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2nd January 2021 blog, Call Management

What is Call Center Quality Assurance

23rd December 2020 Call Management, Tips

7 Best Practices for Call Center Scripts that Convert

21st December 2020 Call Management, Tips

7 Useful Tips for Creating a Call Center Scorecard

Guide to call center offshoring and business process outsourcing (BPO)

10th December 2020 Call Management, Learn

Your Complete Guide to Call Center Offshoring & BPO

16th November 2020 Call Management, Learn

What is Virtual Voicemail & How Does It Work?

6th November 2020 Call Management, International Business, Learn

5 Ways to Leverage Time-Based Routing for Global Expansion

A complete guide to virtual call center software.

19th October 2020 Call Management, Learn

Virtual Call Center Software: A Complete Guide [2024]

An image of a woman using best practices in her work from home call center.

10th August 2020 Call Management, Tips

Work From Home Call Center: 4 Best Practices [2024]

22nd July 2020 Call Management, Learn

What is Call Center Performance Management? [2024]

What is Call Center Quality Assurance

Meryl D'Sa-Wilson 2nd January 2021 blog, Call Management

The process of call center quality assurance ensures that the results of your customer service practices match your desired outcome. Because you want to provide exemplary customer service, you must monitor the performance of your call center. This is a continuous process of collecting and analyzing data, training call center agents, and improving your service.

Set Goals for Call Center Quality Assurance

The first step is to evaluate the areas in which your call center needs improving. Outline the goals you intend to reach. Without a concise idea of where you want to start, you will not be able to develop a strong monitoring strategy.

Ask Your Customers Their Opinion

A good way to improve your customer service is by asking your customers what they want. But don’t simply contact them for their opinions as this is not likely to meet with a response. Instead, offer them some incentive. For example, offer them a coupon or reward if they take a few minutes to complete a short survey.

Monitoring Your Call Center With Software

Now you’ve set your goals for call center quality; it’s time to put your plan into action. The first step to assessing the quality of your service is to select the right software. When choosing monitoring software, there are several factors you need to take into consideration. These include:

Features: This aspect will largely depend on the size of your call center and the volume of calls you handle. Some software solutions enable you to automate parts of the monitoring process by analyzing speech and metadata.
Scalability: This is important if the number of your call center agents fluctuates seasonally.
Ease of use: You shouldn’t need to spend too much time training staff how to use it. Make sure the program is intuitive.
Security: The safety of your customer information it a top priority. When you are using software to track it, it must be secure within that program.

Which Metrics Will You Analyze?

There are many key indicators involved in call center quality assurance. However, it’s not possible to monitor all of them. Not only would it be too time-consuming, but you would not be able to analyze the overwhelming results. Choose indicators that are relevant to a particular type of activity and will interact to create a coherent result.

Record a Selection of Calls

Call center agents receive thousands of calls per month. It’s impossible for you to listen to them all. However, many software solutions enable call recording, but be sure to use it judiciously. Recording a random selection of calls can be a waste of time because it won’t be a sampling of a larger trend. Use the metrics you have already gathered and select calls which are not meeting your goals, for example, calls which ran on too long, or which were handled poorly, or those in which customers had to call back several times about the same issue.

Write Professional Scripts

Scripts are a customer call center staple. They help to ensure that your agents are maintaining the standards you’ve set for the quality of your customer service. A script is a necessity whether your call center deals with inbound calls. A professional script reflects the results of your monitoring. Your agents should be able to go off script when a situation demands it. This is where good training comes in.

Provide Regular Training

Training should begin with each new hire and should continue on a regular basis. Your quality assurance specialist should educate new hires about your customer service goals and how to meet them. Have your best agents buddy-up with new members of the team. This will give them extra confidence and encourage them to emulate your most successful agents. Training isn’t just for new hires, it should be continuous, but you need to make sure that it doesn’t become monotonous. Otherwise, you are defeating the purpose. Make sure agents stay engaged in training by varying your training methods and activities. Agents should also feel they are able to ask for extra training if they feel they need it. Training sessions should be tailored to suit individual agents as much as possible; if not, it won’t be relevant to his or her needs. Everyone’s time is better utilized when training is a direct result of call monitoring, and it will strengthen your call center quality assurance system as a whole.

As you can see, there’s much more to call center quality assurance than just watching over your agents. It’s about monitoring services and using the data to highlight areas where improvement is needed. It’s also about training staff on a regular basis, so they continue to improve. But that’s not all either. You must maintain a company culture of trust and cooperation to optimize your call center.

7 Best Practices for Call Center Scripts that Convert

Miguel Isabal 23rd December 2020 Call Management, Tips

How your agents communicate over the phone can make a huge impact on the success of your call center strategy. Convert more callers into returning customers and reel in the sales with effective call center scripts. We even include a downloadable template below!

How Does Using Call Scripts for Customer Service Improve Communication?

Call center scripts can make or break the way your business interacts with its customers. These scripts carry information about your products and services intending to convert callers into recurring clients and, ultimately, generate sales.

However, if agents and reps are not trained to understand the flow of different conversations, they may end up offering poor service. Call center and customer service scripts can be used in these instances to train agents and provide easy-to-apply guidelines to follow. This way, your sales and support teams will be able to respond to and resolve customer queries more quickly and accurately, improving overall customer service.

