Contact Center Management Software
Common, Must Have Features
Managing a contact center can require a substantial amount of time and attention. The manager has to deal with numerous employees who are receiving questions and complaints from many different sources, and try to determine ways to better streamline the process. Contact center management software has numerous features available that can help to alleviate this situation.
Real-time ACD Monitoring
One of the most popular features is real-time automatic call distribution monitoring. This can provide contact center managers with access to current data on all inbound, outbound, and internal calls within the system, as well as show which employees are available and their average talk time. If a particular threshold is exceeded, a silent alarm can go off that alerts the manager of the situation.
Robust Reporting Features
Historical call reporting is another common feature of contact center management software. Managers can review the events of the day and determine how employees are performing, as well as replay individual or queue activity up to the second in which it occurred. This can help the manager figure out where problems are originating from and improve the overall efficiency of the department.
Contact center managers can also use the software to discretely listen in on phone calls as they take place. If a customer service representative is experiencing difficulty with a particular call, the manager can “whisper” answers to them on how to handle the situation. The individual will receive a professional level of customer service and never know what’s going on in the background.
Another common software feature is the ability to view real-time business data from multiple phone locations through a single connection. This can potentially save contact center managers a great deal of time since they won’t have to connect separately to each server if they want to look up statistics or reports.
Escalation Routines
Managers can also benefit from the use of multi-channel prioritization and escalation routines. The software will automatically direct emails and phone calls to the person with the greatest possible knowledge of the situation. This will often be the manager, and can potentially reduce the number of times that a customer is transferred between departments.
You can also have pre-configured reports that provide specialized methods to evaluate the call center. These include a Callback Report that show which customers were successfully called back by an employee, an Individual Activity Report that focus on your agents, and an Extension Hold Drop Report that details how many callers hung up while waiting on hold.
Furthermore, the software can often add workforce management features to help supervisors set up a more efficient schedule for their employees and predict how many call center agents will be needed in the future. This can be of particular benefit to companies who have difficulty determining the appropriate number of employees for each shift, and possibly decrease the number of abandoned calls.
