As technology evolves, call centers have access to more tools that can help them serve customers better and reach more potential clients. When choosing technology, managers often need to decide between an omnichannel call center and a multichannel call center.
In most cases, an omnichannel call center can help agents reach their goals. Before you spend money on technology, though, you should learn more about the differences between multichannel and omnichannel call centers. A little information will help you select the option that makes more sense for your business.
What Is a Multichannel Call Center?
Multichannel call center systems offer a lot of improvements over older technology. With a multichannel call center, your customers can reach agents through a variety of avenues, such as phone calls, email, social media, and webchat. As the name suggests, you have multiple channels of communication between your customers and agents.
Multichannel Call Centers Have Communication Silos
Having multiple communication channels, though, doesn’t always mean that customers get a satisfying experience. Unfortunately, multichannel call centers usually depend on communication silos. A customer has several communication options, but those different forms of communication stay within their own silos. All too often, that means agents who answer emails don’t see information from a customer’s previous phone calls, social media exchanges, and web chats.
Communication Silos Lead to Poor Customer Service
You can probably already see the problem that siloed communication channels create. A customer who sent an email yesterday expects call agents to know about the exchange. When that same customer places a phone call today, though, the agent who answers doesn’t have any information about yesterday’s interaction. Customers end up repeating themselves, wasting their time, and feeling frustrated.
Today’s consumers expect companies to use several forms of communication seamlessly. Multichannel call centers rarely meet that expectation.
What Is an Omnichannel Call Center?
Like a multichannel call center, an omnichannel call center lets your agents access several tools to communicate with customers and clients. Some of the communication options for an omnichannel call center include:
- Web chats
- In-app messages
- Phone calls
- Social media direct messages
- Text messages (SMS)
What’s the difference between an omnichannel call center and a multichannel center, then? With an omnichannel system, you eliminate the silos to create coherent conversations that take place across various tools. For example, when a customer sends a text message to your company, the message gets logged in your system where your agents can see it. The next day, the same customer can call your center and talk to an agent. Your employees don’t have to ask annoying questions because they already have the relevant information from the text.
Your omnichannel doesn’t necessarily have to use all communication tools. But you have the opportunity to give your agents the communication tools that they need. You could train them to help customers via phone calls, email, and social media messages. If you want a special team to handle webchats, then you can set that up. The real strength of omnichannel call center technology is that you have the option to control conversations.
Benefits of Choosing an Omnichannel Call Center Model
An omnichannel call center system that eliminates communication silos gives you numerous benefits by consolidating your communication options, giving your call center agents a better experience, collecting data from customers, and improving overall communication.
More Communication Options
Today’s consumers don’t like the restrictions of telephone calls for most situations. More than 80% of customers say that they like email for notifications and getting answers to their questions. About 45% of customers want to talk to a live agent when they have questions.
By using an omnichannel call center, you can adapt to the evolving preferences of your customers.
Better Experiences for Call Center Agents
Agents that work in omnichannel call centers gain more experience because they get to use several tools. An omnichannel system adds novelty to the day, makes work more manageable, and lets your employees learn more than those working at multichannel call centers.
Data Collection That Fuel Sales and Customer Support
Collecting and analyzing data can give your employees more insights that fuel sales and customer support. Call agents not only see past interactions with each customer. They can see general trends that will make all calls more successful.
Improved Communication With Customers
When you improve your business’s communication with customers, you also boost the company’s brand. Develop a reputation for meeting customers where they are and offering outstanding levels of service.
Since an omnichannel call center integrates all of your communication efforts, you can spend less time impressing customers. Those customers will go on to tell the people they know about their positive experiences. As your brand’s reputation grows, so will your sales.
A streamlined approach to communication even lowers your customer service and sales costs. If you can make communication more efficient, then your employees will become more productive.
Call Tools Gives You the Omnichannel Call Center System You Need to Thrive
Call Tools has all of the features that you need to transform a standard call center into an omnichannel call center. A lot of call center owners and managers already know that Call Tools offers a variety of dialers, including predictive dialers, power dialers, and preview dialers. Call Tools also has:
- Email templates that will help your employees write straightforward, fast messages that address each customer’s concern.
- Interactive Voice Response (IVR) that directs incoming messages to the right call center agent.
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) that collects data about callers so your service and sales team members know how to make the most of every call.
- Chat services that integrate with the features of other popular call center software options.
Reach out to Call Tools today to learn more about how the company’s products and solutions can improve your call center and brand reputation. You can also request a demo, get a price quote, take a tour of Call Tools, and learn more about how software can transform your call center quickly.
