The 7 most popular CRM tools you can integrate with Acefone

Ritwik Raj

Author

Contact Center

February 3, 2023

7 mins read eye

Table of content

Similar to all the top VoIP providers in this industry, Acefone has always prioritized high quality communication for smooth customer experiences. Whether it is interacting with customers, team members, or leads, we have everything accessible under one roof.

In fact, we take this ‘one-stop-for-all’ concept further by enabling various API-backed CRM and helpdesk integrations for you to make these interactions even better. Acefone’s telephony integrations will meet your every communication need. With their help, you can focus on establishing stronger bonds with customers and provide them a smoother experience. Let’s see how these integrations work and why they are essential for your business.

How do CRM integrations work?

CRM integration is a method of connecting a CRM or Customer Relationship Management tool to your business solution.

For example, adding a Google Calendar extension to your browser lets you access all of its features straight from the toolbar. You can keep track of upcoming events, get meeting notifications, and snooze events without opening Google Calendar.

Similarly, you can add more features to your business VoIP system by integrating it with a CRM tool. The tool’s core purpose is to enhance the VoIP solution’s capabilities for data handling, emailing, calling, marketing and more.

Can your business profit from a CRM-telephony integration?

Since CRM tools are cloud-based platforms, they prove to be highly resourceful and customizable for all businesses. CRMs are more than just a contact management tools. They make your data flow easily across platforms and help you understand your customers better, forming a strong client base.

Here’s why you should consider integrating your telephony solution with your favorite CRMs.

High on ROI

According to Nutshell research, every dollar spent on a CRM telephony integration returns as much as $8.71 in sales revenue. It helps handle leads efficiently so that your teams can focus on opportunities that are likely to generate more sales. It also helps support teams provide relevant solutions to buyers using data insight, which reduces attrition rates.

Automate processes

CRM tools come with various automations that reduce any chances of human error that could hamper the team’s work. Some of the tasks they help with are handling sales and marketing campaigns, documenting lead data, and fetching information and notes when needed. As a result, your agents spend less time switching between tasks and more on handling customers and sales leads.

Personalization for customers

Integrations store customer data across platforms all the time. From stakeholders to agents, everyone can access this data and use it to come up with personalized offers and targeted campaigns. The gathered data creates patterns and helps teams establish a better understanding of the customers’ needs and desires.

Insightful reporting

Detailed reporting happens to be one of the key benefits of CRM integration with telephony solution for managers. It helps them track their agents’ activity throughout the day and supervise efficiently. They can guide the agents through challenges and help them improve their skills.

Agent productivity

With the capability to automate processes and seamless data access from the portal, agents can handle more customer interactions every day and meet their goals faster. Recent research by Nutshell says that implementing CRM into your business solution can increase sales productivity by 34%.

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Acefone’s Top 7 CRM tools

Zoho + Acefone telephony integration

Acefone telephony integration with Zoho

Zoho CRM is a cloud-based platform suitable for both small and large businesses. Once you integrate Zoho CRM with Acefone telephony, you can store customer data across both servers, improve customer interactions, and convert leads faster. Zoho CRM has an AI-based virtual assistant, Zia, that forecasts the probability of success for each lead and deal, thus enhancing your business communication. It also has detailed email reporting that keeps you informed about the email campaign’s status.

Salesforce + Acefone telephony integration

Acefone telephony integration with Salesforce

With Salesforce’s telephony integration with Acefone, you get access features like click-to-call which enable your agents to connect with customers immediately and streamline the business communication process. As a supervisor, you get automated email reports to track progress of the entire day’s work. You also receive voicemails emailed to your inbox to remind you of any leads that were left unattended.

Acefone telephony integration with Leadsquared

Leadsquared is a very compatible CRM tool for enterprises that use telephony solutions to deal with large customer databases. Businesses with multiple sales teams and communication channels benefit strongly from the Leadsquared CRM and Acefone telephony integration as it works so well for reducing lead leakage. Leadsquared does this by enabling you to integrate the CRM with every platform connected to the VoIP system and tracking lead journey. It tracks the lead as soon as it enters the funnel all the way to their latest status.

