The world is constantly changing. New business technologies, strategies, and applications appear on the horizon daily. As innovation progresses at record speed, call centers must monitor the latest trends and inventions to keep up with their customers’ expectations.
If you’re looking for a few simple ideas that can help move your business forward, keep reading for our nine best call center innovation suggestions. This will help you learn more about how investing in new tools can positively impact your business.
4 Tools for Improving the Customer Experience
Having innovative call center business ideas isn’t all about being the first or only business to roll out a particular feature. It’s also about serving customers and improving their experience at every turn.
Here are four tools you can use to ensure that everyone who contacts your call center not only gets a satisfactory resolution to their issue but also has a memorable experience that leaves them feeling good about the interaction.
1. Multi-Channel Engagement
With so much technology available today, customers want to be able to engage customer service agents the same way they engage their friends and family. This means that call centers should focus on opening up more pathways for communication.
Along with talking with customers over the phone, you can also use chat, SMS, and email to carry out communication. Using a call center BPO solution can help you leverage this technology in a more cost-effective way, as you won’t have to use your own budget to invest in the necessary tools.
2. Live Engagement Tools
Live engagement tools are a fairly new addition to the latest list of call center business ideas, but they provide a level of personalization that hasn’t been achieved in years past.
For example, investing in video chat technology increases the human connection between agents and customers, ensuring that customers’ needs are addressed by a real person.
Pairing this method with co-browsing makes the entire experience collaborative, allowing agents and customers to work toward a solution together.
3. Artificial Intelligence for Self-Service
Customers want to be able to resolve their issues in the most efficient manner. This means getting answers to simple questions on their own instead of having to wait for an agent to answer the phone.
Chatbots are one of the best call center ideas to leverage the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning to get customers the answers they need. As a bonus, it can also help call centers save money on hiring and training agents.
4. Interactive Voice Response and Callback Technology
Interactive voice response technology allows customers to provide critical information through the use of automatic voice prompts. This ensures that their call gets to the right agent the first time, saving them precious time and increasing the likelihood of first-contact resolution.
If an agent is unavailable to answer their query, callback technology allows them to leave a phone number so someone can get in touch with them later.
If you’re looking for process improvement ideas in BPO, this one can significantly impact your business for the better, especially if you’re outsourcing your customer service or IT helpdesk.
3 Ways to Increase Employee Performance
In addition to improving the customer experience, there are also innovative call center projects you can adopt to make sure your employees are performing up to par. When you invest in developing your agents, they’ll be better equipped to provide a high level of service to customers.
1. Skill Assessments
Training your agents well isn’t enough to create an excellent workforce. You must also ensure that your agents retain that information and keep their skills sharpened throughout their tenure at the call center. One of the best ways to accomplish this goal is through skill assessments.
You can use a BPO solution like an e-learning platform to help you keep tabs on agent progress and inform decisions about training and professional development.
2. Agent Self-Monitoring
You likely already monitor your agents’ calls and meet with them regularly to discuss their performance. However, it’s also a good idea to allow them to keep an eye on their own progress.
This approach not only allows them to feel a sense of ownership over their jobs but also gives them a chance to self-correct when metrics move in the wrong direction.
3. Multi-Disciplined Agents
Creating a flexible team is key to getting your call center operating as efficiently as possible. One of the best ways to create a flexible workforce is to allow your agents to cross-train on each customer contact channel.
If you’re partnering with a third-party call center that’s constantly implementing process improvement ideas in BPO, make sure their agents are well-versed in best practices for SMS, chat, and email platforms to maximize their performance.
2 Changes to Prepare for All Possible Situations
A huge part of building an innovative call center is making sure you’re ready for whatever comes your way.
Unpredictable weather patterns and cyber threats continue to rise, and they have the power to thwart even the best call center ideas. It’s important to take advantage of every opportunity to keep your call center up and running no matter what.
1. Disaster Preparedness
No business is immune to emergencies, including call centers. That said, it’s possible to prepare your business for threats like natural disasters, public health emergencies, and ransomware attacks. To do so, you should work with an IT specialist to create a business continuity plan.
This type of plan involves assessing all possible network risks and employing technology to eliminate them. You may need a way to back up your systems, isolate infected devices, and train your employees to avoid phishing scams that threaten to compromise your network.
If your business already engages in innovation BPO, you can outsource this task to an IT professional who can help you create a plan unique to your call center’s needs.
2. Shoring Up Security Vulnerabilities
With more call centers allowing agents to work from home, it’s more important than ever to use the latest security tools to keep customer data safe and stay in compliance with all regulatory agencies.
Implementing measures like two-factor authentication and role-based access controls can help keep your call center secure from bad actors with harmful intentions.
Additionally, if your agents use IoT devices, you’ll need to consider additional security measures to keep them from being used to infiltrate your network. You can also leverage innovation BPO to accomplish this by outsourcing your security to a managed IT provider who can keep tabs on your infrastructure and keep cyber threats at bay.
Better Innovation Means Better Customer Service
While many call center managers love innovation, it’s important to remember that the motivation and focus for incorporating new call center business ideas should always be to provide the best possible experience for your customers.
Each of the methods in this guide can be tied back to helping your agents better serve the people with whom they come into contact each day.
Whether you’re marketing to customers with outbound calls, using the chat feature to help them resolve a technical issue, or installing the latest IT security platform to keep your network safe, remember to let your commitment to excellent service fuel your business toward transformation.