Even if you’ve come up with a winning contact center team, it all boils down to performance and productivity. In almost all industries, contact centers involve different KPIs and processes, which are run by different people in various departments. Most workflows are interconnected and are vital to the performance of the other. Without a good flow and system, it can easily fall apart.
The efficiency of a contact center is the ultimate measure to know if your system works best for the people around it and vice versa. Doing so can boost sales growth, and improve customer satisfaction thus, getting your business ahead.
Here are some of the best tips and practices we’ve summed up from successful contact center teams:
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Streamline every process
A good process is always key to every organization’s success. You should be able to identify the gaps and holes in your system, and which part in the process takes most of your agent’s time. Initiate transparency at all levels in the organization so you can solve even the littlest problems before they become a big nuisance.
For new contact center teams, it’s ideal to form a steady workflow system and ensure its application in every department. Through the KPIs you set, you’ll be able to measure their success rates and see which part in the process needs more improvement.
Turn to skill-based routing
For inbound calling, smartly assign calls to different people in the organization through skill-based routing. This way, you can direct callers to the right person they need, fast-tracking resolutions, and delivering customer satisfaction. Reduced handling time also means that your agents can attend to more concerns.
For example, you can first assign onboarding agents to do product demos, implementation, and training. This follows that the contact center software you’re using should be capable enough to perform these operations.
Eliminate manual tasks
Surprise – your salespeople are not robots. Reducing repetitive and machine-like tasks means they can spend their time on meaningful human interactions. For example, a simple task like dialing numbers can be time-consuming when done in big quantities. The same goes for manually logging all calls or contacts at the end of the day. Not only is it an extra task, but also it is more susceptible to human error.
Luckily, there is now a plethora of software and systems that can do these tasks for you. Look for one that offers a smart sales dialer and helps in maintaining customer records with ease. This way, your agents can focus on delivering superior service instead.
Coach and monitor live calls
No matter how expert-level your hired agents are, coaching and monitoring them while on a live call is still a big help in the organization. This helps the team align their goals with the business, create happy customers, and discover pain points among agents as well. Make sure to have someone in each team focus on this task alone.
It’s also important to choose a contact center software that can support this quality assurance and training. Preferably one with a smart telephony system that supports call whispers, live call coaching, or warm and cold transfers.
Offer remote work options
More businesses have been switching to remote work even before the current pandemic happens. Providing remote work options are also helpful for salespeople who need to be on-the-go while prospecting. With a contact center software that supports teams working in different environments, productivity would be less of an issue.
Though there are a lot of hurdles to overcome when working remotely, a steady system and software that encourages remote work productivity will come in handy. Times are changing and to be able to cope up with that, you should too.
Integrate everything
Technology has provided different ways to reach out to customers, but this also has brought forward a new problem – now, there are too many platforms to manage for your sales team. This means that a typical sales employee should be able to handle multiple clients simultaneously from different platforms. If you’re getting that picture, you know that doesn’t look good.
The answer you’re looking for is integration. Find systems and platforms that can help you when it comes to managing data. The best ones allow you to even integrate your CRM to its platform, and better, lets you sync everything you need. If you found something that gets you this, you’ll see your team’s productivity skyrocket.
Try omnichannel prospecting
Phone calls may still be the leading channel in closing sales, but with the change in people’s buying options, getting their attention seems harder nowadays. This is why you should also be working on getting their attention from as many channels as possible.
Omnichannel proves to be an effective approach for salespeople. Apart from tapping all channels where customers are, you can also aggregate all messages in one place where it is easy for you to manage. To make your contact center efficient, find a contact center software that provides omnichannel features that are user-friendly for your team too.
Automate workflows
Salespeople are thinking and feeling humans and the last thing you want is to tire them off with tasks that don’t have anything to do with talking to customers. With that, let automation help you out in doing the heavy lifting for them.
Automation may sound daunting at first, but more and more businesses are seeing its effects on their team’s efficiency. Without your agents doing other things, they will have more energy to talk and build relationships with customers – which means more sales for your business! Automating your workflows is the next best thing that you can do for your sales team while hitting your business goals all the same.
The key to productivity
A contact center’s success lies in its ability to keep customers happy and achieve sales goals. If ineffective systems are getting in the way, it’s time you rethink your contact center’s efficiency.
Many businesses have been seeing great productivity results upon switching to Aloware. With features such as the power dialer, omnichannel support, CRM integrations, automation, and so much more, you can experience the power of an all-in-one contact center software. Big plus – it also runs fully in the cloud so you can work with teams in different parts of the world, wherever you are.
Make the switch and create a more efficient contact center team with Aloware today. Our experts will be happy to help you out.
