Unified communications refer to the successful convergence of all communications media, techniques and devices into just one interconnected entity. It has the power to break down all walls to communication within an organization. When utilized in the contact center, unified communication can lead to faster and improved customer service as well as a seamless and satisfying customer experience.
It will help organization to better utilize its human capital by ensuring first-call resolution.
In other words, unified communications (UC) plays a strategic role in forming a modern contact center. It has the potential to change the face of call center as we know it.
So, how exactly can unified communications change the known equations and prepare call centers for better, more efficient customer service? We bring you seven different ways.
1. Remote Agents
If an organization offers its staff the option to work from home, it can create some unique challenges for the call center. It will take some time to create an ambiance of trust and collaboration among the workers working from home and those who are working from the call center premises. But if you include unified communication in the scenario, things change for good. UC used ‘presence information’ to tell the staff the status or each and every caller.
This way, an agent working from home can see whether his colleagues in the call center are ‘on a call’ or ‘away’ and vice versa. It will bring the trust and a sense of team back among them.
Software used in unified communication also allows managers to manage remote workers measure their performance. It also enables managers with a simple yet extensive reporting tool to measure performance and analyze data.
2. Skill-Based Presence Allows Improved First Call Resolution Rate
With UC first call resolution can also be improved. With this technology agents can quickly find the right person to resolve their queries, irrespective of where they are positioned at. It will allow them to avoid call transferring or putting customer on hold. The agents can simply connect the customers with their colleagues with the right skill set and fix the issue once and for all.
This way, UC can help improve customer satisfaction and retention.
3. Real-Time Training on The Call
Unified communication can also aid in agent training. It allows more than one person to be on a call at the same point of time. So, when an expert deals with a customer issue, a relatively less skilled agent can listen to the call and receive real-time training.
This type of training can be more important in the present era or virtual call centers. When an agent from a remote place can listen to an ongoing call, they can receive training without having come down to the office premises to receive the same. By using skills-based presence to consult experts into a call, the call center can retain control and manage the process from call answer to its resolution.
This provides contact centers with a clear picture of the first call resolution success rates.
4. Better Audio Quality
Unified communication also offers better audio quality than traditional telephony. This gives the customers an impression that the agents are speaking to them privately via UC wideband sound.
As per a research conducted by Jabra, 82% of consumers appreciate the feeling of having a private call with customer service agents. In traditional telephony, both agents and customers may require the other party to repeat some information, which may hinder the rapport between the customers and the agents, causing lost business.
Therefore, improving sound quality via unified communication has a significant impact on customer satisfaction, and it increases the chance to sales.
5. Multichannel Communication
Unified communications allow businesses to deal with each communication channel the same way, applying the same business logic companies to treat each channel in the same way, relating to the same business logic and processes in order to provide a dependable customer service.
Customers choose their preferred mode of communication knowing that no matter what channel they use, their request will be processed quickly and efficiently. Unified communications allows combining multiple channels to manage customer service better.
6. Reductions in Maintenance Costs
Once a business adapts to the concept of unified communication, it can cut overall maintenance costs by 20% without hampering the efficiency of the call center. As a matter of fact, if things are in place, it can increase the efficiency of the call center.
By combining customer contact channels, a business can deliver a more consistent customer experience while saving significant cost via system consolidation. It also allows businesses to leverage from the existing technology. So, there is no immediate need of replacing the technology in use.
7. Business Continuity
By combining communication channels, a business allows its employees work from home the same way they would from their workstation in the office. This makes unified communication integral to business continuity. When the weather condition is severe, there is a transport strike or there is any large event in the vicinity, businesses can always count on their employees, who will be working from home.
As a result of this, the customer service operation will go uninterrupted, and employee absenteeism will be actively reduced.
If a call center adopts unified communication techniques into their day to day operations, it can reap multiple benefits and improve the quality of its customer service.