What are Call Center Scripts Used for?

Call center scripts and customer service scripts are guidelines agents use to communicate with customers and users. These templates are ready-to-use based on different customer interactions and scenarios. Agents can use these to respond to queries and complaints or help customers find better products and services. Some customer scripts can be used to collect customer feedback or product reviews.

How to Create Effective Call Center Scripts: 7 Best Practices

When creating your call center script, focus on developing scripts for both inbound (incoming) and outbound (outgoing) calls. This way, your customer support teams are prepared for callers seeking customer support and product inquiries and your sales teams are prepared for sales pitches and lead calls. Additionally, call center scripts can help reduce training time and agent turnover. Businesses that don’t have time to offer rigorous training and provide in-depth knowledge can use scripts to get the job done quickly.

Here are 7 call center script best practices to consider when developing your business’ scripts. We also include tips for effective scripts and how to train your employees to meet your standards.

1. Hire Excellent Customer Service & Sales Reps

First, hire quality customer service and sales talent. Use business networking sites to find agents and reps that have experience, training, and certification. This will ensure you have a robust team ready to tackle whatever issue comes their way. Plus, they will have developed the right personality needed for delivering scripts naturally and effectively.

2. Keep Call Center Script Writing Tips in Mind

When creating your script and training your agents to make the most of the script, keep these key tips in mind:

Develop scripts that lead to action and be clear in their purpose.
Plan for multiple scenarios.
Allow for flexibility (but not too much) and more genuine interaction with customers.
Write scripts keeping common customer complaints and preferences in mind.
Emphasize the importance of understanding customer needs so they can be helped efficiently.
Include positive phrases and reword negative phrases.
Focus on personalization and train agents on proper etiquette.

3. Create an Effective Call Center Script

Your call center script should include these useful elements:

Greet the customer and say the name of the business.
Introduce yourself.
State the purpose of your call (outbound call) or find out why they are calling (inbound call)
For outbound calls: go through your script at a decent pace and pause for questions or concerns.
For inbound calls: listen carefully and attentively to the caller. Take note of key issues or questions, repeat to clarify, and offer practical solutions. Provide accurate information or offer a follow-up call, if you do not have the information on hand.
At the end of the call, ask if they need any additional assistance, thank them for calling, and add a pleasantry.
Score the call.

4. Train Agents & Employees Well

Besides merely providing your employees with quality scripts, you also need to train them in how to use the scripts well. Spend sufficient time teaching employees bad and good call center practices. Help them understand the company’s goals and standards. When training employees:

Focus on making customer service a top priority.
Keep communication two ways; adopt active listening.
Demonstrate examples of bad customer interactions and provide solutions.
Use call recording to identify positive and negative behavior.
Use call monitoring to listen in on calls with new employees so you can train them “on the job.”

5. Emphasize the Importance of Utilizing Customer Data When Using the Script

Part of executing a call center script well is personalizing it for each individual customer. This means using customer data alongside your script. Businesses with a customer-first strategy or those that are customer-focused need to use customer data to offer better, more customized service.

Before your agent or rep answers the call or calls a customer, they must pull up the customer’s data, history, purchases, and so on. This ensures your agent is prepared for the conversation and has all the context needed. Additionally, the customer won’t have to repeat their query again and again or bring the rep up to speed. You can save time for both your agent and customer. And move towards resolution faster.

6. Use Call Recording to Analyze the Effectiveness of Scripts

Recording business calls can help you and your teams listen in to calls from the past. This is a good way to identify what is working and what isn’t and how to improve your phone interactions. Pay attention to your best-performing agents. How are they effectively bringing new clients on board? What techniques and strategies are working? Then integrate their practices into your call center script so others may attempt them as well.

7. Provide Agents with Knowledge Bases and Support

Finally, make sure your reps can provide accurate responses to customer questions quickly. And to do this, they will need access to knowledge bases or support resources that outline common customer questions, product descriptions, company policies, and so on. This way, they can consult accurate resources if they are hit with a question or query they do not have an answer for.

Improve Sales with Call Center Scripts

Call center scripts have a great impact on whether a customer continues to do business with your company. Ensure your scripts are customer-centric as well as informative and helpful. Train employees to have an upbeat attitude and treat each call as a new slate. And before you know it, your scripts will be an effective aspect of your strategy that brings more and more customers to your business!

Downloadable Call Center Scripts Templates

Ready to get started? Then, grab these call center scripts and share them with your teams. Here are scripts to help you handle different situations and phases during customer calls.

Download Your Free Call Center Scripts Here

CC Scripts download

7 Useful Tips for Creating a Call Center Scorecard

Nadine Sampson 21st December 2020 Call Management, Tips

Call center scorecards are quality monitoring tools that help you test and analyze call center and agent performance. By doing so, managers can identify areas for improvement and success. Here we look at 7 useful tips for creating a call center scorecard and what you need to focus on. We even include a downloadable evaluation form below!