Hubspot + Acefone telephony integration

Acefone telephony integration with Hubspot

Hubspot CRM integration with Acefone telephony solution offers a number of customer service features for free. Hubspot, for the uninitiated, is one of the most sophisticated sales tools out there. Once you integrate Acefone with Hubspot, the latter is able to support various calling features such as click-to-call, CTI pop-ups, lead reminders, and email notifications. Furthermore, accessing these features is super easy. All it takes is a login with your Hubspot credentials on a device of your choice.

Pipedrive + Acefone telephony integration

Acefone telephony integration with Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a CRM tool known for its intelligent sales enablement features. It visualizes your sales pipeline, organizes leads, and simplifies complicated tasks to minimize the agent’s workload. Once you integrate Pipedrive with a VoIP solution such as Acefone, you can call your leads directly from the CRM and update lead data accordingly. Otherwise, take advantage of Pipedrive’s core features such as virtual sales assistant, and workflow automation.

Freshsales + Acefone telephony integration

Acefone telephony integration with Freshsales

Freshsales, formerly known as Freshworks ,gives you a smart and comprehensive business solution that boosts customer engagement. When you integrate Freshsales CRM with Acefone telephony, you get a unified view of all customer details (contact list) in one place. The details also include social profiles and a summary of all recent activities on those platforms. As a result, you can nurture leads via targeted campaigns and web forms. Freshsales also has a powerful AI-assistant called Freddy. Freddy analyzes historical data to provide you customer insight and predict purchasing patterns.

Bitrix24 + Acefone telephony integration

Acefone telephony integration with Bitrix24

Bitrix24 is a very robust-yet-affordable CRM tool that many small businesses can benefit from. Since it’s a cloud-based CRM, it has the ability to store all your customer data on an easily accessible private server. With Bitrix24 telephony integration with Acefone, you can automate tasks, manage campaigns, use your preferred device, get deep data insights, place calls with a single click and do so much more.

Summing up

No matter the size of your business, you will need to integrate it with a CRM tool to enhance your customer engagement. Acefone’s communication solutions offers you a lot of integration options that you can choose from. This way, don’t just pick the best for your business, pick the best for your customer relationship management.

With Acefone’s services, you and your customers don’t have to worry about anything more than dialing the number, answering the phone, and attending to caller concerns; we’ll take care of the rest. With 99.99% uptime and reasonable plans, Acefone has your back.

Still not convinced? Visit us here or email us at [email protected].

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

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Ritwik Raj

Author

Ritwik is a fitness enthusiast with a bachelor’s degree in computer applications. He discovered his passion for storytelling while writing articles for his fitness blog. After which, he decided to switch to full-time writing, exploring his capabilities as a professional writer. He is now practicing his skills as a senior content writer at Acefone Software pvt ltd. to bring words to life.

A Comprehensive Guide To Business Phone Numbers

Yukti Verma

Author

Contact Center

January 31, 2023

19 mins read eye

Table of content

In any business ecosystem, be it a startup, SMB or a large enterprise, customers are the most important. What makes them stay isn’t just what you sell, but the experience they have buying from you. According to a study, 49% of your customers might leave you after a single bad experience. Good customer experience starts with one crucial step: being able to reach you.

While you are always available for your customers, they need a way to contact you easily and efficiently. This is where business phone numbers can help.

Let’s understand more about business numbers and how you can leverage them to improve operational efficiency.

What is a business phone number?

A business phone number is a virtual phone line that makes internet-based calls. It is an umbrella term for various kinds of numbers—for instance, toll free, local, and vanity numbers—all serving different purposes. As these numbers are digital, you can add extensions, collect data, and access various calling features at the click of a button.

Your business can have multiple business phone system service to cater to clients in different parts of the world. There are three major types of business phone numbers, all explained in detail ahead.

How do business phone numbers work?

A business phone number uses a technology called Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to make calls over the internet. Instead of using traditional phone cables, VoIP calls are converted from audio signals to data packets and then back to audio signals at the other end. This method of communication is faster, smoother, and more cost-effective.

