Modern customers expect a lot from businesses especially when it comes to customer service. If you are outsourcing to a call center in the Philippines, it s not enough for you and your outsourcing partner to just keep an eye on your customer support team s efficiency and reliability. You need to think of ways to improve the overall customer experience.

Welcoming new call center technologies is a good strategy in stepping up your game and impressing your customers. Using these innovations to address your customers’ needs helps you earn their trust and loyalty. Here are modern tools that you can equip your call center in order to deliver outstanding services to your valued customers.

1. Interactive voice response (IVR)

Having a customized telephone menu system can help you route each incoming call to the department or agent that can best handle the situation. An IVR system can help you record greetings and prompts that will guide customers on how to go about your customer support procedures. This is a more cost-effective option compared with hiring a receptionist or an operator.

Using an IVR system can improve your first contact resolution rates since inbound calls are directed to the right person with the right solution. It can also help your contact center manage high call volumes and avoid long hold times. Your IVR system must be configured effectively so that your customers first interaction with you will give them a good lasting impression.

2. Automatic caller identification

Personalization is a priority when assisting customers over the phone. They want to feel special and not just one of the many random individuals that you talk to everyday. Integrating an automatic identification pop-up feature on your customer service representatives browsers will inform them about the identification details of the incoming caller even before they pick up the phone.

Basic user profiles can include the picture, full name, location, organization, and contact details of your customers. This enables the agents to quickly refer to these details whenever necessary. More importantly, this makes your call center agents adopt a more personalized approach when interacting with every caller.

3. Customer relationship management (CRM)

Aside from knowing who is calling, your call center agents must also have access to your company s recorded interactions with your customers. A good CRM software provides comprehensive information about a customer s history of transactions with the brand, including reports of previous purchases, customer and technical support call logs, or complaints.

Having a software that gives a documentation of the customer s call activities can help your agents prepare better before taking calls. It allows them to leave notes or tips that other attending agents can use in the future. It can also enable your agents to adjust their approach, avoid unwanted topics, and reinforce previous marketing efforts while providing customer service.

4. Call recording and monitoring

Live call monitoring is a good quality assurance strategy that managers can use in observing their agents in real-time. This can help agents who are struggling during calls, since managers can barge in or provide them with quick assistance through whisper coaching.

Call recording, on the other hand, allows managers to thoroughly assess the call handling skills of their agents using a predetermined criteria. Agents can also listen to their own recorded calls during coaching sessions with their managers. Call recording allows the agents to be aware of their strengths and weaknesses so they can come up with good performance improvement plans of their own.

5. Real-time reporting

Giving agents access to a dashboard or reporting tool that displays their metrics, such as number of calls, average handle and hold times, and service levels, can make them aware of which areas they should improve on. This can motivate your agents to constantly aim for a higher rating since they can see how each member of the team is doing in terms of meeting goals and surpassing quotas.

Real-time reporting can also help managers make objective decisions, since they can base their plans on solid data. Ultimately, this will lead to the whole customer support team working cohesively to improve individual and overall performance.

Ensuring the loyalty of your customers starts with ensuring that they are satisfied with your customer service features. Your contact center can exceed customer expectations if it utilizes modern tools that are designed to create positive experience for your customers. Equipping your Philippine call center with the technologies listed above can therefore make you an exceptional provider of customer service.