Why Contact Centers are Turning To CRM

The modern CRM System is becoming increasingly more prominent in today’s workforce. It stores and analyzes your data, providing insights into your next steps so that you always put your client first. To do this, remember that a CRM isn’t just a tool for the sales team, it needs to be adopted by all departments to be most effective. That means sales, marketing, customer service, and management should collaborate and contribute to your CRM. However, when it comes to customer service, many companies have a huge blind spot. It exists in their business process and even their CRM data. It’s the call center.

Customer Satisfaction & Retention

The call center is a central part of customer service. Not only does it have the most contact with your customers, but it has customer contact at pivotal moments. Customers call when something goes wrong, when something isn’t working, when they have a grievance of some sort, or when they need some information. How these calls are handled is vital to overall customer satisfaction and retention.

As a result, it goes without saying that such a key role should be provided with every tool necessary for success to keep your customers happy. However, this branch of most companies often gets neglected. Stop that today by applying your CRM to your call center.

Here are some ways in which a CRM can keep your call center on top:

Customer Profiles

CRMs arrange your captured data into profiles. They list customer information all in one place:

Contact information
Social media accounts
Purchase history
Engagement activity
Communications with your company

It stores a wealth of information, and this pertinent data becomes increasingly valuable with each customer service interaction. When a customer service rep knows exactly who they are talking to and their history, they can anticipate needs and arrive at a solution much faster. This data-driven approach eliminates the need for customers to re-enter information that your company already has, thereby increasing customer satisfaction.

Tickets

With a CRM, you can implement a ticketing system. This means that every issue is logged under its own unique ticket. From there, every communication, action, and resolution associated with that issue can be logged under that specific ticket. That way, call centre reps to know exactly what the issue is and what was done before so that they don’t repeat steps and instead can quickly get to the next solution. It is also a valuable tool for historical purposes. Tickets can be logged under a customer’s individual profile to keep an account of all of the issues they have had in the past.

Mobility

Mobile phones have revolutionized the way we do business. Not only does it allow customers to purchase from wherever they are, but businesses have had to adapt to provide messaging that is compatible with these devices. Furthermore, mobile devices have allowed businesses to implement multimedia into their customer service platforms. Customers can now provide images and videos when contacting customer service. By leveraging the actionable data that smartphones provide, companies can then enhance the conversational experience between them and their customers. The potential that comes with the mobile phone is so great that many companies have even opted to include a customer service feature in their own mobile apps.

Automation

We have all heard the keywords associated with CRM, like machine learning, artificial intelligence, and even deep learning, but each aims to provide intelligent automation. With this, you can increase your call center’s effectiveness and identify opportunities where your call center can improve. For instance, something as simple as queuing customer calls. Getting calls routed to the right queue the first time gets your customers helped and on their way faster. You want to ultimately guide your customers to a resolution as fast as possible, and automation is the way to do so.

However, your call centers shouldn’t be a blind spot; they are opportunities to turn a negative customer impression into a positive one and should be handled with care and attention. Implement a robust CRM like SugarCRM that keeps your call centers operating efficiently.

If you’re looking to purchase a CRM or improve your current one contact us!

By Luke Richmond, Director of Global Professional Services

Luke Richmond holds extensive experience in business analysis, consulting, change management, and project management across CRM and ERP implementations. With a proven track record supporting complex software initiatives, he combines his technical expertise with a people-first approach to deliver impactful results.