The best thing an entrepreneur can do is to optimize its business for success. Whether it’s day-to-day operations, marketing, and promotion, or customer service, investing in high-quality solutions can go a long way in increasing the probability of success.
As an entrepreneur if you are looking for the best call center software solution for your small business, then this blog post is just for you. By investing in the right call center software, you not only can take your customer service to the next level but can also enhance your marketing and outreach campaigns and lower your communication costs.
This blog post lists seven effective methods to help you handpick the best call center software for your small business. Read on and thank us later.
1. Define the Purpose of Getting a Call Center Software Solution for Your Business
First thing first, determine the purpose of getting a call center software solution for your business. This is the first and the most important step in your entire buying and research process. And you must find the answer to the question “Why do I need call center software?” before you start finding the best or the right call center software. As renowned motivational speaker Simon Sinek says “Start with ‘Why?’”
Different types of businesses have different reasons to buy call center software. Some buy call center software to streamline their customer service operations. Such types of businesses receive a huge volume of incoming calls on a daily basis and after buying the right call center software, they are able to handle all incoming calls in an efficient manner.
Some small businesses invest in call center software to enhance their marketing and outreach efforts. Such types of organizations make a lot of outbound calls to prospects and existing customers. When they succeed in hand picking the right outbound call center software, they are able to make their outbound calling campaigns a success.
Some organizations purchase call center software to streamline both incoming calls as well as outbound calls. Once you determine the reason behind buying a call center software solution, it would be easier for you to go ahead with the following steps and look for the best software for your business.
2. Determine the Features You Want In Your Call Center Software
As Apple’s CEO Tim Cook rightly said, “A great product isn’t just a collection of features. It’s how it all works together.” So, more than the features themselves, you must understand how they can work in unison to help your business achieve its objectives. Some of the top features of call center software are:
a. Auto dialers and predictive dialers: This feature is indispensable if you’re intending to make outgoing calls.
b. Automatic call distribution: This is necessary to distribute all incoming calls evenly to available agents, thereby reducing on-hold time.
c. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system: This feature is one of the most important ones as it enables customers to select their preferred options.
d. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) integration: This integrates the existing CRM application with the call center software for seamless customer interactions.
e. Call recording and monitoring: This enables the management team to know the real-time performance of their agents.
f. Skill-based routing: This feature routes incoming calls to the agents with the most appropriate skills.
g. Real-time analytics and reports: This feature collects key data in real-time and generates reports to know agents’ performance.
3. Set a Reasonable Budget
After listing the necessary features, set a reasonable budget that could help you purchase the call center software for the right price. “Used correctly, a budget does not restrict you. It empowers you.”This quote by Tere Stouffer is so relevant while setting a budget.
You must always know that the very purpose of the budget is not to limit you but it empowers you. It gives you the power to invest in the right type of call center software. It gives you the freedom to know the amount you are comfortable spending and it prevents you from under-investing or over-investing in the call center software.
When you set a reasonable budget, you give yourself the choice to stick to the budget and look for a call center software that’s available within the pre-decided amount. As celebrated author Leslie Tayne famously said, “Budgeting has only one rule. Do not go over budget.”
4. Look for Call Center Software on the Internet
This is the point where all the fun begins. You know the purpose of buying the call center software. You have the list of features of call center software with you. You have fixed a reasonable budget for the software. So now what are you waiting for? It’s shopping time!
Feel free to take out your smartphone from your pocket, or switch on your laptop, and type in some high-intent search terms such as “best call center software for small businesses,” “top call center software for small businesses,” “most cost effective call center software for small businesses,” “award-winning call center software for small businesses,” and more. You can also use keywords such as “20 best call center software for small businesses,” “10 top call center software for small businesses,” and more search terms.
As the words “best” and “top” are superlative adjectives and can cast a wide net, it would help to narrow down your search by adding your country or locality to the search terms. Some of the examples could be “best call center software for small businesses in US,” “best call center software for small businesses in UK,” “best call center software for small businesses in Canada,” “best call center software for small businesses in South Africa,” “best call center software for small businesses in Australia,” and “best call center software for small businesses in India.”
5. Visit Some Websites and Compare Features, Prices, Pros and Cons
After pressing the enter key, you will get about a dozen websites. Of them some will belong to software providers such as HoduSoft and others will belong to aggregators such as G2, SoftwareSuggest, and more. The former will help you know everything about a company and its call center software solutions. Apart from various options and variants, you can take a look at the features, the brand’s story, mission, and vision, what customers say about its software solutions (testimonials), awards (if any), and contact details.
The latter will help you get a bird’s-eye-view of 10 to 20 call center software at one place. By visiting such websites, you can compare the features, pricing plans, pros and cons in 10 to 20 best call center software without switching to a different tab. So no matter whichever type of website you explore, select a mix of both and shortlist some promising software providers.
6. Contact Shortlisted Software Providers and Know Everything About Their Software
Now that you know which software providers can provide the right type of software, it’s time to contact them and find out more about their software. You can learn many crucial details about several features and specifications from the websites, but it’s better to learn important details such as pricing plans, financing options, and free demos from the software providers themselves.
So, pick up your phone and dial the numbers of the shortlisted call center providers one by one and ask them every relevant detail about their software. Ask them about the duration of their free demo. If any of them refuse to provide the free trial, end the call as politely as possible and move on to the next provider on the list. Rinse and repeat till you find a software provider that ticks all the right boxes and is ready to provide a free demo for a reasonable duration.
7. Introduce the Demo Version of Call Center Software to Your Team and Seek Feedback
Last but not the least; introduce the free trial version of the call center software to your customer service team. Tell your customer service representatives to use the demo version till the entire duration of the trial period and share their observations and feedback. If you have requested another demo version of software from another call center software provider, then compare how the two fare against each other in terms of usability, performance, and features.
If you try multiple demo versions simultaneously, then it would be easy for you to compare their performance and ease of use and decide accordingly. But if you try one demo version at a time, then note its best as well as worst aspects. This will help you make an informed decision. If the software meets your needs, then consider buying it without further delay.
All In All,
For small businesses, customer service matters a lot. That’s one of the key areas where they can compete with larger organizations and carve a place for themselves. If you are an owner of a small business, then you must do whatever it takes to handpick the right call center software for your business. The right call center software can make or break customer service. That’s why you must be extremely careful while choosing a call center software provider and use the above-mentioned steps to find the right software provider.
