Cloud Communications Blog | UniVoIP

Your Multimedia Contact Center Purchasing Guide

Written by Janine Germinario | May 7, 2020 10:55:27 AM

As we look towards new and improved ways of delivering customer experience, we’re seeing major swings in the way companies operate and how they manage their contact centers. These forward-thinking companies that are shifting their operating model such that they are offering more value to customers through their contact centers are seeing greater returns on investment than originally expected.

Forward-thinking customer service and channel managers can create an immediate impact and a long-term advantage.

How? By choosing the best multimedia cloud contact center provider and selecting a solution that simplifies the way that they engage with their customers. As traditional contact centers leave the customer service landscape, companies are removing barriers to success and opening the doors to improved contact center performance.

However, making a big transition in operations is never an easy task. It can be a convoluted project that takes months and companies can easily miss out on valuable time. That’s why it’s important to have a plan and stick to it.

So, let’s take a deeper look into the selection process and highlight recommended best practices companies should adhere to when selecting a multimedia cloud contact center provider that will best fit their needs.

Existing Contract Considerations

Many often miss this important step: You must first consider the terms of a current contract you are already in with another service provider.

It’s important to coordinate when one contract ends so that you can begin another, keeping in mind that it may take you months to select your new provider. So, when you’re out choosing new multimedia contact center technology, it’s important to ensure flexibility for both you and your new service provider.

Here are a few important things to consider before beginning your migration process:

  • Review your existing contract including terms and conditions and expiration date
  • Understand the potential cancelation fees that may apply for early termination
  • Determine the required timeline for your notice termination
  • Develop a cost analysis and assess growing needs with stakeholders to determine if the time is right to upgrade
  • Inform all stakeholders and decision makers of intentions and findings to reach a consensus
  • Communicate and keep the migration project key stakeholders involved at all times

Challenge Identification

Most traditional on-premise contact centers face similar challenges prior to upgrading a multimedia contact center solution, however, it is important to gather feedback from all team managers to understand exactly what each group’s challenges truly are. From there, key stakeholders can come together and review the unique feedback and prioritize accordingly. It is then that decision makers can identify the major bottlenecks that are impeding performance.

Some common challenges faced by the contact center industry that you may relate to:

  • Lack of desktop tools
  • Insufficient core technology
  • Lack of cross-departmental collaboration
  • High attrition rate
  • Inability to achieve service levels
  • Limited budget
  • High abandon rate
  • Reduced first call resolution rates
  • Limited multi-channel communication
  • Insufficient performance tools
  • Challenged resource planning
  • Increasing client expectations

Provider Selection

So once you’re ready and you know that you’ll be migrating to a multimedia cloud contact center in the near future, and you understand your existing challenges that need to be addressed, it’s time to research your vendor options.

This part is always a difficult and somewhat tedious process. Most vendors will throw a lot of information at you, tell you their solution is the best, give you the run down of features and functionality and pressure you into a decision. It’s not necessarily a fun process, and most vendors don’t make it any easier on buyers. That’s why it’s important for you to do your due diligence and take a proactive role in the buying process.

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There are a wide range of vendor options, but likely only one that will truly meet most if not all of your needs.

Take these steps to ensure you’re off on the right foot:

  1. Search online for solutions based on key functionality requirements you have identified
  2. Visit vendor testimonial pages and read through case studies
  3. Search for recent and past news related articles to determine financial stability of a vendor
  4. Consider reaching out to colleagues for recommendations and referrals
  5. Explore online reviews and determine long term customer satisfaction
  6. Select your top 3 vendors

Provider Qualification & Comparison

So, once you’ve narrowed down your short list and you believe that any one of them can offer you the best multimedia contact center solution, it’s time to vet your vendors.

Vetting vendors should NOT be a complicated process, and if it is, that vendor is not right for you.

Your top 3 vendors should be going out of their way to make the decision process easy for you. It’s their responsibility to equip you with the knowledge you need to determine not only which multimedia contact center technology will serve the purpose you need it to, but which vendor will be a true partner long-term.

Follow the checklist of requirements below that your vendor should absolutely be able to meet.

  • Assigns a designated account executive
  • Arranges an online or onsite demo
  • Assesses current contact center functionality
  • Listens carefully to challenges and proposes resolutions
  • Makes customer references and testimonials available
  • Discusses current promotions to be qualified for
  • Offers free upgrade and features enhancements
  • Guarantees 24/7 US-based customer support
  • Compares offerings to competitors in question
  • Provides a Total Cost of Ownership analysis
  • Delivers a Service Level Agreement
  • Offers a compréhensive quote document

Feature and Functionality Requirements

As for features and functionality, you must ensure that your multimedia cloud contact center can offer omnipresent technology that will ultimately lead to improved ways that you interact with your customers. Achieving the ultimate customer experience is the goal, right? Well, this migration should be one giant leap into a modern customer service strategy that improves customer retention, acquisition and overall satisfaction.

Looking beyond price and driving into a constructive, dialogue-driven buyer-vendor relationship will ensure you acquire the features you need to be successful.

Understand not only what your customers need out of their interactions with you, but also what your employees need to deliver the desired levels of customer experience.

Features to consider:

  1. PC and Web Client
  2. Software Integration
  3. Softphone
  4. Capabilities
  5. Analytical Reporting
  6. Queue Status Monitoring
  7. Multi-channel platform
  8. Email, SMS and Voice Queuing
  9. Call Monitoring
  10. Call Barging
  11. Voice ACD Agent
  12. Multimedia ACD Agent
  13. Real-time and historical reporting
  14. Automatic Routing
  15. Interactive Voice-Response (IVR)

Conclusion

Migrating to a multimedia cloud contact center is a proactive way to add value, reduce costs and support an analytics-enabled interactive contact center model that builds customer loyalty. You’ll be proactively offering service upgrades and anticipating/resolving customer issues before they even occur, and because of this, you’ll be gaining the competitive edge your company needs to win at customer experience.