Nonetheless, even today, when omnichannel contact centers have conquered the market and almost every second contact center solution is either an omnichannel contact center solution, or it pretends to be an omnichannel contact center solution, many people still don’t know how these solutions work and why are they beneficial for business.
First of all, one of the biggest problems is differentiating the omnichannel contact centers from multichannel contact centers, their closest rivals. Secondly, many people, including potential users of omnichannel contact center solutions, don’t understand the nature of omnichannel contact centers, their benefits over classic solutions, and their influence on business development - that’s why we are here with this guide.
So, what is omnichannel contact center meaning? Are omnichannel contact centers the most efficient contact centers ever or is this just a marketing trick? How to choose reliable and effective omnichannel contact centre software? What features do omnichannel contact centers have to offer?
Let’s find it out.
What is omnichannel contact center?
The omnichannel contact center is a contact center that offers customers multiple communication channels to use, as well as an option to switch between those contact channels without losing the progress of the conversation.
In other words, an omnichannel contact center doesn’t only offer a few contact channels for customers to use, such for instance, email, web chat, and phone calls, but it also allows customers to change the contact channel while the dialogue continues without a risk to lose the progress of this dialogue.
Do you remember how annoying it has been for customers to repeat their customer inquiries to call center agents again and again after call transfers? That’s it. With an omnichannel call center, there is now no such problem.
In omnichannel call centers, all data is automatically syncing between communication channels, so customers can even change a few contact channels at a time without losing their conversation progress. This obviously has a positive influence on customer experience, especially customer satisfaction, and surely, omnichannel call centers help to reduce customer effort and deal with call abandonment.
Omnichannel call centers vs omnichannel contact centers
As you might know, the call center isn’t synonymous with a contact center, even though most people still use those two terms interchangeably. But how does it work in the case of omnichannel call centers and/or contact centers? First of all, let’s come back to the main difference between call and contact centers - the number of contact channels available. We know that call center is called so because the only way to reach out to it is via phone calls, while contact centers offer different communication channels. In the case of omnichannel contact centers, this argument is useless, as the term “omnichannel” already means that there are different contact channels available. So yes, both two terms - omnichannel call centers and omnichannel contact centers - can be used interchangeably.
Omnichannel contact center vs multichannel contact center
Another great rivalry is the issue of multichannel vs omnichannel contact centers. To put a long story short, let’s say that omni-channel contact centers are a kind of more advanced multichannel solutions that offer a bit more flexibility and additional features compared to their elder counterparts. If you want to learn more about this topic and discover precise differences between these two solutions, check out our comprehensive guide on this topic.
Omnichannel contact center: benefits
Omnichannel contact center communication
The first and the most important advantage of omnichannel contact centers is their feature to provide omnichannel contact center solutions communication opportunities for customers. Why is it important? Well, customers just no longer want to use only one communication channel. For instance, for omnichannel contact centers, the average customer retention rates are 90% higher than for single-channel centers. What’s funny is that the same proportions work for outbound campaigns too - omnichannel outbound campaigns always show higher purchase rates than single-channel campaigns, for example, this research states that the average purchase rate for campaigns with a few contact channels in them is 287% higher than for single-channel campaigns. This data points us to a simple fact - omnichannel contact centers are the only options for businesses that are really looking to keep pace with the times and win a competition.
Omnichannel contact center insights
When it comes to the most influential trends in the contact center world during the last years, data-driven experience is perhaps the most essential one. By data-driven experience, we mean that modern contact center solutions now have to provide users with huge amounts of comprehensive data and deep insights into contact center operations to support them in making decisions based on relevant data. Omnichannel call centers are also better than multichannel solutions because omnichannel contact centers sync data transparently between communication channels, which means you will be able to analyze your contact center performance as one big picture, not an endless list of reports that have to be compared and analyzed separately.
Omnichannel contact center solutions insights are more useful for discovering issues in agent performance, imperfections in agent training programs, issues with customer service strategies on strategic levels, analyzing service levels on average, and also seeing how your target audience prefers different channels.
Omnichannel contact center customer experience
Customer experience is now an even bigger priority for customers than ever before, and some companies even state that they focus on customer experience more than on customer acquisition. When omnichannel contact centers have come as new solutions in the world of the call center industry, their fantastic influence on customer experience has become clear. First of all, omnichannel contact centers help to reduce customer effort, as an opportunity to choose different contact channels brings flexibility in customer interactions and eliminates any elements of pushing customers to do anything against their preferences.
Also, omnichannel call center solutions allow customers to never repeat customer queries even after call transfers or even when they decide to change communication channels. Additionally, omnichannel contact centers indirectly help to reduce average waiting times, which means customer satisfaction will be greatly increased, as many customers will just choose alternative contact channels instead of calling agents.
