The second installment of our Tomorrow’s Workforce webinar series, “Navigating Challenges and Avoiding Pitfalls When Evaluating Contact Center Software” will guide you through an interactive session with WEM experts to ensure you’re choosing the right tools for your business. Before the webinar, I’ll be taking you through a six-part series developed to help inform your choices and provide a little context for the upcoming webinar. Be sure to register for the next Tomorrow’s Workforce webinar on Dec 11, 2024 12:00PM EST. Now, let’s get started.
Choosing the right contact center software is more important now than ever in today’s dynamic business landscape. The right software is integral to delivering the best customer experiences and achieving operational goals.
Before diving into the array of contact center softwares available, you must start with asking a foundational business question: “Do we really need new contact center software, and if so, why?” Evaluating the Need is crucial for any business decision and is necessary to align your technology strategy with your business goals.
Recognize the need before adding to your tech stack
Are you unsure if your contact center may benefit from a new software? Struggles often manifest in daily operational inefficiencies and trends in customer feedback. Here are some signs that your business may benefit from new tools.
Process challenges
If agents or supervisors are facing daily obstacles that prevent them from doing their work efficiently, new contact center software may be needed. These challenges may present in several ways across your business including:
- Lack of agent coaching. Providing agents with feedback and coaching can be inaccessible without software tools. Without coaching, teams may struggle with skill development and reaching goals.
- Cumbersome data collection and inaccurate reporting. Accurate, real-time data is necessary to making timely decisions based on data insights. Tools that are difficult to use or can’t support real-time functionalities may cause missed business opportunities.
- Inefficient forecasting leading to staffing issues. An important part of workforce management is precise forecasting, ensuring your business has proper staffing on any given day. Without robust software with forecasting functionalities, planning staffing levels can be inconsistent and time-consuming, which negatively impacts service.
Performance Challenges
Long handle times and low first-call resolution (FCR) are just a couple Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that can reflect limited functionalities in your current contact center software. These performance challenges directly impact customer satisfaction and can lead to negative trends in feedback. Review customer feedback and look for common themes like poor experiences with resolution time or difficulty reaching the right team. These feedback trends may be indicators that your current workforce software is falling short.
Integration and scalability challenges
As your company grows, you’ll need contact center software that scales with it. Your current technology may struggle to keep up, lacks integration capabilities, or has limited reporting options for your growing business needs. This will impact your business’s ability to grow and maintain optimal service levels as that happens.
Set goals for your new contact center software
The next step in the evaluation process is defining what you hope to achieve with your new technology. Your chosen software should address the identified problem areas that your contact center needs assistance in supporting. Clear objectives are crucial to focus your search in finding the right tools to meet your unique challenges. These goals may include:
Improved operational efficiency
Streamlined workflows with real-time data access should be a top objective for your contact center software. This improved operational efficiency can include automation of manual tasks, which gives agents and supervisors more time to focus on high-value projects. With more time, your team can put more energy toward improved customer interactions and boosting work performance in other areas.
Enhanced customer experiences
Positive customer experiences are key to good relationships and sustainable business success. Customers expect personalized and consistent service, which can be supported through technology tools. Contact center software with features like self-service, omnichannel support, and AI assistance can improve each customer interaction.
Better employee experiences
A happy workforce is more likely to offer better customer service. Increasing your employee engagement can be crucial to job satisfaction. Your workforce software should simplify tasks, support feedback loops, and offer meaningful insights to help agents do their jobs as easily and effectively as possible.
Engaging key stakeholders in your organization
When evaluating the need for contact center software, consider different perspectives across your business. Involve stakeholders across your organization, ranging from Operations to Customer Service. This ensures that every workforce need is considered when making a large software investment.
While Operations teams can provide insights into everyday productivity needs, IT teams can provide integration insights, and Customer Service teams have firsthand experience with agent needs alongside customer pain points.
These teams should be aligned early in the evaluation process to create shared understanding, making it easier to implement new tools.
Making the case for organizational change
In some cases, letting performance concerns speak for themselves is enough to promote organizational change. In others, you may need to justify the need for new contact center software to leadership. Develop a strong business case that highlights maximized return on investment (ROI) and alignment with larger company goals. A strong business case could include:
- Impact on performance. Outline how new software can improve KPIs across the organization.
- Customer retention. New technology tools can benefit customer satisfaction and boost retention, providing lifetime value to your business.
- Cost savings. Boosting efficiency with new workforce tools can cut operational costs over time.
Having the right technology in your contact center is essential to delivering excellent customer experiences in a competitive landscape. Thoroughly evaluating your contact center’s needs will help you set clear objectives and develop a foundation for a successful research and buying process.
In the second part of this series, we’ll explore what it takes to conduct research on contact center software options. Don’t forget to register for the accompanying webinar to learn more about navigating this buying process like an expert. Stay tuned for more!
