Complete Call Center Software Buyer’s Guide

Are you considering switching to another call center software provider? Or maybe you’re just getting started, and implementing a cloud call center technology is still on your to-do list? In both cases, making sure you pick the right tools can make a significant impact on the day-to-day performance of your call center.

Yet, when you are about to make the decision, you can easily get overwhelmed with all the options. That is why we prepared a guide to help you in the process.

Take a sneak peek inside our ebook, and don’t hesitate to download the complete guide!

What is a call center technology, and what’s in it for you?

What is your first thought when it comes to a call center? Is it still an image of numerous identical desks, with agents that are dialling long lists of numbers and getting hung up after the first few seconds?

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Well, these days are over. Today’s call center solutions completely transformed modern contact centers.

These days, call center software lets you get in touch with your customers, prospective clients, suppliers, and business partners. In fact, you can find complete call solutions suitable for any needs: from a small business to a global corporation.

As a result, these solutions can serve several purposes: from offering customer support to getting new leads, offering telesales, conducting surveys, or collecting receivables. Whichever types of calls flow through your business, they can easily be managed with a call center technology.

Why should you use a call center software?

Call center software brings various benefits, comparing to an old-school phone and spreadsheet – if picked right, that is. The long list of call center technology benefits includes:

Cloud-based service

Choosing a cloud call center means that you’re getting more flexibility in deciding how you want to work. It has two significant effects on your business. First, you and your team will be able to work whenever you have a stable Internet connection, a PC, and a headset.

The second is safety. As you deal with a lot of sensitive data, your cloud-based call center software should be secure. Check what kind of protocols, compliance, and system maintenance they have. When you use a secure cloud, you can meet higher security standards.

Improved quality

A useful tool helps you in delivering higher quality services. It holds true also with call center solutions. How does it look like specifically in this case? When implementing virtual call center software, you can personalize your services with little extra effort.

Choose a tool that integrates with other services that you use. That is how, during the call, you can preview data from your CRM or the history of the previous contact and give a more personal touch.

Productivity boost

You can notice the impact of implementing your cloud call center into your workflow in the productivity boost. Think of all the simple, yet tedious and manual tasks you have to take care of: copying and pasting the notes from your call into your CRM, adding information, assigning agents, or preparing reports.

When you choose a call center technology that allows you to automate those processes and integrate your software, you can invest your time in actions that bring value.

Cost reduction

Maintaining an in-house call center with numerous agents, hardware devices, and complicated infrastructure can generate high costs. When you opt for virtual call center software, you can reduce the required resources to the minimum.

How to choose between call center solutions, then?

When you make up your mind to get cloud-based call center software (as you should by now), take some time in looking through the offers and choosing the best solution available.

First, think about what your specific needs are. Will you be using your call center software for sales or customer service? How big is your team, exactly? What is your budget? And your main area of operations? Those and similar questions will help you in narrowing down the essential qualities.

Now, when you have clear what you need, let’s talk about what to look for in call center software:

Call quality and uptime

Among all the criteria you can have to evaluate your choices, the call quality and uptime are the most important. After all, they decide about the quality and reliability of your service, and no feature will make it up for a poor call sound. Look for complete call solutions that guarantee minimal jitter.

Call center features

When you want to know what to look for in call center software, you need to have your needs clear in the first place. When you lead a huge team, call routing will be a must. It will ensure that each call lands in the appropriate department and is taken by the right agent.

When you focus mostly on outbound calling, Smart Dialer will save your agents hassle connected with typing manually each number. These are just a few examples – the specific call center features should always depend on the needs and specificity of your business.

Security

A data security breach is a nightmare of virtually any service provider. As you deal with sensitive customer data like, for example, their phone numbers, you should make sure your call center technology meets the highest security standards. When in doubt, check if they are compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Integrations

Prepare a list of the tools you’d like to connect with your cloud-based call center software and look for available integrations. Make your workflow smarter with dedicated technology: there will be no need for copying and pasting or keeping in mind manual synchronization.

Call center software pricing plans

When you finally come up with a shortlist of the most interesting options, the price vs. value criterion can help you in making the final decision. Make sure you count all the possible fees and costs of hardware changes, training, and so on.

Also, focus on flexible call center software pricing plans and check whether there’s an option to upgrade or downgrade your plan. After all, you want your call center technology to respond to your needs, and they may change over time.

If you want to learn more about how to choose your call center software, download our ebook.

Cloud call center comparison

For sure, you are wondering how much does call center software cost. The pricing varies according to the provider, complexity of a plan you choose, and the features that are included.

When comparing call center providers and their price lists, don’t forget to check user reviews. You will find them on platforms like G2 and Capterra, together with ratings. You can filter the options considering the call center software pricing, features, number of users, or deployment.

Let’s take a look at the table where we present the five most popular call center software pricing, features, and reliability comparison.

What will you find in our Buyer’s guide? As you can see, the call center solutions vary. Some specialize in covering certain needs, like the US area calls, and others are more flexible.

So, you have reached that point in the article, and still, need some more information? We’ve got you covered. All of the points mentioned above are described in detail in our ebook: the Complete Call Center Software Buyer’s Guide.

You will find there more details on the use cases of cloud call center tools, the process of choosing the right match, switching to another solution, and the next steps after implementation. In short: all the information you need to make the right choice.

And to make it even more straightforward: as you might have already guessed, CloudTalk is a perfect example of a cloud call center solution that is likely to meet all your requirements.

It doesn’t only let you make and receive lots of your calls but also offers an excellent quality of calls, a variety of features and integrations, and favourable pricing terms on top of that.

See it for yourself