I am setting up a blended multi-channel outbound environment contact center. What features should I be looking for in an outbound dialing solution?
Question
I am setting up a blended multi-channel outbound environment contact center. What features should I be looking for in an outbound dialing solution?
Answer
The goal of an outbound interaction is to communicate with an individual for a defined purpose. In some situations, it’s fine to leave a message. In others, it’s essential to interact live with a specific person, as in the case of late-stage collections or fundraising. Sometimes an organization will use proactive outreach, while at other times they need to respond to a customer-initiated event. Some customers who will never pick up a call from your enterprise may be willing to read an email or text, and could even be warmed up by a social media post. The point is that outbound solutions need to be highly flexible in how and when they interact with their targets, and need to be multi-channel. An important element of this concept, which continues to challenge many organizations, is the need to blend the handling of inbound and outbound interactions.
- Intuitive administration environment that makes it easy for supervisors to define agents’ various roles and priorities
- Native ability to handle all types of interactions: calls, emails, text, faxes, tweets, etc.
- Advanced skill-based routing capabilities to ensure that interactions are directed to appropriate agents
- Tools that display a local number to each caller to promote greater intimacy and encourage callbacks
- Adaptive real-time routing capabilities that can alter the priority of interactions and who receives them, based on the real-time performance of an agent or the department
- An agent interface that makes it easy to switch the agent handling mode dynamically between inbound and outbound and various media channels