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Metaphorically speaking, Unified Communications (UC) solution vendors walk around carrying a long list of benefits for service providers who want to offer UC services for SMBs and other organizations (i.e. upgrade their business communication channels). The are many reasons and truth is this crusade against old technology is very justified. Any way you look at it, UC services, especially when hosted in the Cloud, knock the socks off any legacy phone network.

A call center is, in and of itself, a network of phones. Much of UC’s functionality actually originated in call centers. The only difference is that unifying these features enables Service Providers (SP) to take better advantage of resources with the end goal of increasing productivity and improving the customer service. So what better business to target with UC if not contact centers? And although every feature counts, it’s those that touch the customer directly that weigh the most.

For better and faster customer service

A contact center thrives on two things: a big user base and quality of service. The two go hand in hand, and at least one of them generates the other. So, how do you offer a superior experience with Unified Communications? Simple. You start by deploying it.

In call centers, UC solutions tend to automatically lead to better and faster customer service, but also a more satisfying and seamless experience for the agents taking the calls. Business processes are managed better, there’s a higher probability of first-call resolutions, and because phone tag no longer occurs, the company’s human capital is also leveraged better.

Customer loyalty is considered something of a soft benefit in many businesses. But call centers cannot afford to think like that, because their users’ satisfaction is their business. In addition to customers, UC enables greater satisfaction in the agent ranks as well. Research has shown that this is a key ingredient of success. Not wasting time helping a caller instills customer loyalty while reducing employee turnover. As we all know, few agents are actually nice or helpful on the phone. Maybe those who are indeed glad to help have their headsets connected to a UC solution 😉

A study by Shapiro & Associates uncovered that over 10% percent of daily interactions that originate in the contact center require expert assistance from outside, leading to an accumulated two-and-a-half minutes of wasted time per agent. In a call center with hundreds of agents, the lost minutes become hours. Annually, that’s whole days of wasted air time trying to pinpoint the right person. This can make an incredible difference for the organization’s bottom line, because talk time, agent productivity and first-call resolution are its major influencers.

Why VoipNow

We’ve tailored VoipNow to serve businesses of all sizes. Its advanced PBX capabilities make it an asset for anyone who integrates business communications into their core competence. In call centers, this is everything. Call centers in particular report a considerable uptick in knowledgeable support and (implicitly) in customer satisfaction. In the case of Swiss-based Empain-Chaker, VoipNow’s integration capabilities and feature set efficiently serve the needs of the call center, cutting down overall costs. Distributing calls to agents (with inbound call routing and IVR) based on their availability shortens resolve times and improves customer experience. At the same time, features like reporting, monitoring and whisper improves agent training and performance, not only at this call center but at all call centers using VoipNow.

Mobility is a big part of the VoipNow suite of offerings. It assists BYOD deployments, increasing flexibility with features like FindMe/FollowMe, extension virtualization, and call routing customization. Mobility is assisted by VoipNow Mobile app that lets you take all this oomph with you on the go.

Speaking of routing, VoipNow cuts calling costs through smart call routing. In fact, thanks to the smart routing feature alone, the quality of service receives a massive boost simply because every call gets routed to the right agent – for example, based on the agent’s language proficiency, or based on who was the last agent the customer talked to (history-based). The audio experience adds to the customer satisfaction coefficient. VoipNow offers a superior experience with codecs that use just the necessary amount of bandwidth, preserving call quality.

At the end of the day, all that matters in this line of business is to offer good, reliable service. If there’s a tool that can help you do that while also bringing down costs, there’s no reason not to grab it and give your competitors a run for their money. For a better understanding of what VoipNow brings to the table in terms of contact center usability, check out this success story right here.