Being an entrepreneur in 2023 is a lot different than it was, even five years ago. Technology has become one of the most important factors in the economy. If a business does not stay up-to-date with all the software that are available, they lose competitively to those that do. A contact center is of outmost importance, as it becomes the heart of a company, in relation to its customers. Here is what all company managers need to know on the subject.
A Call Center Will Not Suffice Anymore
The era, when customers had to contact a call center between certain hours has long gone by. If that is the only customer service a company is providing, customers are bound to go look somewhere else for their products, if they ever have any issue with them. The reason is simple: People don’t want to talk on the phone anymore. To them, it is wasted time. They know they will be made to wait on the line, and that just won’t do. Too much to do, not enough time. And so, they would rather send a message in and wait for a quick response. To be able to accommodate that, businesses need a contact center – not a call center, as explained here.
What Is the Difference Between a Contact Center and a Call Center?
When a company invests in a contact center, it enables itself to answer to customers in any which way that they want to communicate their demands through. In an omnichannel world, the variety of communication tools is extremely large. Naturally, a contact center still can answer calls, but it also handles all other potential entries. These will include messages coming in from the company’s social media accounts, as well as those being sent by messaging applications such as WhatsApp or Skype. E-mails remain a great source of incoming customers requests, while faxes still exist, but are certainly fading away in this day and mostly done online, as you can see here. All of these various communication methods are being taken care of through a contact center, while only phone calls will do for a call center.
Why a Contact Center Ensures a Higher Level of Quality of Customer Service
Technological developments are there to render our life easier. But it also serves another purpose, which is to make it more efficient. When customer service is run only by humans, there are bound to be errors, here and there. That is because we are all fallible. The machine will do precisely what you tell it to. Therefore, if you place it in charge of responding to messages, no matter where they come from, you can be sure that it will never forget one. This is how you make sure that you don’t lose a customer along the way. The moment a message comes in, it is answered by the system. If it knows the response, it will provide it to the customer. If it doesn’t, it will advise him that someone will respond rapidly, while sending a reminder to the individual in charge, so that it doesn’t get lost along the chain.
How Can AI Benefit Customer Service?
When you install a contact center inside your office, you basically create the base of your communication with customers. You will run it through a VoIP phone system software, that will control all the other digital elements needed to ensure the best efficiency possible. This system has the capacity to accumulate data on each and every call and message, coming on or going out. This information can then be used to raise the quality level, as managers can determine what works and what doesn’t, in the communication between the employees and customers.
That is when AI can become the greatest ally of a company. Artificial Intelligence can use these data and create links between each of them, that no human could. It goes into a deep analysis in order to come up with future solutions that will make customers experience better, and will raise their satisfaction level to a much higher note. AI is becoming a necessary tool for any company that wants to stay on top of their industry. By linking it to the communication system, it will ensure that the communication process of the company is always at its best. That is why investing in a contact center, like the one you can find at Aircall, is money well spent. It can grow with the company through time, to make sure that it remains competitive, and so that customers continue to buy from them, instead of moving on to greener pasture.
