Call Center Software for Online Shops: Main Benefits

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Online shopping is becoming increasingly popular and the current situation with COVID-19 shows that its popularity is something more than just a passing trend. People prefer buying online whenever it is possible. Let us try to find out how cloud call center software can help your business to thrive in this highly competitive market.

Why Do You Need a Call Center Software?

The most obvious answer is to improve your customer experience. The COVID-19 pandemic has made businesses realize what efficient and robust technology means for their market success. Contact Babel’s recent research, conducted in the UK between May and July 2020, shows that investments in new technology add up to 39% of companies’ investments in CX improvements. And they spend this money for a good reason. Another survey, from Calabrio, shows that customer expectations heightened and are most likely to stay high. The respondents, contact center managers from the UK and the US, said that customers expect more of multiple channels of communication (70% of respondents in the US and 57% in the UK), quicker response time (43 and 93%), the impact of customer service experience (57% and 46%). Also, they want more emotional empathy (69 and 57%) and feel the need to be heard (68 and 49%).

You may also have your own, more internal reasons to use cloud call center software for e-commerce. Your business is growing and the call volume is gradually becoming higher. It is definitely the point when you need to automate your business processes. Otherwise, your employees will simply burn out and customers will go somewhere else. Another reason for automation is that your product requires special knowledge to sell it so you need to invest not only in the agents’ training but also in technologies to use this knowledge as efficiently as possible.

In some cases, you may consider outsourcing your calls. It makes sense not only for startups. Big companies also use outsourcing call centers for telemarketing campaigns or to check some hypotheses. It is up to you to decide if it is the right choice in your case. To learn more about the pros and cons of call center outsourcing, check out our article.

What Benefits Do You Get From a Call Center Software?

So you have decided on launching a call center for your online shop. You agree that this step is necessary to make. But what benefits can you get from a good cloud-based solution?

1. Workflow Optimization

Using several applications at once is time-consuming. Your agents have to switch between different windows during the call every time they need to see customers’ data in the CRM or check with a call script. It slows down the service and irritates your customers. A good cloud-based call center solution saves your agents’ time because it easily integrates with your business systems. They can see both the client card and call script during a conversation.

2. High-Quality Self-Service and Proactive Communication

A call center solution can change the quality of your interactions with customers. They will be able to get their questions answered without your agents’ involvement. For example, the Interactive Voice Response Software (IVR) menu may allow the customer to get information about their order status and delivery check as well as about the promotions in your online shop. They will also be more than happy if you add a possibility to request a callback via the IVR menu thus saving their time when they can’t wait in the queue. Moreover, IVR can be used for outgoing agentless calls. You can inform your customers on what promotions you have, ask to assess the quality of service, and inform them that their order is delivered. The benefits are obvious: your agents can get rid of repetitive and monotonous work and move to more interesting and challenging tasks.

A chatbot module in your web chat can perform the same self-service functions for your website visitors. Using Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning techniques, chatbots are able to recognize repetitive customers’ queries and give canned responses.

Another benefit of call center software for e-commerce is that you can communicate with your customers more proactively. For example, your agents can initiate contact with your website visitors in a live chat if they are browsing a checkout or FAQ page longer than average (check out our article to learn more about successful live chat strategies). It is also possible to inform customers about their order delivery status or to warn about the delay by sending an SMS. Another example of proactive communication is when your agents not only inform customers that the item they want is out of stock but offer something similar instead.

3. More Personalized Customer Service

We have already said that a good cloud-based call center solution for e-commerce can be easily integrated with your business systems, including CRM. This can have a positive impact on your customers as well. Your IVR can identify a caller from CRM and route them to the most appropriate agent or department. Seeing a client card, an agent can guess from previous interactions history what the customer’s problem is. Also, IVR can apply different routing algorithms based on information from databases. Depending on the type of the caller (for instance, an existing customer, VIP client, or person who calls for the first time) it can play back different messages and provide different routing. All these features make your customer service more personalized and increase customer satisfaction.

4. Multichannel Interaction With Customers

With the help of a contact center solution, your agents can process customer queries from different channels, namely - phone calls, webchat, email. Voiptime Cloud e-commerce software allows you to place all the requests in one queue, thus reducing their handling time. Multichannel interaction expands your ability to contact customers and enables your company to close more sales and increase customer satisfaction.

5. Scalable Business

Many e-commerce businesses have seasonal peaks in demand. It makes them hire additional employees and expand their infrastructure capacities. Cloud-based call center solutions allow you to get rid of this headache at least partially. You can easily scale the number of agents when you need, by just buying additional licenses. With cloud-based software, these agents can easily work remotely so you won’t feel a lack of physical space.

Another benefit of being scalable is that you can expand your opening hours by hiring agents from different time zones. Your call center will be able to work 24/7 if necessary. And that, in turn, will make your e-commerce business both more customer-friendly and profitable.

6. Easy Handling Call Peaks

There are many cases when you need to change your e-commerce daily routine - holiday rush, inbound marketing campaigns. That’s when cloud call center software comes in handy. You can easily move your outbound agents to inbound calls or assign outbound call campaigns to your inbound agents when incoming calls are low. It can have a positive impact not only on your bottom line but on your employees’ skills as well.

7. Increased Data Security

A good cloud-based call center solution has a high level of data security. It can be configured in such a way that you can prevent data breaches from your employees’ side: for example, they won’t be able to see all the digits from your customer’s phone number or credit card. Cloud servers give another level of security: your data is stored in a certified data center that is protected by firewalls and a fully encrypted connection.

Conclusion

Call center software can give a boost to your online shop. You will be able not only to optimize your workflow but also to improve your business’ flexibility and customer experience. Voiptime Cloud is more than happy to provide you with a solution that can help you to thrive in such a highly competitive market.

Tanya Gonchar

Expert in call center process automation, Head of Marketing at Voiptime Cloud. Interested in customer service, B2B sales, marketing, business analysis.

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