Whether you’re a CEO, a customer service executive, or a member of your company’s customer service team, you realize the intrinsic value of providing world-class customer support with your call center. But you also understand the need to keep customer support costs down. These two forces have driven call center technology to meet your demands as well as the demands of your customers.
Ifbyphone’s latest white paper, “The Next Generation of Virtual Call Centers: Beyond the Cloud,” dives deep into the integrations virtual call centers are now capable of thanks to voice-based marketing automation technology. With the advent of this cloud-based virtual call center functionality, it is now possible to build integrated call centers with interactive voice response (IVR), CRM integration, and help desk integration. These technologies help you to take your customer support to the next level while eliminating the costs of operating an on-premise call center.
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Integration
Inbound IVR (interactive voice response) is nothing new for the call center. IVRs are the automated menu that customers interact with when they call a business. Companies have been setting up inbound IVRs as their virtual receptionist for years. Rather than having a live agent answer every phone call, the IVR can pick up the phone and route the call to the correct department.
But IVRs have become increasingly more sophisticated. Now they can be used to provide callers with information and services they previously had to wait for a live agent to receive, such as:
- Account and billing info
- Order renewals
- Order status updates
- Changes to contact information
- Payment collections
Automating this functionality with an intelligent IVR enables customers to serve themselves quickly and saves your agents for more detailed support calls. You can also use IVR to conduct post-support outbound customer satisfaction surveys and to collect other valuable customer information.
CRM Integration
Virtual call centers can be integrated with CRM systems, such as Salesforce.com, to maintain a database of customer information and requests. Your agents can receive customer information in the form of a “whisper” message or in their on-screen agent desktop panel.
Not only does this information give your agents the opportunity to provide personalized customer support, it also benefits your entire company by integrating your systems to maintain an accurate record of every phone call and customer request.
Customer Support Help Desk Integration
By integrating your virtual call center with your customer support help desk (for example, Zendesk) you can turn every phone call into an actionable, organized support ticket. For each customer support call, a ticket will be created automatically in your help desk. If an agent isn’t available, customers can leave a voice message and have it automatically recorded and transcribed into your system. If you’ve already integrated with your CRM, a detailed email can be automatically sent to your customer after they’ve submitted their request.
By activating a virtual call system that integrates with your help desk, you are able to track the progression of your customer support calls. This integration enables you to serve more customers with voice-based tools that help you shorten response time. By tracking the progression of these calls, businesses improve efficiency of customer support agents, therefore saving time and money while also improving customer experience.
Virtual call centers can also be integrated with automated call distribution, call routing, and call recording. To learn more about all of these integrations, check out “The Next Generation of Virtual Call Centers: Beyond the Cloud,” our latest white paper.