An increasing number of businesses today rely on the Internet to connect with new customers and expand the size and scope of their market. Web sales and call centres often go hand in hand. Unlike brick and mortar businesses – where customers or clients with a question, complaint or problem can walk in and talk with a live person – web-based customers generally need to rely on a remote call centre if they need to contact a business post-sale.
That has caused a surge in the number of businesses that need to maintain high-quality, professional call centres that can respond effectively to incoming customer calls – from questions about product prices and features to angry customers demanding a full refund.
The problem is that most businesses are set up to accommodate this type of functionality on their own, especially given the potential global scope of their online reach. In other words, listing the phone number of your business on your website could result in a tsunami of calls that the business isn’t prepared to deal with. And if customers can’t get through or aren’t satisfied with the answers they get, the breadth of the Internet means they are going to go somewhere else.
Call Centre Necessity
That has made call centres a necessity for most businesses today that offer their products and services online. You can either set up your own call centre or hire a company that specializes in providing call centre services to handle your incoming customer calls for you.
The typical call centre today isn’t a room full of operators sitting shoulder to shoulder at switchboards taking incoming calls from customers while some scowling supervisor paces the aisle behind them. A more likely scenario is a network of call centre employees working from their homes that are scattered all over the country – or even thousands of miles overseas.
Managing this type of modern call centre requires call centre workforce software that offers benefits to the call centre, its agents, and its customers. Call centre workforce software can improve agent efficiency and cut down on absenteeism, as well as minimize idle time.
Workforce management systems also can improve customer satisfaction by optimizing agent availability and decreasing the need for customer call-backs.
Why You Need Call Centre Management Software
Workforce management systems simplify the task of managing the remote contracted employees who staff most of today’s online call centres. They allow management to maintain continual contact with employees even when they are thousands of miles away or on the other side of the world – monitoring their interactions with customers and making sure they are providing accurate and helpful information and resolving customer problems satisfactorily.
Given the amount of competition every business faces online, you usually have only one chance to make a good impression with your customers – especially if they already are contacting your call centre to ask a question or resolve a problem.
Having the most effective call centre workforce software makes it easier to maintain the high standards you need to retain online customers, reduce customer attrition, and set your business apart from your competitors.
Other Benefits of Workforce Management Systems
But today’s software does more than just give you access to how your employees are interacting with your customers and clients. Mitrefinch offers software that includes forecasting tools and agent scheduling applications that let you improve service levels while reducing your call center operating costs.
Today’s software provides real and virtual skill-based scheduling workforce management tools so that your agents know exactly what you want them to say, how you want them to act, and what you want them to do to keep your customers and clients satisfied, happy, and coming back to your business again and again.
Plus, you can use your call centre workforce software to manage outbound calls, email blasts, web chats, and other critical back office functions.
Software that Can Be Expanded to Scale
When most companies start doing business online, it’s only natural that the size and scope of their business will grow. The best software can be easily expanded to accommodate your business’s growth, so you can use the same workforce management tools when you are dealing with 25 agents or 250 or even thousands.
As your company grows, your software can grow with you, providing the same critical functions and allowing your business to achieve the same customer satisfaction and revenue objectives.
Agent Satisfaction and Productivity
Another benefit of this workforce management software is that it makes it easier for your customer agents to understand your expectations and to know how effectively they are meeting them with every customer contact. Agent satisfaction will increase and your attrition levels will fall, reducing the costs of replacing workers.
Plus, the scheduling function allows agents to manage their own schedules, set up their own availability, and be more proactive about deciding when they want to work. You can even use schedule preference functions as a way to reward star performers for outstanding work.
Use a ranking system to motivate all agents to maintain quality standards and continually improve performance, as well as identify under achievers so they can be coached to your expectations.
Who Uses Call Centre Workforce Management Software?
Workforce management software solutions have always been used by the biggest corporation. But now they are becoming more frequently used by small- and medium-sized companies that want to improve the way they interact with customers, especially those whose first point of contact with the business is online.
Businesses that care about providing outstanding customer service so they can attract new customers and reinforce loyalty bonds with repeat customers are using workforce management systems to achieve their objectives.
With the spread of the Internet and near-universal access, today’s businesses are becoming more and more complex. The workforce management solutions available from Advance Systems can help simplify the way your call centre agents interact with your customers and clients so you can achieve both your long-term and short-term business objectives.
