call centers have different modes of operation and it would certainly help if you could implement a few training processes. These would include performance enhancement training, functional training, grade change trainings, recruitment training and so on. You might have the best telemarketing software, but if your agents are not equipped to handle it, it would ruin the whole thing. 

Setting up a call center in India is not that complicated, especially with the availability of tools like the best call center software, plethora of resources and dedicated agents. But a call center is not just about the agents, it's a lot more than that. With these pointers in mind, you're ready to make the most of your call center experience !

How to Set Up a Domestic Call Center?

Setting up a call center is no easy task; it requires immense patience, determination and courage. In the present day and age, there are many different variations of the call center; however it is entirely up to you if you want a domestic call center or an international one. 

Now this is where most people get confused. Domestic and international call centers are poles apart when it comes to the functioning and call center software solutions. A domestic call center is one which handles all the operations of a particular company in a specific region, like India. 

For example, it will represent only one local company and deal with just the local customers. However, in an international call center operations are carried out for overseas companies. For instance, the people of such a call center would be handling the work of an international company.  

Have you decided to start a domestic call center? Now that's a smart step you've taken. It is profitable, yet comparatively easy since the operations are on a smaller scale. This post here is the only guide you'll ever need to read if you're planning to set up such a call center. 

To know more about domestic contact center software solutions, you must follow these steps down to the last detail-

1) It is always better to hire a call center, than run one!

Now this isn't just for start-ups; most large corporations are realizing the benefits of running a small scale call center service that outsources its customer service. When you're starting out, you're not going to have too many resources. Thus it is always wise to hire a company that would provide the service on behalf of you. There are tons of companies that would offer such services.

You must understand that running a call center is expensive. Call routing, call distribution, integrated software, overhead costs, cloud customer service software costs- these are just a few things you need to take care of. Do you think you have a pocket deep enough for all this?  The answer would likely be “No” although you'd like it very much to be “Yes”. Plus, if this is your first time at a call center, you require certain skills which you may not have acquired yet. If you manage to get a company with experience, it would be fantastic way to kick start your call center career. 

2) Customizing your service to provide efficient customer service

If you're starting a call center, it would be safe to assume that you already know the basic functional unit of a call center. It's customer service, of course! You need the best call center software if you want to get into the good books of clients. If you simply provide them with something they've seen already, do you think they'll be impressed enough? Plus, remember you're like the new guy who joins school in the middle of the session. 

Do you really want to be treated like an outcast? There's enough apprehension surrounding your big step already; you need to prove to your customers that you really mean business and that you're the best option for them.

 Now customers are pretty fickle when it comes to loyalties. Simply offering a variety of services won't do. You need to come up with customized services that they haven't seen before, something to catch their eye.  

3) Taking the time to add finishing touches and refine

Now, if you've indeed hired a company to outsource your call center operations too, there's always a tendency to let it be and start slacking. That's a terrible attitude, especially when it comes to monitoring metrics and tools including customer contact center software solutions. 

You need to put your game face on and strive to be better at all times. At the end of the day, it is your call center and you need to keep an eye on its functioning. This is not something that you owe to just your customers; you're answerable to yourself. 

Do you want to stand with your head held high? The you've got to make sure that your call center is functioning to its fullest potential. Listen to the calls, take feedbacks from your customers, analyse the feedbacks, see where you're lagging behind, try to find out what you can do better and learn from your mistakes. 

Remember, this is an opportunity to learn and grow and you should make the most of it. Refining a call center's operations is a continuous process and you must constantly try to enhance the effectiveness of the call center. 

There you go, now you are ready to embark on your journey of running the best call center in the market. Simply having the best telemarketing software won't do; you should be ready to whatever it takes to make it work. 

3 Steps To Manage Variable Call Traffic In A Call Centre

Today, many call center managers from Small and Medium Business use contact center software solutions to manage their day-to-day operations. One of the primary issues faced by a Call Center Manager is to determine the right workflow and resource utilization strategy to manage variable call traffic. Often a huge pain-point for the manager, this issue can be easily tackled if proper research and strategy is developed. 

Step 1 – Do Research

Before taking any important decision, it is necessary to understand the business process and end user “pain areas.” A manager must prepare a checklist of questions and find answers for them. Common questions include answers to the following pointers:

  In-depth understanding of the call center process

  Identify pain areas why customer call

  Identify previous dates on which the traffic was high

  Strategy followed by the previous manager 

  The Bottlenecks faced by the previous manager on those dates

  Resource utilization during those dates

An efficient manager or business using quality and scalable call center software solutions will easily find history of call logs and reports to drill down and prepare a strong work plan.

Step 2 - Prepare and train your customer service representative

After the research is done and strategy is prepared, it is the time to share important points and train your customer service representatives about these “high-tide” dates. An efficient manager will always follow an agile approach and do a stand-up meeting. A business using cloud customer service software can even record training videos and upload them to the cloud so that they are easily accessible to all the agents. 