How to Create a Call Center Scorecard: 7 Tips + Evaluation Form

First, what is a call center scorecard? And why do you need one? Call center scorecards are a great tool used by many call centers when conducting performance analysis. You can track and measure call center metrics, agent responses, and phone interactions, as well as conversions. Here are 7 tips to help you create an ideal scorecard:

1. Define the Purpose of the Scorecard and How it will be Used

First, you must decide and be clear on the purpose of your scorecard. What elements do you want to include? How often will you utilize the scorecards? How will you collect information about agent performance? What parameters and metrics will agents be scored on? Additionally, is every parameter equally important? Defining the purpose and the various elements that the agents will be tested on can help aid in quick and accurate analysis.

2. List Down Parameters that will be Assessed

Part of using a call center scorecard is testing your agents on various parameters that help you and them understand what they are doing well and where they can improve. Some parameters to consider include:

Greetings: Agent greeted customers politely and with a clear introduction of the company and themselves.
Script adherence: With outbound sales calls, agent followed the script naturally and paused for customer questions or concerns.
Account and identity verification: With inbound calls, agent verified the caller’s information and identity to find their account and gather information about the customer’s past interactions.
Customer service quality: Ability to clearly determine the caller’s needs, provide accurate and useful assistance
End-of-call protocol: After resolving the issue, agent must ask if there is anything else they can assist the caller with.

3. Define and Note Different Call Center Metrics

Next, you might consider including certain call center metrics that apply to your particular business. Call center metrics or KPIs assess how a call center is performing. They also help managers understand how individual agents are performing. For example, which agents resolve calls quickly and accurately or which spend too long on calls, and so on. Most call centers use call center software and call analytics to track and measure relevant metrics. You may want to consider including the following on your scorecard:

Average time in queue
Response time
Average speed of answer
Average handle time
First call resolution rate
Customer satisfaction rate
Occupancy rate
Agent absenteeism

4. Include Different Types of Customer Interaction

Often, phone conversations might be the most common communication method for your call center. However, more recently, call centers have been striving to offer multi-channel or omnichannel customer support. If your call center offers more than one channel of customer interaction, then you should measure performance on each different channel. As such, try to include different types of customer interaction (live chat, email, video, etc.) used often in your call center in your scorecard.

5. Focus on Various Skills

Depending on the type of center you run, your agents may need to multitask using multiple skills. For example, you may have agents on both phone and live chat duty simultaneously. Or, agents may need to research solutions while managing the conversation and documenting each part of the conversation.

Different departments require different skills. Customer service will need to look at knowledge bases or support documents to provide help. Reception will need to ensure the customer arrives at the right department quickly. Sales needs to make pitches using customer data and personalization.

6. Monitor, Collect Data, & Refine

Since the purpose of a call center scorecard is to collect data and measure how your business and agents are performing, these scorecards need to be monitored regularly. By monitoring on a regular basis, you will not only gain insight into how well or badly your agents are doing, but also what elements or parameters are worth measuring and which ones are not useful.

Then, you can make the necessary adjustments and refine your scorecard for functionality and accuracy. Additionally, you can make necessary changes to improve agent and call center performance.

7. Treat Your Agents as Humans, Not Robots

Finally, remember that your agents are humans and not customer service robots. As such, set realistic goals and expectations when creating and monitoring your call center scorecard. Be flexible and leave room for error. Provide sufficient training materials so agents can continue to do better.

Evaluate Performance with an Effective Call Center Scorecard

Designing a call center scorecard takes time and refinement. Get started now by developing your own scorecard or using online templates and tailoring them to your needs. There are many resources available for tracking, measuring, and improving productivity. Take steps in the right direction and watch the efficiency grow in your call center.

Downloadable Call Center Scorecard Templates

Ready to get started? Then, grab our call center scorecard templates below, share them with your managers, and start evaluating your call center’s performance! We have scorecard templates for Outbound Sales calls, Inbound Sales calls, Customer and Technical Support calls, and Chat support.

Download Your Free Call Center Scorecard Templates

CC Scorecard download

Your Complete Guide to Call Center Offshoring & BPO

Beny Mouen 10th December 2020 Call Management, Learn

What are the advantages of outsourcing your communication needs? Do the advantages outweigh the cons? Learn everything you need to know about call center offshoring & BPO services.

Call Center Offshoring & BPO Explained

Businesses can save money by outsourcing their business processes to an offshore call center. Call center offshoring — also known as call center outsourcing and business process outsourcing (BPO) — can help you delegate certain sales and customer service duties.

Why Do Businesses Outsource Processes?

From large enterprises to small businesses, companies across the board have outsourced (some, if not all) of their services to BPOs. And the main reason for this is to reduce costs. With call center outsourcing, you send out customer service and sales processes, which gives your business more time to focus on developing customer-focused products and services. So, not only do you save on the cost of running a sales and customer service department, you make more space for business development.

How Does an Offshore Call Center Work?

An offshore call center takes on some business processes such as customer service, lead generation, technical support, and human resource management. As such, they work to bring on new clients and retain existing ones.

These call centers are well-equipped to handle customer inquiries and concerns. And they have the most advanced software and tools that support call management, performance monitoring, data security, and more.

What Services Does a Call Center BPO Offer?

