• 1: Omni-channel support: In today’s digital era, a customer’s request for help can come from different means. Meaning, a customer may use any platform – Twitter, Instagram, email, or phone number to seek support. Thus, your call centre needs to offer omni-channel support capabilities that help your employees to talk to customers wherever they are – right through traditional voice channels to cutting-edge interfaces, such as IoT.

• 2: Efficient automation: When you provide customer support, it’s natural to get overwhelmed with customer calls for queries, complaints, and guidance. Without automation, waiting time can easily discourage customers from using your services or products the next time. Therefore, you need to look for call centre software that provides automation to delegate repetitive customer queries to self-service channels.

• 3: Workforce Optimization (WFO): Workforce optimization spans the whole range of activities that your business needs to perform to improve its call centre’s speed, quality, and scope. WFO helps your small business to better train your call centre employees, enhance your support offering over time, and build a base of loyal customers. Thus, call centre software is also required to have various WFO features, such as compliance call recording, speech analytics, performance management, and more.

• 4: Intelligent Routing: It’s common for inbound call centres to overflow with incoming calls and chat traffic, especially during busy hours of the day or peak season. If your customer support team is small, it can be hectic and sometimes impossible to handle all the calls and chat. Good call centre software lets you resolve this issue through automatic call distribution (ACD). ACD is the process of routing customer calls to a specific agent or department if the phone is your primary support channel.

• 5: Agent Management: When software is equipped with agent supervision features, it makes it easier for managers to manage the entire call centre and its support team. It allows managers to create customizable dashboards, set and track key performance indicators, and get an idea of how many staff members are needed during busy hours.

• 6: Real-Time Analysis: It is critical to evaluate how your call centre team is performing. Getting real-time data will help you create a customer-obsessed service strategy, bring accountability to the team, and develop best practices to increase the rate of customer satisfaction.

• 7: Comprehensive Solution: The ideal call centre solution is the one that allows your small business to provide comprehensive support. It should help your support team with functions like IVR, call recording, call monitoring, omni-channel routing, and file-sharing capabilities along with different communication means such as video conferencing and screen sharing.

• 8: Integrations: Customer support doesn’t work efficiently on its own. Your call centre software should be capable of integrating with other technology or software, such as sales management software and customer engagement software.

Choosing the right call centre software for a small business with the above features and capabilities can greatly enhance and deepen your customer relationships. So, keep them in mind while you shop.