To help businesses cope with the fast-paced nature of communications technology, Atlas have decided to use our 30+ years of experience delivering business communication solutions, to put together our guide on how technology can help operational and economic performance within your business.

Part 5 – Contact Centres for Small Businesses

Within the business world and beyond, there are many misconceptions surrounding Contact Centres. Typically, they are seen as the presence of large companies, cold calling and frustrated customers. Contact Centres however, can be a key tool for organisations of all size, as they provide an interface for monitoring and managing customer contact.

To meet the needs of your customers, you may find that your staff are already performing a Contact Centre role without thinking of themselves as such. Whether it’s a sales team, customer service or technical support role that you are providing, the goal of any contact centre is to provide an excellent and efficient customer experience.

Problems arise because businesses often lack information on how these teams are performing and how it is impacting their business. Small businesses need management information as much as large businesses. In communications and beyond, savvy business owners can invest in those tools and technologies around their telephone contacts with customers. As Contact Centre solutions are all about data, they can help small businesses to analyse performance.

Contact Centre Solutions

People tend to use the terms Contact Centre and Call Centre interchangeably, but they are not identical. In the multimedia world, Contact Centres bring additional routes to customers all under one integrated operation, including:

• VoIP Telephone Services
• Email
• Text Chat
• Direct Website Interface

These features help cater to the growing importance of providing Omni-Channel customer support. In an increasingly connected world, consumers expect businesses to be present on several channels, and to provide a consistent, qualified service on all of them.

Particularly, here in Northern Ireland, personal 1:1 business contact is important, and Contact Centre solutions can help facilitate this by making you more available to your customers across different platforms.

Selecting a Solution

Having worked with both Panasonic and Mitel Contact Centre solutions, it’s evident that products can vary greatly in size, scale & detail. So it can sometimes be difficult for small businesses to get stared with Contact Centres, deciding on what reporting functions they need to meet their business objectives.

From real-time & historical reporting, to automated systems for customers and workforce management tools, Contact Centre solutions can help identify everything from what has happened in the last period, to what is happening right now. This wealth of knowledge requires some focus however, or else you run the risk of your small business ending up with an unnecessarily sophisticated and expensive solution.

Firstly, consider the current results you are getting within your business and decide which ones you require more detailed information about. For example, if you want to analyse sales results, knowing how many calls have been received in a period, can help determine conversion rates and better establish why you are getting particular results.

Once the type of reporting is defined, your business can select a level that best suits your budget. It’s important to remember that Contact Centre solutions should be seen as an investment, something that is continually used to monitor performance and make operational decisions based on this information.

Cost can fluctuate between solutions, as many models are based on a per user model, however thanks to the advent of Cloud hosted telephony, entry level Contact Centre solutions are available on a rental model, for those where CAPEX doesn’t fit their business needs.

Our Contact Centre solutions have offered our clients both large and small the opportunity to:

• Empower customers
• Improve productivity
• Manage their services efficiently and profitability
• Streamline operations

These are key business objectives, no matter the size. To successfully compete in today’s marketplace, small businesses need the tools larger companies use. If you think big data doesn’t apply to your organisation because it’s just too big, it’s time to think again. Since we are just at the beginning of the digital revolution, it will become increasingly critical for organisations (big or small) to have access to important data in the coming years.

If you have, a specific question about our Contact Centre solutions that is not covered in this piece, please contact us on 028 9078 6868 or get in touch to find out more.

*This blog post is part of a series focusing on the changing nature of business communications and how technology can help address operational issues.