Businesses in almost every industry are outsourcing various processes to offshore call centers. These industries include business services, healthcare, retail, e-commerce, telecom, banking, and more. The plethora of services covered by offshore call centers has, in fact, led to subspecialties such as:

Customer service & lead generation — Which focuses primarily on generating sales for a business and offering customer support services. As part of the lead generation process, agents contact prospects and leads on a predetermined list provided by the business. Some call center outsourcing services may even help with the creation of lead lists through market research. As part of the customer support service, agents answer calls made to business clients and offer troubleshooting help, resolutions, and more.
Customer interaction — Oversees a company’s communication channels such as email, phone conversations, voicemail, and social media; appointment-setting and scheduling services; marketing and telemarketing services; order and payment processing; customer support and customer success; customer feedback, and more.
Travel & tourism — Focuses on offering support and itinerary-planning services to travelers. Works with local and international tourism companies for deals and promotions.
Financial services — Focuses on finance and banking-related services such as payment processing; activation of services; collection; billing and counting services; general accounting, bookkeeping for small business, auditing, and more.
IT and software-focused — Offers technical support; technology-related troubleshooting; offshore software product development; implementation services; IT helpdesk, and more.
Virtual assistants — Acts as a cost-effective resource to help you grow your business, by managing incoming calls and providing customer support.

Pros & Cons of Call Center Offshoring

So, should your business take advantage of call center offshoring & BPO services? Let’s look at the advantages and disadvantages of using an outsourcing service.

Pros of Using a Call Center BPO

1. Lower communication-related costs

Sending your business processes offshore can help reduce or eliminate costs related to business communication or running a call center. Since you do not need a comprehensive team of sales agents and customer service reps and managers, you can save on hiring costs as well.

2. Lower staffing issues

Your BPO will be responsible for hiring, training, and managing agents and reps. You won’t have to worry about conducting performance analysis or scheduling agents, or managing call center agents. This can save you time and money.

3. Better call management

Offshore call centers come equipped with advanced call center software and tools. This ranges from call management features to call recording and analytics. With these services, you can often get better customer support and learn how to appease customers better. Additionally, you can handle high call volumes or high periods of call traffic by outsourcing to your call center BPO from time to time.

4. Better business continuity

Virtual call centers can have multiple geographic locations spread across the globe. This can help your business offer 24/7 customer support in regional languages and time zones.

Cons of Call Center Offshoring & BPO

1. Lack of company knowledge

When you outsource business needs, not every agent may be thoroughly schooled in your company’s mission, values, and product education. As such, they may not be able to provide the level or standard of service your business promises.

2. Less control over business functions

When outsourcing, you give control of basic and core services to agents and employees you have not worked with. Additionally, it may be hard to track and monitor each agent representing your business for quality assurance.

3. Decreased customer satisfaction

Usually, agents and reps from a call center BPO don’t offer the same personalized service as your business would. Customers realizing this may be less satisfied with the service they have received and may seek better service elsewhere.

Choosing Between BPO and KPO

The terms BPO and KPOs are often used interchangeably. However, these two types of outsourcing services differ in a variety of ways. In this section, we will discuss Knowledge Process Outsourcing services (KPOs) and the differences between KPOs and BPOs.

KPO: Definition and Types

What is a KPO? Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) is the outsourcing of information-related processes. KPOs are considered an extension of BPOs and require more complex skills outsourcing business processes. Knowledge process outsourcing services include specialized expertise and advanced technical skills. Common types of KPOs include:

Market Research
Business Research
Legal Services
Medical Services
Accounting & Financial Consulting
R&D
Content Development & Design
Data Analysis
Corporate Training
Education and Learning Solutions

Benefits of KPOs

A company may choose to use a KPO to handle high-level, complex tasks instead of hiring in-house employees to handle those tasks. KPOs are built to handle such tasks and provide expertise, making them a reliable source. Here are the benefits of using knowledge process outsourcing services:

1. Cost-effective & scalable

KPOs can help your business reduce costs in a number of ways. Get access to expert services at reasonable rates while increasing profits. Cut down on infrastructure and operating costs, and increase or reduce staff as needed. Overall, using KPOs make for a cost-effective solution.

2. Access to experienced professionals

Your business does not have to take on hiring and training experts for different internal functions. Instead, you can spend time focusing on core services like product development and sales while outsourcing other services to a KPO. This also helps reduce the cost of recruiting and training new employees.

3. Low asset & equipment investment

When outsourcing services to a KPO, you can save on office space and equipment costs. No need for extra hardware or high investment in real estate and tech equipment.

4. Better use of resources

Additionally, you can utilize your own resources in other activities or processes when you outsource certain services. For instance, you may invest in workflow automation to support your employees’ productivity and efficiency, or chatbot services to boost your customer service efforts.

BPO vs. KPO

So, what is the difference between BPO and KPO? Here are some key differences:

Skills needed: BPOs are less complex and require low-level skills, while KPOs are more complex and need analytic and technical skills.

Level of expertise needed: Employees working at a business process outsourcing service need basic professional expertise, while those at a knowledge process outsourcing service need advanced and specialized expertise.

Types of tasks: BPOs focus on administrative tasks while KPOs focus on analytic and more complex tasks.

