Call centers have brought tremendous benefits to national economy in terms of revenue and employment. It has also been one of the most demanded aspects in terms of business communication.
As the market for call center software expands, it becomes imperative for software industry to analyze what the consumers want in order to better assess and entertain their needs.
To understand the true motives of a consumer and what he really wants in call center software, a research was carried out by Software Advice. The research uncovered much needed information on call center software, its features and the users that demand it. Highlights of the study were follows:
- Almost half of the buyers of call center software are first timers (46 percent).
- Most preferred features in call center software include call recording and CTI (computer-telephone integration).
- Six in ten buyers of software were serving only 10 or fewer users.
- Almost eight in every ten businesses report annual revenue of $25 million (or less) which means the demand is huge.
Demographics
The study covered businesses having revenue fewer than $1 million and the firms making more than $100 million on annual basis. This chart shows the diverse range that call center software covers.
The following chart shows the number of agents or users the buyers had. Two-thirds of companies were looking for call center software for 10 users or fewer.
This chart shows the number of users, or agents, the call center software buyers in our sample had. Interestingly, over half of all companies were seeking call center software for 10 or fewer users.
Inbound Vs Outbound
The buyers interviewed represented an even mix of call center centers which were either or both inbound and outbound.
Diverse Spectrum of Respondents
Despite the fact that we have a huge specialist call center industry, the research showed that call center software is actually being used in many other industries as well. Almost all of these organizations have B2C element, and thus a need to make calls to, or receive calls from customers.
Medical, IT and consulting firms made up nearly 30 percent of the total, and if insurance, telecom and retail are added, the total sums up to exactly 50%.
More First Timers
Businesses with no history of call center software were also keen on buying call center software. Forty-six percent of respondents that previously used manual ways to make and receive calls and sheets, pen, paper, manual processors or other methods for info tracking were inclined towards call center software.
Software as a System (SaaS) and Web-Based Systems are Most Popular
In this age of outsourcing, nearly 58 percent of respondents, who preferred one deployment model over the other, said they prefer SaaS or web-based systems. In SaaS, the service providers host and manage the service, which means no fuss of management for the business. This is in line with the current trend of outsourcing. In short, there seems to be a positive trend for hosted dialer.
Forty percent out of the rest were indifferent with deployment model whereas only two percent preferred on-site model. Of those who preferred SaaS and web-based model, only sixteen percent showed interest in integrated software suites as the majority (71 percent) sided with single application software (AKA best-of-breed). Just 13 percent of customers were indifferent with respect to integration requirements.
Call Recording and CTI Top the List of Most Demanded Features
When the buyers were questioned about their most-demanded feature in a call center software, 42 percent replied with ‘call recording’ saying that it helps in both ‘quality assurance’ and employee’ training.
The runner up in demanded features was CTI, a feature that links system’s database with phone so agents can see all the data and previous interaction history of the caller/ receiver. 39 percent respondents said they want CTI in the software to track history and to take notes.
Consumers Want to Level-Up Efficiency and the Organization
Nearly 67 percent of respondents cited the efficiency factor as a reason for buying the software. Improvement of organization was a close second with 61 percent.
Findings
- The first key finding of this study is that the trend is now shifting towards SaaS, primarily because of convenience and cost-savings.
- Another revelation was that more industries and businesses are now handling their own call center needs as more call center jobs are being brought back to North America.
- Almost half of sample is looking forward to software for first time, indicating they might be planning in-house handling instead of outsourcing.
- 67 percent of the buyers are companies which require the software for 10 of fewer users.
This Article is provided by VoIPInvite – An efficient and fast VoIP network through next generation hosted Dialer services with dedicated bandwidth.
[Image credit: Axel Cary, Flickr]
I agree that customers’ satisfaction is essential and getting good feedback from them is token for any business since it will give you insights for improvement. And you make a good point that by getting feedback from customers, it gives you a chance to analyze and think about all their suggestions and that to me is valuable.