Contact Center Software FAQ

Contact center software is a tool that allows agents to answer customer queries from all types of communication channels (such as email, ticket system, phone, and social media) in one unified platform. Its main purpose is to increase the productivity of a contact center, providing the means for efficient customer contact routing, key metrics tracking, and seamless internal communication. For example, it lets you direct customers to agents who have the skills to handle specific inquiries, check performance in real time for quick decisions, add notes to customer logs for future interactions, and more. Don’t mistake contact center software for call center software, CRM platforms, or VoIP systems, as they all provide different types of features. While VoIP provides the means to build a phone system in the cloud, call center software offers features to automate the flow of inbound and outbound calls. Meanwhile, CRM software is a specific platform to manage your clients’ information and doesn’t deliver the required tools to interact with customers. Not only does contact software provide all these features in one place, but it also offers the ability to manage inquiries coming from all kinds of digital channels.

Contact center software is a tool that allows agents to answer customer queries from all types of communication channels (such as email, ticket system, phone, and social media) in one unified platform. Its main purpose is to increase the productivity of a contact center, providing the means for efficient customer contact routing, key metrics tracking, and seamless internal communication. For example, it lets you direct customers to agents who have the skills to handle specific inquiries, check performance in real time for quick decisions, add notes to customer logs for future interactions, and more.Don’t mistake contact center software for call center software, CRM platforms, or VoIP systems, as they all provide different types of features. While VoIP provides the means to build a phone system in the cloud, call center software offers features to automate the flow of inbound and outbound calls. Meanwhile, CRM software is a specific platform to manage your clients’ information and doesn’t deliver the required tools to interact with customers. Not only does contact software provide all these features in one place, but it also offers the ability to manage inquiries coming from all kinds of digital channels.

Contact center software allows agents to manage customer contact flow through all types of communication channels. Everything is connected in one unified platform, from phone calls to email and Facebook Messenger. It works by integrating with all your communication platforms and creating customer profiles where all interactions are saved in a single log.

Unless you’re going for an on-premise contact center (which requires you to have your own servers), cloud-based contact center software only needs a computer with an internet connection to work. Since everything is online, you don’t need to invest in any equipment. However, if you offer support via phone or video, it’s essential to have a decent headset and webcam. There are companies that also allow you to access their platform through mobile apps, so you can use your smartphone to answer customer queries.

Omnichannel contact centers offer various tools to deliver efficient customer support. On top of a unified dashboard where you can manage all types of communication channels, providers offer the ability to efficiently route customers regardless of the medium used. The contact center software also provides the means for seamless internal communication, where agents can speak via chat or add tags and notes to customer profiles. This way, the customer experience journey is as seamless as possible. Finally, omnichannel contact center software also helps improve the support provided on all channels by offering live and periodic analytics reporting.

Since each contact center software provider has its own pricing structure, it’s challenging to share an average industry rate. Usually, companies charge you a periodic rate for each user you have – $40 per month per user, for example.These subscriptions often come with a free phone number and unlimited calls within the U.S. and Canada. However, this isn’t always the case, so make sure to check the company’s features to see whether it’s included. A cheap contact center platform can quickly become quite expensive by charging for inbound and outbound calls.

Another factor that influences the price of contact center solutions is the number of features provided. Most contact center software providers try to please both small and big businesses by offering different features for each pricing tier. That’s why you can find platforms with prices ranging from $15 to $140 per month per user. While the most comprehensive plans might seem expensive, they come with various additional tools such as built-in CRM, live chat, and web conferencing.

Like many other online platforms, contact center software also comes with generous discounts for users who commit to longer billing cycles. Unfortunately, offering a free version of the platform is not common practice – you’ll only find one or two software solutions with this option.

On the bright side, contact center software providers typically offer extensive experimental periods with no strings attached. These usually last enough time to set up your contact center and test it out.

Whether an on-premise or a cloud-based contact center is best depends on your needs. So, it’s essential to understand the differences between the two.

• On-premise contact centers: Hardware-based, where all infrastructure remains onsite. This translates into higher costs, as you’ll have to get dedicated communication servers and an IT team to install and maintain the system.
• Cloud-based contact centers: Hosted in the cloud. Upfront costs are almost zero, but you’re dependent on your contact center software provider to ensure your system doesn’t go down.

Selecting the best solution

There’s a reason why many traditional contact centers are becoming cloud-based: they’re the best option overall. Instead of hiring an IT team to set up and maintain your communication servers, cloud-based contact centers take just a few minutes to configure. Moreover, software providers are the ones responsible for the server’s upkeep, so there’s one less thing to worry about.

While on-premise contact centers imply a high upfront investment, many cloud-based contact center providers offer free trials that allow you to set up everything before you pay the first installment. Moreover, unless you’re running a massive contact center with hundreds of support agents, monthly fees for cloud-based platforms are usually more affordable than buying all the necessary hardware to deploy an on-premise contact center.

Moreover, as these contact centers are cloud-based, it’s easier to interact with customers through digital channels, such as social media and email. Plus, integrating the platform with third-party software, such as CRM, is much more straightforward. Considering all these factors, it’s easy to understand why cloud-based contact centers are the best option for most companies.

In a nutshell, multichannel contact centers allow agents to interact with customers through various mediums by using different platforms, whereas omnichannel contact centers let agents manage everything in one place. The former offers a more seamless customer experience, as support agents can see a client’s entire history even if they contact the company through different mediums.

Using a CRM platform that ties everything together can transform a multichannel contact center into an omnichannel one. However, this is far from perfect. Agents will need training for each software, and it’s a more expensive solution that’s more prone to human error. Meanwhile, omnichannel contact center software already comes with everything necessary to provide a more affordable, seamless, and straightforward customer support experience.

CRM stands for customer relationship management. CRM software is a platform that helps companies organize and access customer data. It connects information from all company departments, allowing everyone to be on the same page to provide a personalized experience to clients.

Contact center software is a platform that allows the management of all communication channels in one place for efficient and smooth communication with clients. Although more comprehensive contact center platforms provide CRM-like features, they are usually more basic and bound to one department.

Integrating CRM with contact center software gets you the best of both worlds. On the one hand, you have all the customer information in one place. On the other hand, you’re able to manage and answer clients via all types of communication channels.

In addition to providing the best customer support possible, this integration allows sales agents to have thorough information on all contacts when running automated dialing campaigns or sending out newsletters.