Agents can answer and address caller concerns from anywhere in the world with an internet connection and a smart device like a phone or computer. The system includes inbuilt call management features such as recording customer calls, transferring calls to other agents, and seeking help from managers if necessary. You can learn more about contact centers in our guide here.

Types of business phone numbers

Business phone numbers can be broadly classified into three different types: Local numbers, buy toll free numbers and vanity numbers.

Local phone numbers

Local phone numbers allow you to call the residents of a particular area using a number with a local area code. This can be done from anywhere in the world. These numbers are primarily used by small businesses and startups hoping to appeal to a specific location.

Callers can identify these numbers by their area codes; a person is more likely to answer a call from a local area code.

Local numbers are great for developing personal connections with local audiences and enhancing your presence. They allow you to penetrate deeper into the markets and develop new customer relations.

Toll free numbers

As the name suggests, a toll free number, also known as 1800 number, allows customers to call without paying a fee. Instead, the business is billed for both incoming and outgoing calls.

Toll free numbers are an asset that take your customer support to the next level and give your business a competitive edge. Deploying these tools makes you appear more professional and credible to prospects. You could be a homegrown startup, working from a garage, and still offer enterprise-level customer service with the help of toll-free numbers.

When integrated with the cloud phone system, toll free numbers allow you to deliver round-the-clock service, improve client retention and boost sales—all without burning a hole in your pocket. There is a lot more a toll-free number can do for you, which you can learn better and quicker through our FREE infographic.

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Vanity phone numbers

A vanity phone number is a custom phone number that consists of an easy-to-remember numeric sequence, which makes a business stand out. It can also include letters that represent a product or service.

While they may appear alpha-numeric, vanity phone numbers are plain numbers that can be easily dialed on a number pad. For example, a florist can choose 1-800-FLOWERS as their vanity number, where the term ‘FLOWERS’ represents the classic dial-pad digits corresponding to each letter (1800-3569377).

Likewise, you can select a number combination that defines your brand. This way, the customers will easily associate the number with your business while connecting.

Why should I invest in a business phone number?

As a small to medium-sized business, you may be looking for ways to diversify and expand your reach. Business phone numbers are becoming increasingly popular with firms of all sizes, as they allow for total accessibility to customers around the world.

Moreover, they are cost-efficient. According to a study, using VoIP can lower costs by 45% compared to traditional phones. Hence, by adopting a business phone number, you can stay a step ahead of your competition while not burning a hole in your pocket.

Here are a few more reasons you should invest in business phone numbers:

1. Better call management

When solving a customer’s problem, you might sometimes need to use multiple channels. Failing to do that might result in disappointment. According to McKinsey, around 86% of customers expect calls to shift seamlessly between channels.

A business phone number ensures seamless call management and omnichannel interaction. Hence, if you need to send a text to the customer while on call, you can do it seamlessly without having to drop the quality.

Moreover, you can create a system to collect and analyze data for valuable insights like caller demographics, average handling time, and abandonment rate.

Call transfer

With business phone numbers, you can save your customers from the trouble of jumping agent to agent for a query. Simply redirect the call, internally. In other words, you can transfer the customer to a relevant department or agent to increase first call resolution and boost satisfaction.

Call routing

Make sure your customers never stay on hold for too long with smart call routing that works as per your configuration. You can set different call routing strategies like simultaneous ringing, round robin and order-by, helping you manage call volumes better.

Call queuing

With increased call volumes, place incoming calls in a pleasant queue. Ensure that you get the person waiting for the longest time on call first, and then follow the sequence. Furthermore, you can program your call queue to play music or pre-recorded promotional messages for your callers while they wait via a feature known as music on hold.

Call analytics

With detailed analytics, you can optimize your call management and make strategic decisions regarding agents’ performances. You can analyze call volumes, average handling time, track answered and unanswered calls, and train your staff to give better results.

This also benefits your employees, helping them learn more about themselves and hone their customer management skills. You can read about how business phone numbers improve customer service here.

