Call Center Operation in Covid-19

Introduction

A call center is a department or a office in which incoming or outgoing calls from customers(either new or existing) are handled by the team of agents. Main functions of call centers are as follows:-

• Handling the problems of customers
• Offering customer support
• Provide product and service information to customers
• Upsell products and services
• Document all call information according to standard operating procedures

There are much more functions that are performed at call center. We are not going into details.In addition to servicing customers’ needs, phone calls handled by call centers are valuable touchpoints with customers. With some products or services, phone calls are the only interaction that brands have with their customers. Now let us see the impact of Covid-19 on call centers.

 Virtual Call Centers

A virtual call center enables you to connect call directly to your agent's mobile phone. Instead of typical traditional call center's setup where agents are tied to the desks, a virtual call centers enables agents to work remotely from anywhere,anytime. As the virtual call centers are cloud based there is no need of setting up the costly equipment.

 While people aren’t turning to robotics quite yet, transitioning to a
virtual call center has become a reality for many — thanks to COVID-19. The Covid-19 pandemic ha changed the way call centers handles their customers around the world.

When COVID-19 hit, most contact centers were unprepared to transition to the workfrom home model (WFH). During the transition, it was difficult for managers and agentsto handle the stress of trying to replicate the necessary hardware and software.More than ever, managers maintaining operations from this new model are beginning to see the importance of a virtual call center.

A complicated structure that requires very heavy hardware and software is now replaces is now replaced with cloud bases services and is going to continue after this pandemic also.As managers are starting to quickly realize, this recent pandemic came with new

maintenance and customer service expectations, they moving to cloud based platforms like TCN.

Flexibility in work

Flexibility to quickly and dynamically change the physical location of your contact center is another essential continuity planning tool in handling fast-moving emergencies. It enables flexibility in work life balance. Now can the agents can give equal time to work  and their families.

The quality of service your agents provide is critical in the eyes of most customers. In fact, 55% of customers in a recent survey said they switched to another company after a bad customer experience. If you want to retain your customers, you need to make sure your call center agents are providing satisfying customer care. And by the nature of human we can say that a man feel more relaxed at home than at workplace so customers will be more satisfied by the service provided to them.

Service Reliability

The top priority for any contact center is to engage with customers when and where they want, be it a toll-free phone line, chat room, Twitter feed or a myriad of other channels. And if they don’t find you there, there’s little to stop them from moving on to your competition—especially when that competition is there when you’re not.Delivering this level of connectivity and engagement goes beyond just setting up a phone line or chat room. It also necessitates constantly maintaining it. And businesses that choose to manage their own communications are finding that this is no simple task.

Paramount to providing service in the event of a pandemic like COVID-19 affecting your area is to ensure that customers are always able to reach the contact center even in the event of network or voice service outages. This is ensured by many companies and to ensure it ,it requires flexibility with low cost and excellent customer service which has became possible in this pandemic by using virtual call centers and many other ways.

In the case of Microsoft, customers calling into Microsoft Support or using their Virtual Assistant are provided the choice to ‘message an Expert’. Upon choosing this option, customers receive an instant text message with a link to a messenger widget. This enables Microsoft to leverage its fans’ knowledge and enthusiasm to resolve customer queries regarding managing user accounts, billing and subscriptions. 

AI and chatbots has made it possible to give an excellent customer service. Through AI, chatbots and expert customer service gig workers, brands are riding the wave of disruption and making a solid attempt at business as usual during highly unusual times.

Automation

Call Center Automation is the technology that automates the work done by a call center agent like using the pre-recorded audio instead of real agent. Call Center Automation software helps in improving the productivity and compliance of call center.It resolves customer problems faster while reducing costs.

These are some automation trends in call center:-

• Desktop Automation
• RPA Robotic Process Automation
• Visual IVR
• Chatbots
• Big Data Analytics

Now we are not going to deep dive into it but you can study about them on google.

Inbound and Outbound call center services

Inbound call center services are referred to one where a customer initiates to a call center to get his queries resolved whereas Outbound services are where call center agents make calls to prospective or existing customers.

The main difference between an inbound and outbound call center is the way the calls take place. While many call centers handle both incoming and outgoing calls, when the majority of calls are inbound, it’s considered an inbound call center. Same goes for when the majority of calls are outbound.

In this time of pandemic,the call centers that are focused on inbound calls will make the most of the voicebots if they deploy them next to real agents so that routine calls can be taken over automatically by voicebots, and real agents can focus on upselling and issue solving in more complex calls.And the call centers focused purely on outbound, non-selling calls will absolutely relish voicebots as they will enable a fully automatic mode for communication with clients.

Customer Support

When it comes to customer support. it's the most important part of call center as a bad customer support may lead in losing the customers. Customer support and service representatives who work in the call center field phone calls made from customers who need help addressing a specific issue.

As we have talked about automation in earlier part, we can use it in many ways in customer services like using chatbots,using pre-recorded calls for most asked queries.Apart from this every customer has their own unique needs and goals that are specific to their situation. Recognizing these differences and adapting your communication to align with each customer is a great way to build rapport. 

Call center in India

Having a call center in India is the norm for several global companies today. In order to meet the growing international demand for cost-effective, customer-oriented call centers, many organizations worldwide are outsourcing these services by setting up call centers in India.India has the largest English speaking audience after US which makes India a better choice for companies investing in India.

There is the large IT  industry in India and many students and adults wants to grow their future in this industry which attracts companies.

In a call center operation, manpower typically accounts for 55 to 60 percent of the total cost. In India, manpower is available at a fraction of the cost that is prevalent overseas. However, some people get deterred by the fact that cost savings are not seen immediately.

Conclusion

From our above discussion, we can conclude that in this pandemic time the technology has helped call centers to grow and enhance their customer Service experience. Hope you like this blog . If you have any weird experiences with call centers,then please share with us in comments.