Step 3 – Using call centre software to either automate or manually operate the agent/station time out process

Even after doing all the preparations, exceptions happen and you may find a rise in traffic during emergency and natural calamities. If your business utilizes cloud contact center software, you can set a station timeout for your agents dynamically. 

If the time-out is set at a maximum or a logical time line, customer’s wait time will be 0, and they will be automatically connected with the agent. 

Managers can set an ACW (After Call Work) after the call is finished so that agents can document the case and maintain important notes. Once the ACW is over, agents will get a ring on their VOIP phone or web interface to take a new call. 

Managers must observe and supervise the break timings and educate the representatives not to leave their seat during heavy call traffic due to the set station time-out. Managers should keep the greeting scripts handy on agents’ desks and rehearse with them so that they are always prepared to give greetings with the same professional spirit. 

This ensures sloppy greetings are not given and agents are attentive. Managers can arrange snacks and surprise gifts for the best performers to keep them motivated. Your floor should have a space for board games like Table Tennis to maintain a great tempo and enthusiasm during high-end call traffic. Games will keep the representatives stress-free.

For sales representatives, outbound call center software also provides similar functionality, and manager can hear Live Recordings and monitor the Sales force activities to improve ROI on outbound calling.

Conclusion

So, maintaining the right station time out, ACW, and stress-free atmosphere on the call center floor will help you to get happy customers, maximum productivity, and better employee retention.

With the changing technology trends, a small business must also upgrade the basic and expensive telephony services to a light-weighted, cost-effective and dynamic call center software so that they can manage their traffic easily. 

It is very important that if this small business scales rapidly, the software must be “pre-customized” to serve any traffic or solve the business pain areas for customer service and sales. It is important to choose the best telemarketing software available in the market to manage call traffic of any size.

How To Generate Sales Through Outbound Telemarketing Services?

For today’s SMEs, acquiring customers by addressing their specific “pain-areas” through customized tools such as contact center software solutions becomes a critical reason of success. In today’s competitive world, most small or medium business possesses the same technical and product knowledge to work with major companies, consumers and expand their business. Therefore, the better you utilize available tools such as an Outbound Telemarketing, Lead Generation and Branding methods, the more the actual difference. A small business can adopt the following steps to generate hot leads/sales.

• Get a Fresh Database of your customers

To start with, you need a good database of contacts of decision makers. Hire a Business Analysis Expert and tell them to prepare a list of companies as per the market segment. Then, conduct a proper analysis and identify their business-segment pain areas through Google, LinkedIn and Social media. Once a database is prepared, scan it and upload the excel sheet in call center software solutions (in case you do not have, you can upload them on Google Sheet for permanent storage).

• Get a Good Telemarketing and Sales Team onboard

Without the best sales team, your sales efforts will fail. An efficient and aggressive business will need both automated and manual methods to maximize productivity and revenue shares. If your team operates by using an outbound call center software, the manager can upload the database sheets and maintain data security by creating permissions to upload or download any further excel sheet by any agent. Managers can also assign the database of contacts to different teams through a few clicks just like working on Gmail Interface.

• Before you make your first sales call

It is the time to go through each lead and prepare a customized e-mail template through info graphics or animated videos (Starts as low as $5 from sites like Fiverr). These templates must address business lead’s pain areas and how your business can help to resolve them. This is the MOST IMPORTANT aspect to generate sales. It means you care for their business. 

Manager can prepare standard email templates for each business and upload them in a cloud environment through cloud contact center software. Emails should be short, crisp and mobile-friendly. You can send survey forms to further collect and strengthen your knowledge about the “pain-areas”

For example - A car research company can send survey forms and info graphics to normal customers and OEM to get more insights.

• Prepare separate questionnaire for each business

Once you have received responses from your prospective email customers, it is time to prepare a questionnaire for each business. A good inside sales manager can prepare separate questionnaires and greetings for each business and upload them in the call center software for their agents. Hence, agents will be able to maximize the benefits of converting the prospective leads to opportunity or even sales. Through cloud customer service software, managers can check LIVE calls, upload training videos, and send feedback forms to each agent.

These steps will definitely help to acquire you more customers. It is important that your customer service, and the digital marketing team ensure to build your brand by recording videos of your happy customers and upload them on your site, social media or YouTube to maximize the efforts of your outbound marketing team. 

It is observed that many businesses are using automated software to check previous customer records and qualify leads in a better way. Implementing tools such as the best telemarketing software to maximize outbound telemarketing service team efforts is of utmost importance.

How to Optimize the Email Customer Service?