Offerings: BPOs are all about efficiency and streamlining processes; based on a set process and rules. KPOs provide professional expertise and knowledge.

Day-to-day: Call center BPO employees may have a standard, monotonous routine designed to reach targets. KPO employees, on the other hand, offer specialized insights (such as forecasts) and may work directly with the client.

Related: Call Center Trends [2024]

Is Call Center Offshoring Right for You?

Depending on the size and needs of your business, a combination of onshore call center and offshore call center services may be a better choice. This way, you still have control over your own call center. Additionally, you can take advantage of virtual call center software to utilize the same tools and technologies that call centers use. And you will have the backup support of offshore centers as well. To learn more, speak with our experts at 1 (888) 908 6171.

What is Virtual Voicemail & How Does It Work?

Nadine Sampson 16th November 2020 Call Management, Learn

When looking for a convenient way to manage your phone calls, you may have come across the term “virtual voicemail” or “cloud voicemail.” But how does it work and what are the benefits of using an online voicemail service? Read on to learn more.

Virtual Voicemail: Definition & Benefits

Voicemail is a virtual number feature that enables users to receive voicemails online in the form of an email address. Virtual voicemails — also known as cloud voicemail or hosted voicemail — are stored in the cloud. By doing so, you and your teams can access voicemails from your phone, work computer, or laptop and store them for future use.

1. Get Voicemails the Way You Want it

So, how does virtual voicemail work? There are a few different ways hosted voicemail functions. However the most common is the email forwarding feature. This feature forwards voicemails directly to your email or even two email addresses listed on your account.

Users that have access to these emails can access the voicemail through their email inbox on their phone, office computer, home laptop, etc. Some providers not only forward the voicemail to the inbox but also provide a transcript or voicemail preview. This is also known as transcription.

Visual voicemail lets you “see” voicemail messages so that you can identify and focus on messages with the highest priority. Not all voicemails may be important. Scanning them can help you prioritize your actions.

2. Access Voicemails Anywhere

Most businesses struggle with voicemails as they receive hundreds of messages per day along with the regular call traffic. However, customers who leave voicemails usually have a sole purpose. Most likely, it is because they have an important issue or inquiry. Losing these messages or not paying equal attention to them may cost you valuable customers.

By using a virtual voicemail feature, ensure that your team can access important and urgent voicemails from anywhere. Cloud voicemails come with an audio attachment and transcript or preview. This lets your team know what the message is about and determine how quickly they need to respond.

3. Utilize Cloud Storage

A voicemail inbox can only store so many messages at a time. However, if your business has been operating for years and has long-term customers, then you will want to save any and all documentation of customer interaction.

Here is where cloud storage proves useful. Save your virtual voicemail messages online and store them for longer periods of time. Additionally, since they are stored in the cloud, if your device or equipment changes, you will still have access to these messages.

Get Voicemail to Email with Global Call Forwarding

Global Call Forwarding’s Voicemail to Email feature lets you access and manage voicemail messages when it is most convenient for you. Additionally, by going virtual, you can enable customers to interact with your business 24/7. This is because their voicemail gets forwarded to your email where there is no limit. Get voicemail to email with any of our virtual phone number plans and adjust settings through your control panel to suit your individual needs. Sign up today on our homepage or call us at 1 (888) 908 6171 to learn more!

5 Ways to Leverage Time-Based Routing for Global Expansion

Beny Mouen 6th November 2020 Call Management, International Business, Learn

Improve your business’ reach and connect with more customers globally with time-based routing. Use this feature to make your business more accessible and to conduct operations in a flexible and reliable manner.

5 Ways to Use Time-Based Routing to Grow Globally

Time-based routing — also known as time of day routing — is a call routing or forwarding feature based on the time customers or business contacts call your business. You can set various call forwarding rules to best suit your business’ communication needs.

For example, with time of day routing, you can forward incoming calls during specific times of the day or days of the week to different numbers, lines, or devices. And so, send incoming calls during specific time periods to your satellite office, home phone, VoIP number, voicemail, or smartphone.

Here are 5 ways you can use time of day routing for global expansion.

1. Expand to New Regions & Time Zones

Part of running an international company or expanding globally means that your business will have customers in different regions and time zones. This means that you need to be available for sales and customer support during these regions’ peak hours. Which, for some companies, depending on their global reach, means being available at all hours.

Time-based routing can help you route calls to satellite offices in these regions during their peak hours and then back to another location during their peak hours. This way, your business is available for its clientele whenever they need you.

2. BPO & Off-Shore Team Management

Most businesses that want to expand their reach globally choose business process outsourcing or BPOs to conduct standard business princesses and functions and ensure the continuity of operations overseas. Generally, these services include:

Sales and lead generation
Customer service
Accounting and payroll
Human resources

With time of day routing, you can have better control over your BPO and off-shore team management. For instance, have calls routed to these services during specific times of the day when the call traffic at your business is high or during off-hours.

3. Remote & Distributed Team Management

Time of day routing is also useful for businesses that have remote workers and distributed teams. Call management is made easy with this feature as you can have calls sent to these remote workers no matter where they are located.