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2. Branding

Business phone numbers are unique to you. When you promote your number on various marketing platforms, your customers relate the number to your brand. It helps your business stand out from the competition and assures customers that they will be provided with a solution when they contact you.

A toll free number, for example, can help a freelancer stay more organized and come across as more professional. It can even assist a small business by helping them expand reach, improve credibility and boost customer satisfaction.

Furthermore, you can expect more leads when people are able to remember and recall your contact numbers easily.

3. No need for any additional hardware or software

Operating a business phone number requires nothing more than an internet connection and a smartphone, tablet, or computer. These numbers are part of a cloud-based communication system, thus providing the advantages of the cloud. You can access centralized information and are also offered capabilities of data backup and disaster recovery. Furthermore, your business will benefit from the robust cloud infrastructure and maximum uptime. These factors contribute towards delivering better customer experiences.

4. Easy onboarding and set up

Getting a business phone number for your business is as easy as pie. All you have to do is find a reliable service provider, choose your desired number, purchase, and voila!

The setting up itself only takes minutes. It’s only a matter of downloading a softphone, getting credentials for the login portal (which is an online link), and connecting headphones to your device.

5. Portability

Businesses are not static. Companies can change their office spaces or move to a different city or location based on their growth path. With traditional phone systems, this move can be tedious. However, as business phone numbers are cloud-based, these problems are not your concern.

Even if you choose to relocate your business to another location, you can maintain the same number. Even if you switch your service provider, you can retain the same number via easy number porting. This capability ensures that your customers need not remember different numbers or face inconveniences due to a change in your contact center’s location. You can learn more about number porting here.

6. Higher customer satisfaction and confidence

A business phone number is like a doctor. Always available for your customers, to listen to them and provide quick and accurate solutions.

The number lets customers call your business for any issues they might face. This builds a sense of comfort in the minds of your customers as they feel they can reach out to your business at any time, from any place. We’ve explained how free phone numbers improve customer service here.

7. Automated processes

Business phone numbers are designed to increase the call inflow to your business. This might seem overwhelming to small businesses.

However, businesses can automate inbound call processes with modern tools like auto-attendants, virtual receptionists, and intelligent IVR systems, which most cloud communication providers offer. These tools not only save agents time but also save a lot of money for your business.

8. Enhanced reach

Since you can set up a business phone number for any country, building a global presence becomes as easy as pi. It doesn’t matter if you’re a big company or a small one.

You stay in touch with existing customers and enable customers from new regions to reach out to you without any costs. This way, you can easily inculcate a larger-than-life image of the brand.

9. Affordability

With zero infrastructural cost and no requirement beyond a device and Internet connection, you never have to spend much for a business phone number.

These low costs are a result of the cloud. Cloud communications transmit calls over the Internet, allowing you to reduce your calling costs drastically. You don’t even need to invest in regular maintenance and updates—your service provider does it all.

10. Scalability

The biggest concern small businesses have during their growth phase is staying connected with the influx of new customers. With a business phone number, this concern is a thing of the past.

All you have to do is inform your service provider and they will provide you with more extensions. Furthermore, you may scale back to the original number after your demand has been met. This will ensure that you can scale up and down your resources while being on budget.

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What is included with a business phone number?

Apart from being a means to stay in touch with customers and build a brand, using a business phone number can also make running your business easier and help improve your customer experience strategy.

Here are some of the features which do that:

Interactive voice response (IVR)

Business phone numbers come with Interactive Voice Response (IVR). IVR allows customers to navigate through a pre-recorded menu via corresponding options on their dial-pad. The option selection directs the customer to the appropriate department or live agent. This helps save time by routing the customer call to the right person. You can learn more about the benefits of an IVR for your number here.

Call recording

Call recording is important to track and monitor calls. It helps stakeholders get a hold on the quality of calls. It also helps identify weaker areas that agents may need to be trained in.

Moreover, recorded calls act as a source of knowledge for new agents. They can obtain real-time experience about the nature of calls without actually hitting the work floor. This helps improve their exposure resulting in a better quality of customer service.

