There are many details in selecting the right call center software. The business requirements of the call center and costs are primary considerations. The obvious current requirements for the call center software are easily identified but it is the future unanticipated requirements that may limit the capability of your call center due to the limitations of the call center software. In many cases, it may be very difficult to anticipate all the functional requirements for the call center software with fine granularity. Once a call center is operational, changes or software upgrades increase the risk of disruption and impose enormous overheads on project planning and execution.
Let us examine the requirements for an inbound call center. It could be either at a company premise or an out-sourced call center. Most out sourced call centers manage multiple clients at the same time. This means that the call center software should be able to segregate and manage multiple clients. This is different from a Multi-tenant call center software. Hosted providers require multi-tenant call center software so that they can offer the services to different tenants.
Inbound call centers require good ACD with skills based routing as well as front-end call routing and processing capability. An IVR (interactive voice response) will provide flexibility for the call center to process calls before moving them to Queues with live agents. The call center software should have good GUI based tool to setup and change call routing and processing without requiring skilled programmers. Once calls move into Queues, skills based routing is a good way to get the most suitable to agent to answer the call.
There are numerous occasions when a call center software will have to use sophisticated call routing and call processing to improve the efficiency of the call center. IVR and automated call processing can be used to handle calls that do not require agent intervention. The call center may want to offer seperate premium and normal service by providing separate phone numbers or using any other identifiable parameters.
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