BUSINESS PHONES | 3.5 MIN READ
Businesses looking to better manage and run their call centers may turn to Contact Centers as a viable option. However, with multiple industry leaders in the market, it can become tough to choose which one is best suited for your business. Keep reading to see a list of features to consider when shopping for a Contact Center as well as a comparison of three industry leaders: RingCentral, Intermedia, and Talkdesk.
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Features to Look for in a Contact Center Provider
Contact Center Providers Compared
Contact Center can have multiple applications in a business setting. Whether it's used for pre-customer interactions (ie. sales prospecting calls) or current customer interactions (ie. billing, customer support, and help desk), Contact Center can streamline and improve business operations in a variety of ways.
RELATED: When Should I Transition from ACD Group to Contact Center?
A blended call center is capable of both inbound and outbound call operations. The key to a blended call center is the mix of automatic call distribution and predictive dialing.
Call recording is an important yet overlooked feature for several reasons. If a call with a customer goes sour and that customer wrongly files a complaint, a recorded call can be used as proof to reject their claims.
From a customer service standpoint, call recording can also be used to review employee performance and identify areas for improvement.
A Campaign Management System (CMS) is software designed to handle the different parts of a call center's marketing campaigns. Call center managers can use CMS' to more efficiently do their jobs by centralizing the storage and management of call center data.
IVR allows for calls to more quickly be routed to the appropriate employee, thus improving the customer experience.
Callers can use their voice to answer prompts about their reason for calling, which department they would like to speak to, etc.
This feature lets you put many calls on hold while your agents are busy. This way, you’ll never lose inbound calls. Queuing is the most effective when combined with another tool like IVR or an auto attendant.
Queuing calls benefit businesses because it allows them to adequately provide call routing to staff without sacrificing availability to callers.
This way, the customer can confirm if self-service will solve their issue. They can also make sure they arrive at the right department after waiting on hold momentarily.
This feature allows customers to virtually chat with a live agent instead of calling in to a call center. This is beneficial for streamlining call center operations while giving customers multiple contact options, thus diversifying and improving the user experience.
Call analytics give employees and their managers insight into their performance. For instance, one can see the average call length, number of completed calls, etc.
Depending on your business' needs and budget, any of these Contact Centers could be a good fit for you. Prioritizing which features of a business phone system are crucial, which are wants, and which are unnecessary will help you narrow down which one is a better fit.
For instance, if your business doesn't need the Interactive Voice Response feature then you might not penalize a business that doesn't have this feature. Your budget also affects the level of service you would be looking for in a business phone system. Depending on your budget, you might look for a no-frills phone system or an all-inclusive one.
No matter which one you choose, make sure you thoroughly conduct research to figure out which features are necessary for your business. The right business phone provider will work with you to streamline your business and propel you to greater heights.
Using the features we described in the previous section, below is a comparison of three Contact Center industry leaders− Intermedia, RingCentral, and Talkdesk.
| Features | Intermedia | RingCentral | Talkdesk |
| Blended Call Center | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Call Recording | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Campaign Management | Yes | Yes | No |
| Interactive Voice Response | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Progressive Dialer | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Geo-Routing | Yes | No | No |
| Queue Management | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Real-Time Chat | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Reporting and Analytics | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Contact Centers help businesses make their call centers more efficient and productive. By comparing three industry leaders for Contact Center, we hope your business is better poised to pick the right solution for you!
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