Call groups

Call groups allow you to organize certain extensions (for instance, all extensions in the sales department) under the same group. These groups can be used for internal communication or for external communication with customers or clients. Call groups can be configured to provide a level of redundancy, ensuring that calls are answered even when a specific employee is unavailable.

They groups can be accessed better using different types of call transfers, such as warm transfers, where an agent briefs a colleague before transferring the call, or cold transfers, where the caller is redirected to a colleague without any context.

Call whisper

The call whisper feature helps you and your managers ensure quality interactions by discretely offering verbal advice to your agents during a live support call.

Deliver quick query resolutions and provide real-time training. With a manager’s help, agents rule out call escalations and keep customers happy with quick resolutions. Finally, this also helps you analyze every agent performance first-hand by listening to their interactions.

Call barging

With this feature, managers can intervene during customer interactions to offer advice to agents or resolutions to customers. This helps drive your business’ reputation by enhancing first call resolution and reducing escalations. It also helps save your agents’ time when they are struggling and to Train them in real time by informing them of crucial insights.

Finally, this feature helps your managers give actionable feedback that closes deals.

Scheduled callbacks

Scheduled callbacks help you eliminate long call queues and ease call traffic by allowing callers to schedule a callback appointment. Your customers can set up appointments for their preferred timings and ease the call traffic on the system.

This way, your agents can also prepare themselves with the client’s history and context before reverting, and deliver personalized service, helping you enhance customer satisfaction and first call resolution metrics.

Live dashboard

A live dashboard helps your supervisors have an overview of all the calls being made. This helps them intervene with the call barge or call whisper features, track agent progress, efficiency and activity which you can then use to modify your sales and marketing strategies.

Top use cases of a business phone number

While highlighting the benefits of business phone numbers is essential to building a strong case for its deployment, one must also understand where they can be used in business communications.

Customer support

This use case is one of the most popular and widely used. Businesses want to provide their customers with a good experience. While some may think that the duty of a business ends when a customer has made a purchase, it is actually where the relationship starts.

Great customer support is made possible with a successful IVR, as defined above. However, you also need a reliable number with at least a 99.99% uptime guarantee to call back your customers efficiently. Business Phone Numbers make that happen.

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Outbound sales

Using an automated dialer for outbound sales will optimize agent productivity and ensure that you only reach out to the leads that matter.

Auto dialers can dial numbers from a pre-uploaded contact list, load call data and ensure leads for your agents. It also identifies unproductive signals like busy tones, misdialed numbers, voicemails, etc., and routes only answered calls. The unsuccessful calls are scheduled for later. This means, your agents are engaged only in meaningful tasks, increasing operational efficiency.

This makes communication significantly easier, increases agent productivity and ultimately leads to a better customer experience.

Customer information

With a business phone number, callers have an incentive to reach out to you for all sorts of information—product details, price, availability, or even exciting business opportunities.

Without customers having to spend any money to call your business, they are more inclined just to pick up the phone and contact you.

Marketing

Business phone numbers can be a game changer in your marketing campaign. You can assign different numbers to various campaigns: for instance, mention a particular number on each billboard in an area to calculate the success of your campaign.

For outbound campaigns as well, you can assign different numbers for each area you are cold calling. Below are some more ways in which a business phone number can add to your marketing process.

Virtual assistance

A business phone number works even after you do. With a virtual assistant customers can still be heard when you or your agents are unavailable.

Virtual assistants can also promote self-help for the customers. They can be programmed with a list of FAQs and the simple touch of a number on the dial-pad will allow the customer to resolve minor issues without the need of a service agent. They can also redirect the customer to the right department, eliminating the need for an additional agent to do so, while also saving valuable time on both ends.

These are just a few of the many ways in which business phone numbers help your marketing campaign. You can read more on virtual assistants here.

How to choose the right business phone number provider

The market is full of service providers, offering numbers and plans locally as well as internationally. It can be confusing to choose the provider with the best connectivity and price point. Here are a few points you can keep in mind when selecting one.

What kind of number do you want?