Additionally, you can easily add or remove users to/ from specific ring groups. You can manage and keep track of your distributed teams with this simple functionality.

4. Flexibility for Entrepreneurs & Solopreneurs

Solopreneurs and small business owners need good call management to ensure they are not overwhelmed by customer calls. For this reason, time-based routing can help entrepreneurs decide which times to be active via phone and when to let calls go to voicemail or outsourcing services.

Maybe a tech solopreneur wants to accept calls only between 12 pm and 2:30 pm. For the rest of the day, calls can be forwarded to voicemail or remote offices, as needed. This way, time-based routing ensures business owners more flexibility so they can continue to focus on the product and service development or marketing efforts.

5. Work from Anywhere!

Lastly, time of day routing frees users to work from anywhere. Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure or need to relocate, etc., simply have incoming calls sent to your location during time periods convenient for both you and your customers.

Leverage Time-Based Routing And Succeed Globally

If you are ready to expand globally with convenience and ease, time of day routing can be a highly beneficial tool. Get time-based routing when you sign up for any virtual phone number plan with Global Call Forwarding. You can set and adjust time of day settings for your calls as and when needed. Everything can be managed through your online control panel and go into effect immediately. Sign up on our website or call us today to learn more!

Virtual Call Center Software: A Complete Guide [2024]

Beny Mouen 19th October 2020 Call Management, Learn

Virtual call center software can help you expand your business’ reach, attract and retain more customers, and improve your outbound calling strategy. And it does all of this while keeping your monthly bill low. Here is a comprehensive guide to virtual call center software, it’s benefits, and how to choose the perfect type for your needs.

What is Virtual Call Center Software?

Virtual call center platforms help connect agents and employees from different locations or offices. Such a software makes remote working and work-from-home a possibility. Virtual call center software generally uses VoIP technology and virtual phone numbers to enable inbound and outbound calling regardless of agents’ locations.

Voice over IP technology makes it possible to send voice and video messages through the internet. This way, you are not bound to your landline and location to make and place calls. As long as you have an internet connection, you can route calls to any device of your choice (smartphone, computer, laptop, tablet, etc).

With this ability, your call center and its agents can operate from anywhere in the world while still offering high-quality service.

Call Center Software: On-Premise vs Virtual

So, why should you consider a virtual call center software instead of on-premise call center software? Here is a table to highlight the key advantages of going virtual instead of on-premise:

	Virtual	On-Premise
Location needs	Call can be placed and answered from any location	Calls can be placed and answered from the main office only
Scalability	Flexible	Static
Hiring	Flexible	In-house IT team required
Office expenses	Low to zero costs due to remote working and telecommuting	Office space, desks, chairs, laptops, computers, desk phones, etc.
Agent turnover rate	Low agent turnover rate	30-45% agent turnover rate (US)
Communication features	Access to virtual communication features in one platform; call recording, outbound calling, automated IVR, etc.	Limited access to communication features; call transfer, extensions, voicemail, etc.

Elements of a Virtual Call Center Software

What does a virtual call center software offer users? The purpose of a virtual or cloud-based software is to create and maintain reliable connections from any location. Here are some key elements of virtual call center platforms:

1. Handle Calls from Any Location

With such a software, your business is accessible from any location and is not limited to one specific geographical area. Remote workers and traveling agents will benefit from this the most. Additionally, if you have employees in different states or countries, you can offer customer support to more time zones. Customers in those states and countries can receive service during the times most convenient for them.

2. Offer Global Support

With virtual phone numbers, you can get local or international toll free phone numbers for more than 170 countries across the world. This way, you can offer your services to more businesses beyond your state and country and increase profits. And if you hire agents in these areas, they can offer real-time support to locals.

3. Use Outbound Calling to Connect with Local and International Customers

Outbound calling is a service that uses VoIP technology to enable local and long-distance calling for inexpensive rates. Instead of paying international calling fees, you will be paying your monthly subscription. Furthermore, with the dynamic caller ID feature, outbound calls can display specific local or toll free numbers to increase the chances of recipients answering or returning calls.

4. Use Automatic and Intelligent Call Routing

Use an interactive voice response or IVR system to route and direct calls based on a variety of rules or strategies. This way, incoming calls move to the right department or employee, saving time and improving the caller experience.

5. Record Business Calls

A cloud-based call recording software is capable of recording up to 100% of all incoming and outgoing calls. Depending on the type of business you run, you can use these recordings to:

Train new employees
Conduct performance reviews
Define company standards
Protect against business or personal liability
Resolve misunderstandings, and so on

6. Improve Customer Experience and Satisfaction

Excellent customer experience is extremely crucial to your business’ overall growth. If current customers aren’t happy with the service they receive, they will look for a better service elsewhere. It is therefore recommended to use a virtual call center software with advanced communication tools to enhance caller experience. Such a software can help reduce wait times, transfer callers to the right department, offer 24/7 customer service through different channels, and more.

7. Keep Track of Important KPIs

The best way to manage call center performance is by tracking relevant key performance indicators (KPIs). Call center KPIs include:

Average response time
Average handle time
Customer satisfaction (CSAT)
First call resolution (FCR)
Percent of abandoned calls, and more

These KPIs can help you, as the manager, identify how each agent or employee is performing and where they need to improve.

