Best Call Center Software for Small Businesses

Why your business needs a contact center

No matter the size of your business, it’s essential to offer seamless customer support. Not only do one-third of customers consider switching companies immediately after not being properly supported, but more than a half make an additional purchase when they have a good experience. In short, the quality of your client service system directly impacts future profits.

However, it’s no longer enough to have a call center and call it a day. We are living in the digital era, and people expect to use their preferred communication channel when contacting your business, including live chat, social media, or email. In order to efficiently answer all of these queries, you’ll need a unified contact center platform.

How to choose the best call center solution

Choosing the best call center solution depends on the type of customer support you want to provide. For example, if you want everything to be developed in-house, a cloud-based contact center won’t suffice. However, there are some things you should always consider like flexibility, ease of use, and a good price-quality ratio.

Types of contact center software

There are four main types of contact center software: on-premise, hosted, cloud-based, and browser-based. It’s essential to understand how each one works to choose the best contact center solution for your business needs.

On-premise contact centers are deployed in-house. This means that all software and infrastructure is installed in your office and maintained by your IT team. This offers ultimate control but is expensive and needs a high upfront investment, making on-premise contact centers inadvisable for smaller companies.

On the other hand, hosted call center software is held off-site, and you can access it through a network connection. It’s cheaper than an on-premise contact center, as the service provider sustains the servers, but you lose some control over your platform.

Cloud-based contact centers are hosted online and can be accessed through either a desktop or mobile app. Since all data is stored in the cloud, you can use it anywhere with an internet connection and it comes at a lower price point.

Finally, browser-based call centers can be used without installing any software at all. You just need to open a secure browser and log into your account. It’s the most straightforward solution on this list, requiring just a few hours to deploy your contact center.

Main call center software features

Because of the nature of contact center software, it makes sense that the first thing you should look for is communication tools. We live in a digital world, meaning that your business will need to cater to customers who prefer to speak via live chat, social media, and more. So, when deciding which call center platform to get, make sure it offers a unified solution. Some providers already come with built-in omnichannel capabilities, whereas others provide add-ons for this effect.

Next, it’s time to consider customer experience. No one likes to spend hours waiting and the best way to improve response time is by having efficient call routing. This can be as easy as allowing customers to reach their target department through IVR or as complex as routing customers depending on your agents’ skills. There are even options that allow your clients to solve some minor issues through self-service.

For customer support teams with several agents, it’s necessary to have reliable internal communication tools. More advanced contact center software includes features like a built-in chat, coworker tags, and client profile notes. Finally, it’s also vital to have a platform that offers an insightful built-in analytics dashboard to measure how your contact center is performing.

Flexibility

There are various reasons why traditional call centers are ditching their on-premise solutions and turning to cloud-based contact center software instead. One of them is flexibility. Cloud-based call centers allow agents to answer customer queries from anywhere with an internet connection. By decentralizing your call center, you’ll not only save on office rent, but you’ll also have a broader talent pool to recruit from, provide a better work-life balance to your employees, and be able to answer customers in different time zones. Of course, running a remote call center has its challenges. It’s harder to follow agents’ performance and more difficult for them to feel a sense of belonging. But that’s a small trade-off when compared to all the advantages.

Ease of use

The easier the software is to use, the less time you’ll need to spend training agents. This makes it important to get an intuitive contact center platform. Fortunately, most cloud-based contact center apps are extremely easy to use and come with extensive guides on how to make the most out of them. On top of that, contact center software providers usually offer extensive free trials with enough time for you to set up your call center and test it out. You can take advantage of this to get a feel of the software and train your agents before paying a subscription.

Price

Price is one of the most important parameters when choosing a piece of software, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. Thankfully, there’s a call center solution for everyone. Typically, call center software providers offer their services for a periodic subscription, where the longer you commit, the less you pay each month. Bear in mind these subscriptions are user-based, though. For example, if the cost is $20 per month and you have five agents, you’ll pay $100 each month.

Even so, there are some features that allow you to save on other costs. If you get a contact center with omnichannel capabilities, you don’t have to spend on third-party platforms to manage queries from digital channels. Most companies also offer unlimited calling within the U.S. and Canada, which lets you handle customer queries without thinking about expensive phone bills.