All different types of numbers have their set of benefits. When you are deciding between them, you should first consider the specific requirements of your business. Decide what image you want your business to showcase. Do you want to be portrayed as an international brand with local availability or as a local business that has emerged strong enough to have a global presence? Do you want something catchy and unique with letters involved? These factors will help you decide the type of phone number that’s best for your business.

What is your budget?

Your budget is obviously an important factor when you consider anything for your business. Check with all prospective providers about the plans they can offer you. Often, you can reach out and get a better understanding. For instance, at Acefone, we provide plans tailor-made for different business sizes, so you only pay for what you need.

What call management features do they offer?

Businesses cannot boost customer communication without using a business phone number solution that comes with robust call management features. Numbers these days come with an all-in-one call management suite. Check if the suite enables your customer care team to transfer, route, and forward the incoming calls in a number of ways.

It is also good to select a system where managers can monitor and evaluate ongoing customer interactions using the call tracking dashboard provided by the business phone number solution. Call management solutions make the running of your business so much easier.

We’ve explained it for you in this FREE infographic you can download.

Can you track missed and unanswered calls?

As noted earlier, many customers call a business directly when they are ready to make a purchase and transaction. Hence, businesses must treat every missed call or unanswered call as a lost sales opportunity. While comparing business phone numbers, one must check if they come with options to track every missed call and unanswered calls. Acefone’s business phone number solutions can track every missed or unanswered call by sending SMS alerts and notifications immediately and automatically.

Do they generate real-time reports?

In the age of multi-channel customer communication, no business can deliver superior customer service and improve customer satisfaction without analyzing call statistics.

A business phone number solution enables owners to assess customer interaction by providing a call tracking dashboard. They also help managers collect real-time call information by generating push reports. The push reports help managers to boost customer service experience by gaining informational insights.

How is the customer support?

The quality of business phone numbers differs across providers. It is important for businesses to opt for a provider who guarantees 99.99% uptime. They also need to check if the provider offers the post-purchase assistance required to configure and use the number effortlessly. At the same time, the provider must enable businesses to deliver customer service 24 hours a day by providing uninterrupted live assistance through multiple communication channels—emails, chat and telephone.

Top 5 business phone number providers

Now you have a better understanding of what business phone numbers are, their benefits, and how to select the right provider.

Here is a list of 5 top providers you can consider for your company:

Acefone

Acefone is a pioneering cloud telephony solution provider offering a comprehensive, economical and feature-rich VoIP Phone services for business. The solution is entrusted by over 5000 enterprises, SMBs and small businesses across the globe.

Popular Features

Cloud phone system
Toll-free, local, and vanity numbers
Call recording
Voice/SMS API solution
Live-call monitoring
Inbound and outbound contact centers
Smart, multi-level IVR
Call analytics

Pricing

Business: $14.99 per user, per month
Premium: $16.99 per user, per month (3 users minimum) Compare plans

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Available on all plans (Get yours now)

Ringcentral

RingCentral provides cloud-based business phone systems with unlimited calling plans, and messaging with a web portal and mobile app. They cater to businesses of all sizes seeking to improve communication infrastructure.

Popular Features

Cloud phone system
IVR
Click to Call
Virtual Number
Internet fax and voice, text
Call recording

Pricing

Core: $20 per user, per month
Advanced: $25 per user, per month
Ultra: $35 per user, per month

Free Trial

Available for 14 days

Nextiva

Nextiva is a cloud-based business phone system provider with key features like unlimited calling, and integrated messaging for streamlined communication. Nextiva’s solution is available on the web and mobile app, allowing employees to stay connected on the go.

Popular Features

VoIP calling
IVR
Call center solution
Call recording
Voicemail to email

Pricing

Essential: $18.95
Professional: $22.95
Enterprise: $32.95

Free Trail

Not Available

Vonage

Vonage offers phone and video calling over the internet (VoIP) for businesses and residential usage. The platform combines calls, texts, and video chats into one platform. Vonage also provides a central management console with integrations to other business tools, features like internet calling, and tools to track and analyze your calls.