8. Offer Multi-Channel and 24/7 Customer Support

The most attractive feature of virtual call center software is its ability to offer not only voice but other forms of communication as well. You can offer phone, email, live chat, troubleshooting help via IVR, and more. With live chat, chatbots, and an informative IVR system, you can also provide customer support 24/7 by routing calls to different offices or by using pre-recorded and automated messages to assist callers/users.

5 Top Reasons to Switch to Virtual Software

A virtual call center platform offers a wide range of features to enhance business communications. And it does so without increasing hardware costs. Here are the reasons why your business should consider getting such a software:

1. Greater Efficiency and Lower Costs

Virtual call center software does not include excessive hardware or installation. Plus, you do not need a specialized IT team in-house to maintain the system. Furthermore, since it works virtually, you can choose to have a small office space and have employees work from home or remotely. All of this helps cut down costs while maintaining efficiency and productivity.

2. Offer Work-From-Home Flexibility

You can offer employees the option to work from home. This broadens your hiring pool and helps you expand not just your staff but your business’ reach. You can have multiple remote workers in different time zones and offer extended customer service hours. Additionally, with growing work-from-home trends, you’ll be providing your employees with a flexible and comfortable work lifestyle that helps with retention and motivation.

3. Set Up New Centers Quickly with Low Costs

Furthermore, if you want to add or set up new centers, you do not have to worry about getting new phone lines or purchasing additional hardware. You can set up new offices quickly and simply have calls routed to the new location, keeping your existing numbers and lines.

4. Gain Access to a Multitude of Virtual Communication Features

With virtual call center software, you have access to voice calls, video conferencing, SMS/instant messaging capabilities, and more. This gives you the opportunity to offer better customer service in ways that customers and prospects will appreciate.

5. Improve Employee/Agent Satisfaction

Finally, with easy-to-use software and flexible work options, you will be increasing employee/agent satisfaction. This is essential to training call center agents and motivating them to continue to do a good job.

How to Choose the Ideal Virtual Call Center Software?

When choosing the perfect call center software, consider the following factors and look for a virtual call center platform that:

1. Is Easy to Set Up and Use

When researching various software and virtual phone system providers, pay attention to the software’s ease-of-use. Is it too complex? Would the complexity hinder use and performance? Global Call Forwarding’s virtual communication system is quick to set up and use. You don’t have to worry about extra hardware to purchase or install. And you can train new employees to use the software within minutes.

2. Comes Equipped with Relevant Features

Virtual communication features are an important aspect of any virtual call center software. However, not all features may be relevant to your needs. Determine what features you need and which would be good additions. We offer the following features:

Multiple virtual phone number types (toll free, local, and international numbers)
Call forwarding and routing options
Call recording
Outbound calling (with dynamic caller ID)
Interactive voice response (IVR system)
Unlimited extensions
Call transfer
SIP trunking, and more.

3. Helps You Cut Down Communication Costs

With a VoIP phone system, you can cut down on costs while still expanding your business and entering it in international markets. Therefore, look for a software provider that can give you the global reach you desire. List down the cities, markets, and areas you want to target and find a provider that offers you communication solutions for these areas within a reasonable budget.

4. Offers Reliable and Quality Service

Additionally, you want to choose a provider that has had some experience and credibility in the industry. See how long providers have been in the market and what customer reviews and testimonials are saying about the service. Is this a service you can rely on? If you’re not sure, can you easily get out of the service or is it contract-based?

5. Has a 24/7 Customer Support

Finally, look for a provider that offers 24/7 customer support, whether it is phone, email, live chat, trouble tickets, or an online knowledge base to assist you with issues. A provider should be easily accessible and reachable whenever you need them.

Get Virtual Communication Solutions with Global Call Forwarding

Want to learn about our virtual call center solutions? Call us at 1 (888) 908 6171 or chat with us online to see how we can help improve your business phone system today.

Work From Home Call Center: 4 Best Practices [2024]

Beny Mouen 10th August 2020 Call Management, Tips

With the rise in work from home as an option, more and more employees demand flexibility in hours and location. This has given rise to the possibility of a home-based call center that does everything a regular call center does, however, running entirely from home. Here we will highlight 4 best practices that can help ensure your work from home call center runs smoothly.

How to Make a Home-Based Call Center Work Effectively?

Agents and employees prefer to be employed at a work from home call center because it offers flexibility and convenience that can directly impact the quality of their work. With remote or virtual call centers, employees do not have to worry about commuting or work their location. They can work from the comfort of their homes while still doing their job well.

But as a call center manager, virtual call centers may seem like an unproductive alternative as you are not able to keep a constant eye on your agents. So, what are some ways to improve work from home call center productivity that can keep managers and agents happy? Here’s a look.

1. Invest in Virtual Call Center Software to Improve Productivity

Unlike on-premise call centers, virtual call centers comes equipped with necessary call center tools to let your remote and work-at-home agents perform well. Here are some of the top features included:

Virtual phone numbers (toll free, local, and international numbers) — To improve local and international calling at cheaper rates.
Call forwarding and routing — Direct and route calls based on location, time, skills needed, etc.
IVR systems — An automated response that interacts with customers when agents are occupied.
Extensions for different departments and call transfer — To improve connectivity and collaboration between teams and departments.
Call recording — To record business calls for quality assurance.
Outbound calling — Includes a web dialer and customizable caller ID capabilities to make local and international calling easier.

