Reaching the year-over-year growth that is the hallmark of a healthy business can put more than a few grey hairs on your head. That’s why we encourage call centers looking for cost savings and performance improvements to track the yearly contract expirations on their telecom contracts and seriously consider a VoIP solution.
Those yearly contracts are a significant source of financial pain and a shopping cart full of lost opportunities.
But there is hope. Call centers have been switching from the telecom burden for over 10 years now, and the reasons are self-evident.
Let’s start with some proof by looking at spending trends.
Gartner reports that premise-based telephony and messaging has run between -8% and -10% growth since about 2015, with a projected CAGR of -9.5% by 2021! Where is that business going?
Straight to the cloud.
Cloud-based VoIP telephony and messaging, according to Gartner, are primed for a CAGR average of +15.8% by 2021. That not only means, by our reckoning, that not only are business switching entirely from telecoms in droves, but that new businesses are skipping the telecom vortex and heading straight to VoIP.
But why?
Business Insights Are Simple with VoIP for Call Centers
VoIP has grown into a central role for countless businesses around the world. Not only does overhead regularly run cheaper and more flexible than standard telecoms services, call centers in particular can get everything they need to know to help keep their business on track, their customers happy and the bottom line black.
Have a look at some of the ways VoIP integrates into the modern demand for information:
- Instantly launch web pages using caller information.
- Auto-upload call data into CRMs.
- Auto-upload call records into data warehouses.
- Click-to-call interfaces from ACT, Outlook, SalesForce and other applications.
Reliable and comprehensive VoIP business communications also offer seamless CRM integrations, allowing you to make, receive and analyze calls without leaving your customized dashboard. And, by connecting CRM accounts with your business phone system, you can keep track of your communications with customers and prospects. Data exchanged between the two platforms enables real-time calling data and closed-loop analytics, allowing you to anticipate customer needs.
That means no more working in the dark or scrambling to make improvements from simple measurements like sales, closed deals and the intermittent customer request to send a compliment up to the floor manager.
VoIP also empowers immediate feedback. “Whisper,” for example, enables managers to advise agents while they’re on a call, with the ability to interrupt calls (discretely) and offer hands-on assistance – also, the customer will never know that their representative’s genius was anything but complete, since “barge-in” has the option to keep your voice from carrying to the customer. These features, along with priority-based call routing, agent availability statuses and others, can help ease new employees in, provide on-the-spot training to existing employees – all without compromising customer service.
Data Integration Tips: After you’ve tossed your old system, what kind of measurements will work best for your contact center? As usual, the SLA will be a live-or-die metric, but now you’ll be able to quickly sort handle time, hold time, after call work, average call time by role (even if these roles are mixed) and beyond. All of this data and more can be rolled up to (in the case of 4Voice) an integrated dashboard for easy viewing.
VoIP Delivers Streamlined Internal Communications
Insights and agent monitoring aren’t the only big wins, either. Modern office phone communication reaches far beyond desk phone calls.
4Voice Communicator, our softphone app, enables you to chat, call and video interface with employees and customers straight from your computer. Even better, call data and additional input is all tied to your business phone number, so callers always know how to reach you and you always appear on caller ID with a professional office number – perfect for call centers of any size. Even better, you can keep remote workers and clients in the loop with communication that meets their needs and an intuitive (but powerful) user interface that meets yours. Also, Communicator licenses are cheaper than a desktop hand set.
Put it all together and you’ll know why call centers are counting down the days to the end of their telephone company contracts.
Are you ready for a modern solution to replace the ancient tech in your call center? If so, take a quick look at an overview of the most substantial benefits of VoIP in our guide.
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