The internet has gained an increasing popularity, and communication via email has become a tool. However, if the customer support and outreach of a company are weak, then the productivity of the company may highly be compromised. Companies must use tools like an effective contact center software solutions to this end. Research has shown that there is a definite gap of about 8%, between the expected response time and the actual response time from the brands. In addition, it has also been observed that the responses given by the medium to big sized companies may be highly inaccurate, and the queries of customers are not resolved. 

Here are a few tips to optimize the email customer service:

• Best telemarketing software: The telemarketing software enables recording the time taken for each employee to complete a call. The fresher can be allowed to take more time and in due course of time, the call handling timing should be reduced. This can also help in evaluating an employee. 

• Call metrics: This is a process indicating the performance of agents while taking calls. The company must use accurate technology to track the calls. The center must also have the best outbound call center software. Using these methods, the time gap between the two calls can be traced, and agents can also be appraised for their performance using the metrics.

• Cloud contact center software: This software comes in handy when customers may call more than once asking for the same query. It clearly indicates that the first call was not convincing enough. To eliminate this error, such software is used. The software enables to revisit the last call and help the agent to improvise. Also, the customers need not call more than once, so they feel happy about it as their query is solved in the first attempt. However, the agent must undertake the task of improvisation very seriously. Training can be given to the agents for this matter.

• Cloud customer service software:  The best cloud customer service must be used by the center. However, a good deal of training by the center is essential in places where the agents are weak. Once the agents are comfortable in their weak area, then the center will function at its optimum level. 

• An optimum email customer service with an efficient call center software must be implemented for the betterment of the company.

In addition, some other things that can help optimize the email customer service is by responding as quickly as possible. A time period of 24 hours is regarded as quite fair, however, for exceedingly important emails, responding at the moment is creating a sense of awareness in the customers whom they are heard. Sending formal words like “Respected Sir/ Madam”, and ending an email with greetings like “Thank you”, also help. The use of language must be as easy as possible. The email must be reader-friendly and upon reading just once, the customers should have a clear understanding. Check on the customers’ purchase history and suggest the customers for something. It shows that the company is not only seeking for profit, but also cares for its customers.

Being accessible to the customers, will be a great way to optimize email customer services, for which, the call center software solutions must be used to a maximum. Frequently, customers don’t understand where to look for asking queries and thus, hesitate. Also, do maintain user-friendly websites and make customers happy.  

How to Use Contact Center Software Solutions to Turn Customers into Brand Advocates?

Every brand wants its customers to be happy and satisfied with them. Using contact center software solutions can aid with customer satisfaction. Every company wishes for maximum loyal customers and takes a great deal of efforts to make the new ones. Surveys tell us that it is harder to find new customers than it is to keep the older ones happy.  

Here are some steps for turning customers into brand advocates: 

• In order to get loyal customers, a good-quality telemarketing software is an able ally. The customers can call and enquire about their doubts. The telemarketer must see to it that the doubts of customers are well answered, and they are happy with the service the brand provides. The language used must be extremely easy to understand and the customer must be spoken to, with, respect.

• Cloud customer service software allows all the information to be stored on a cloud. The software must be used properly to maximize the brand’s efficiency. Along with the software, care must also be taken to increase the agent productivity. Efforts must be taken to improve the customer satisfaction and to compete with the world’s best brands.  

• The cloud contact center software can also be very useful and can be used as a cloud customer center software to maintain high levels of customer service and satisfaction. However, you must ensure that the agents must be highly qualified and must make optimum use of the software.

• Using an omnichannel approach will help greatly to the customers as they will be provided with a wide spectrum of choice. The more the choice the brand can provide, the happier the customers will be. However, the challenge for the brand will be of quality agents. The agents must be trained properly and should take up any channel at any moment, if time comes. Understanding the choice of a customer and suggesting accordingly will have a great impact on the customer. Making use of such software will also help greatly to increase the customer satisfaction. 

• Another way of turning customers into brand advocates is by offering them with rewards and giving them good discounts. The loyal customers can be offered a discount, and the new customers can be given a small item free as a gift from the company. The customers always like to purchase things lesser than the manufacturing price. According to the profitability of the company, if the customers are given good discounts, they will be very happy.

• A company may make use of outbound call center software, which is sometimes also available for free. The software allows uploading multiple contact lists, and also enables obtaining information about each contact person. Thus, using the software, data can be made richer and the customers can then be better sold to or reached. In addition, agent optimization can also be done using the data. The software is user-friendly and needs very less money and time to start with.

• Customer feedback is yet another very important aspect. A brand must look into what the customers think about their product. The dream of every brand will be to get all good responses. However, sometimes, there may be a problem and so a negative feedback may be obtained. The company must look into the problem and post the remedies they are taking to eradicate it. This shows that the customers are heard personally and that the company is taking efforts for maximum customer satisfaction.  

Turning customers into brand advocates needs you to listen to what they are saying and thinking. Using the best telemarketing software for this two-way interaction since it enables direct contact with the customers, helps in better understanding of the customers.