2. Choose Useful Project Management Systems & CRMs

To ensure that employees are doing their jobs well, it is important to have reliable systems in place that track projects, progress, and more. Here is where project management and customer relationship management systems come into play. With the right systems, your teams can create and manage tasks, update customer information and interaction, and more from any location. And you can keep track of their progress, review recordings of calls, and offer ways to improve.

3. Get Outbound Calling Features

An outbound calling service can be very helpful when running a work from home call center. Outbound calling makes local and international calling from any location easy and inexpensive. You can get outbound calling through your VoIP service provider along with your selected local, toll free, and international virtual phone numbers.

With this service in place, your remote employees can call local and international customers by displaying local or toll free caller IDs instead of a random, unknown number. For example, when calling Florida, they can display a Miami local number or US toll free number. And when calling Dubai, they can display a Dubai local number or UAE toll free number. Customers are more likely to answer and even return the call of a number they recognize as local or if it is a toll free number. An international or “unknown” number is much more likely to not get answered.

Plus, the web dialer makes it quick and easy to place and answer calls on any device it is installed on; such as a computer, laptop, smartphone, etc. You can store customer contact information and interaction in the dialer, as well as check voicemails. All of this makes an outbound calling service a work from call center must-have.

4. Track Call Center KPIs

Finally, track performance through call center KPIs. Software such as your CRM or VoIP phone system will help you get call reports and analytics. Here you will find information about:

How many calls were answered
How long the agent took to answer the call
Duration of the call, and more

Common work from home call center KPIs to track include:

Average time in queue
Average response time
First call resolution
Average handle time (AHT)
Customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores

Increase Productivity and Accountability for Your Virtual Call Center

Feeling more confident about running a work from home call center? There are plenty of tools and practices that can make virtual call centers work effectively. The trick is to find what works best for your needs. Call us at 1 (888) 908 6171 to learn more about how our services can improve your call center.

What is Call Center Performance Management? [2024]

Nadine Sampson 22nd July 2020 Call Management, Learn

Sales and customer service reps and employees are often the first line of contact between your business and its customers. Therefore, their performance can directly impact how successful your business or call center is. Call center performance management is a surefire way to test and review employee performance and provide room for improvement.

What is Call Center Performance Management?

Call center performance management refers to the tracking, analyzing, calculating, and improving of agent and employee performance. Whether you run a virtual, remote, or on-premise call center, conducting performance management and reviews is important to determine how your agents are performing and how satisfied your customers are.

How to Manage and Improve Performance in Your Contact Center

Customers often reach out to a business to gain information about a product or service or to resolve an issue they are facing. And when they do so, they are almost always expecting a quick response, low wait times, friendly interaction, and a quick resolution. And so, your agents should be able to provide:

Personalized and friendly customer service
Improved first call resolution
Fast call resolution during the first call (in other words, high first call resolution rates)
Simple handling of the problem
Service for any additional issues

Call center performance management is tracking whether your agents and employees are able to do the above while upholding company standards. And then, training them appropriately, if they fail to meet your standards. The goal is to help your agents provide high levels of customer service and enhanced caller experience. Identifying where they are failing can help you as you help them succeed.

Measuring Call Center Performance Management

Call center performance management includes evaluating agent performance during customer interactions and how they line up with business goals. The best way to conduct performance management is to identify and use KPIs applicable to your business. Some KPIs to consider are:

Customer satisfaction scores (CSAT)
Average handle time
First call resolution
Average speed of answer
Average response time, and more

To measure the performance of your call center, first set realistic business goals. Then, use contact center software to learn about average handle time, wait times, conversions, first call resolution rates, customer satisfaction goals, and so on. By studying these metrics you can get a good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of your employees. As a manager, you can then make well-informed decisions about workforce management and ways to improve customer service.

Contact Center Performance Management Tools

1. Call Center Software
Your call center software can help with tracking important KPIs and metrics through call logs and activity reports. On-premise call center software is run by the company while a virtual call center software is hosted by a cloud server. The type of call center software you should choose depends on how much control you want to have over the software as well as your in-house IT team.

2. Contact Center Metrics and KPIs
As mentioned above, call center performance management includes tracking and measuring agent performance. Use relevant call center KPIs to study and optimize agent behavior before, during, and post calls.

3. Inbound/Outbound Call Recording
Use hosted call recording to listen in or review calls. These recordings can also help you train new employees by demonstrating acceptable and unacceptable agent behavior.

4. Coaching and Training
Use training material to continue training customer service employees on ways to reach and maintain company standards. Refresher courses, workshops, webinars, software tutorials, etc., can come in very handy.

Start Optimizing Agent Productivity!

Call center performance management will not only help you identify your team’s strengths and weaknesses but will also show you what steps need to be taken to optimize productivity and efficiency. This can help your call center offer better customer service and improve customer satisfaction. Start today!