Communication plays a key role in the success stories of modern businesses which is why they will always look for the best offer on the market, and that offer could be you.
To ensure that, you need to ally yourself with an ideal and, most importantly, flexible contact center provider. But, with so many options available, it may be hard to tell them apart.
That said, there are several aspects to be on the lookout for that set the good ones apart from the less compatible ones, and that is what we are here to uncover today.
What Is A Contact Center Provider?
The third party behind the contact center, one that offers their CC solution packaged to be sold to businesses.
Before delving into the heart of the matter, we first need to go over what a contact center provider is.
A contact center, on its own, is a department which elevates a business’s level of customer interaction across a number of communication channels.
They offer more variety than a traditional call center and can be used for either inbound or outbound services, or both, depending on the focus of the business itself.
The provider is the third party behind the contact center, one that offers their contact center solution packaged to be sold to these businesses.
Desirable Traits From Contact Center Providers
With the general idea of a contact center provider formed, let us take a look at what makes one a desirable partner.
Scalability
Businesses are bound to grow over time and so too will their customer base. Being able to accommodate said growth is one of the most desirable traits that a CC provider could have.
That is why, before choosing a provider, you should make sure that they can actually cover the burgeoning needs of your target audience.
Flexibility
Businesses tend to shift the focus of their company every now and then or shake their infrastructure up in an attempt to improve it.
Being able to provide them with the option to do so in the first place with little to no frustration is what is going to put a contact center solution on top of their list.
A contact center provider that has more than one packaged solution on offer can help facilitate that, but you need to make sure that they are more than happy to follow through with these changes for your customers.
Technology Level
A highly desirable service needs to have access to high quality equipment and features.
The list of these features is quite long, but some of the standouts are:
A level of automation
In order to provide a higher level of availability to the business’s customers and to relieve agents of some of the more tedious busywork, some level of automation is to be expected in a contact center solution.
This is most commonly done with the processes of logging data, report generation or services such as IVR and self-service portals to improve customer handling time and increase the amount of customers that can be handled within a day.
Modern server infrastructure
A provider offering an on-premise contact center solution needs to have servers that can manage the business’s customer capacity while maintaining service uptime otherwise the level of service is not going to meet expectations.
Omnichannel capabilities
A sign of a quality modern contact center provider is having the infrastructure to support omnichannel functionality.
Businesses want to give customers the opportunity to reach them through their preferred way of communication which is a step in the right direction for personalizing the customer experience.
It also means that more customers are likely to interact with the contact center, giving the business more insights into what direction they should direct their services toward in the future.
Ease-of-use
If a business is going to be utilizing its own agents to pilot the provided contact center solution, the easier the tools are to use, the more likely they are to go for it.
This attribute is usually tied to UI intuitiveness, various onboarding tools that make the process smoother, and automation tools which allow agents to focus more on the customer and handle them with greater efficiency.
It also ties itself to the willingness of the contact center provider to train a business’s agents on how to use the solution that they offer efficiently.
Deployment type
You also need to consider what type of contact center deployment do businesses in your target audience want.
If your target audience primarily consists of SMBs, you may want to consider a CC provider who specializes in cloud contact centers whereas those whose target market covers large businesses should look into on-premise options.
Moreover, there are providers that can manage both deployment types for those seeking to cover all of their bases.
Data Security
Primarily directed at cloud contact center options, but an important aspect regardless, is data security.
After all, customers do not give out their data to businesses lightly and when they do, they do so with full trust that it will be protected.
If that trust is broken, it can be debilitating for the business’s brand, which is why data security is of top priority, especially when outsourcing contact center functionality to a third party.
Agent Skill Level
If the entirety of a contact center’s functionalities are being outsourced, then businesses expect the contact center’s agents to be highly skilled professionals.
Their goal is to improve on customer experience and brand image after all, and the provider who can vouch for their staff’s quality of work is going to be highly coveted.
This does not just take speed and performance into account, but the agent’s interactions with the business’s customers as they will act as their representatives.
They need to help make the customers feel comfortable when interacting with them, to read the room and personalize their experience on the fly to ensure a satisfying exchange.
Transparency & Metrics
Those who consistently deliver results and provide businesses with the tools showing them the data to back it up will be the most desirable ones.
It is one thing for contact center providers to list their qualifications, but providing the proof that backs it up is what gives it substance.
That is why those who consistently deliver results and provide businesses with the tools showing them the data to back it up will be the most desirable ones.
Though even when proven great, these results will still need to align with what your target audience is looking for.
Pricing Plan
Finally, it will also be a matter of price. Businesses will only be willing to pay so much for a solution before being turned off the idea or going with a more affordable and more fitting choice.
The best contact center providers will offer a number of packages or editions tailored to specific businesses at different price ranges.
This not only provides flexibility in terms of cost, but the added opportunity to scale up to a more robust package down the line.
The payment plans themselves can be a deal-maker or deal-breaker depending on the way your clients prefer to handle their expenses.
How To Identify What Your Clients Need
It is worth keeping in mind that these traits are not the only things that businesses may want and that each individual one may have something else that they expect to see from a contact center solution.
That is why you will need to delve deeper into things to find the ideal CC provider that can cover most, if not all of the needs that they are asking for.
Doing Market Research On The Target Audience
This is not a cut and dried process by any means. You will need to do extensive market research around your clients, their needs, and their habits.
Being as thorough as possible will net you the best results as it will help eliminate less compatible options and let you settle on your ideal CC provider.
Finding And Looking Into Providers That Operate In The Area
Be sure to research potential contact center providers that fit these characteristics and that can provide their service in the desired area.
Formulating Questions
Once the list has been shortened and the potential candidates have been locked in, it is time to devise questions about the service that will help eliminate the remainder of the candidates and uncover the most suitable option.
These questions should be related to the traits listed prior, but going into further detail about the specifics that interest you and your target audience.
Seeking Proof Of Claims
Finally, either find or ask for references or examples of their work because even if their work seems great on the surface, it is still wise to seek proof of the claims that the provider pins on themselves.
Make Your Choice Count
Ultimately, the choice of what would be considered the best contact center provider for the needs of your clientele is subjective.
The best way to find the answer is to do the relevant research and go by process of elimination, comparing the traits that the providers possess with your and your clients goals and conditions.
A good provider should be flexible with their offer, provide solutions that scale with businesses and are easy to deploy as well as have a short learning curve so that said deployment is as seamless and quick as it possibly could be.
Ideally, they should also have omnichannel capabilities since most modern businesses will desire it regardless of their needs.
Bicom Systems’ own Contact Center solution is one such provider that you can rely on. If you have any questions or wish to see proof of our claims, feel free to contact us or check out our case studies of prior partner experiences.
We are looking forward to hearing from you.