Omnichannel contact center customer acquisition
We have already mentioned that omnichannel contact centers can even increase purchase rates during outbound campaigns if used properly, but this isn’t the only way omnichannel call centers will help you sell more or acquire new customers. First of all, you have to understand that each single contact channel available in omnichannel call center has its own advantages and disadvantages and it influences your omnichannel call center performance separately from other contact channels. For instance, web chat can powerfully boost your inbound sales as statistics show that customers who are provided with web chat option always spend more and buy more often. The same relates to social media marketing - you can not only provide your customers with option to contact you through social media, but when they will be using those networks, there will be a high possibility for potential clients to check your offers on social media and purchase on these platforms. As we already said, by reducing customer effort in getting service or buying good, you improve customer satisfaction, and so on, improve conversion rates too.
Omnichannel contact center brand image
Omnichannel call centers are the most advanced call centers available on the market, so when you start offering omnichannel call center communication, people consider it as an example of excellent customer service and client-oriented approach. This positively influences such aspects of customer experience, as customer loyalty, brand advocacy and customer satisfaction. Thus, you will not only get all benefits of the word of the mouth marketing, but also improve customer retention, boost customer lifetime value and generate more sales, as well as strenghten your positions in tough competition.
Omnichannel contact center solutions are an option for businesses that are looking forward to grow and adapt the best solutions since the early beginnings of their existence on the market - so, omnichannel call centers are the best options for companies that want to become industry leaders.
Omnichannel contact center staff performance
Contact center omnichannel technology provides benefits not only for end consumers of its services - your customers - but also for your employees, especially for omnichannel cloud contact center agents. First of all, omncihannel cloud contact center allows agents to eliminate switching between different tabs and tools to provide customers with answers to their questions. Secodnly, omnichannel contact centers allow to reduce workload on phone lines, as many customers just choose alternative contact channels instead of classic phone calls. Finally, omnichannel contact center software provides your with detailed data and insights on agent performance, so you can improve agent training programs and other staff training activities to improve service level quality.
How to choose the best omnichannel call center software?
Check out the features
First of all, what is a software? It is a tool that has a features set that is aimed at automating or optimizing your business processes and operations in order to improve your business performance - that’s why it matters how many features you will receive from each exact solution and what is the quality of those features. Omnichannel call center solutions have to offer as many communication channels as possible in theory, but on practice, you have to get only those contact channels you truly neeed. That’s why we always say that the pre-purchasing stage in choosing software solutions is the most vital - you have to understand you needs befor you will start fulfilling them. For instance, if you don’t use video confrerencing and don’t want to implement it as a contact channel, why should you pay for it?
The same it works with data transparency and collection - you have to check out how does this data-driven solution work in real-life conditions. Reports generated by the solution should be comprehensive and customizable, or just at least comprehensive. You have to receive all needed data from these reports and learn how they work to avoid any issues in the future.So, that is where we come to the next paragraph.
Try out the solution on your own
You have to learn out how the solution works and how difficult it will be for your contact center agents to adapt to it and start working efficiently. There is a very popular term - user-friendly solution - and the software you are going to use has to meet this term by 100%. Difficult and outdated solutions are difficult to use, and this will consume a lot of time before you will train agents to use such tools effectively.
That’s why you have to either get a demo version, either a comprehensive presentatition of the software to see every of its features on practice and form your own opinion about it. Another important part of the story is the vendor’s policies on setup and starter trainings - you have to ask the vendor whether they provide such training sessions or no, and whether the setup is free or no.
Check out real reviews
If you try to form your opinion on different omnichannel call center solutions by just using marketing landing pages and other advertisement resources, you will discover that all solutions are impressively perfect and have no cons, only pros. The reality is different, and you should know it - so try to check out real reviews on these solutions, and you will be surprised how many pitfalls are hidden by these marketing materials. Nonetheless, don’t be confused if you find one negative review in the sea of positive reviews - there are some people who just see only bad things and think negatively, so it is normal.
Conclusion
As you can see, omnichannel contact centers are the most advanced contact centers for now as they offer the most consistent customer experiences, data-driven experiences for companies that implement such solutions, flexibility and user-friendly environment for agents, and opportunity to save some operational costs. Omnichannel contact centers are different from multichannel contact centers as they offer more advanced features, especially in the field of syncing and analyzing data across channels.
When it comes to purchasing omnichannel call center, you have to start from learning your business needs, finding the solutions with suitable skills sets, check out the solution capabilities on your own via using demo version or somehow else, and finally, you have to pay close attention to real reviews of the users of these software tools.
Nonetheless, there is an easy way to skip all these steps and get your dream omnichannel cloud contact center solution here and now without any risks. How? Just check our Voiptime Cloud Contact Center - it is omnichannel cloud contact center solution with all advanced features you may need, powerful data analytics capabilities and integration tools for providing your cusotmers with highest quality customer service only.