Popular Features

Business phone app
Smart Numbers
Call recording
Call tagging
Call monitoring

Pricing

Mobile: $13.99 per month, per line
Premium: $20.99 per month, per line
Advanced: $27.99 per month, per line

Free Trial

Not Available

Ooma

Ooma is a smart, cloud-based telephony software for business and residential use. Their core offering, Ooma Telo, allows users to make unlimited nationwide calls and keep their existing phone number (for a fee) after a one-time device purchase. Ooma also provides a mobile app for making calls on the go and offers international calling plans.

Popular Features

SMS messaging
Software phone
Ring groups
Voicemail to email transcription
Call monitoring
Toll-free number

Pricing

Essentials: $19.95 per user, per month
Office Pro: $24.95 per user, per month
Ooma Office Pro Plus: $29.95per user, per month

Free Trial

Available

Conclusion

Business phone numbers can leave a positive mark on your business. These numbers can improve your credibility and brand outreach when coupled with advanced features like IVRs, call recording, and appropriate call routing. With the abovementioned list, you can analyze the features offered by various industry-leading providers and find the right fit for your business.

If you are interested in discussing more about your company’s need for business phone numbers, talk to the experts at Acefone.

With Acefone’s services, you and your customers don’t have to worry about anything more than dialing the number, answering the phone and attending to their concerns. We’ll take care of the rest. With 99.99% uptime and reasonable plans, Acefone has your back.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

Reviews

0(0)

Yukti Verma

Author

Yukti is a content marketing enthusiast with a soft spot for Saas. She loves weaving complicated concepts into simple stories. When not at work, she is found reading books or watching movies.

Contact Center vs Call Center — Which Is Better And Why?

Ritwik Raj

Author

Contact Center

January 19, 2023

12 mins read eye

Table of content

You probably recall hearing the term ‘call center’ from before you first heard the term ‘contact center’. We don’t blame you—both are often used interchangeably. However, cloud contact center software not only evolve from call centers, but reimagine customer service and outbound sales.

At their core, call centers deal with customer queries via calls, while contact centers use multiple channels such as voice, text, email, and video to do the same. But there is more to this differentiation than the latter’s ability to go beyond voice calling—in today’s time, customer success can is highly dependent on having a multi-channel presence; in other words, you must be everywhere your customer is.

Hence, with this article, we aim to not only highlight the differences between contact vs call center but also tell you why contact centers are irreplaceable in today’s times, and call centers are—for a lack of a better term—redundant.

First, let’s understand how Contact Center vs Call Center operate.

What is a call center?

Gartner states, “A call center is a group or department where employees receive and make high volumes of telephone calls. They can have internal customers or external customers.” In functional terms, these departments present employees with a helpdesk and callers with a helpline.

Agents addressing customer queries via incoming calls from an inbound call center, and those engaging with sales activities form an outbound call center, often utilizing an outbound dialing system to streamline their processes. Depending on its size, a call center can be strictly inbound, outbound, or hybrid. A hybrid call center sees agents attend incoming as well as outgoing calls daily.

Apart from their function, there is another factor that helps classify call centers better—their location.

In-house Call Center Software

These are on-premises departments where agents sit together with dedicated hardware and software to handle customer calls.

Virtual call centers

Virtual call centers have agents working from remote locations with the help of an internet-enabled device and calling software.

What is a contact center?

Cloud contact center, as mentioned above, are the evolved versions of call centers that operate over multiple channels. They also offer many more features and assure high customizability.

They work on the latest VoIP or Voice-over Internet Protocol technology. As the name suggests, VoIP allows you to make calls over the Internet. Learn more about best VoIP systems in this guide.

While calling remains a significant communication platform for customers, contact centers also include other mediums such as SMS, chat, video, and emails, often on a unified platform. This aspect makes contact centers more suitable for customer services. However, you can still use them for sales and technical support. According to Time Doctor, an increasing number of people prefer using multiple channels such as social media, email, calls, and chat to communicate with brands.

Like their predecessors, contact centers can be classified into different groups such as inbound contact center, outbound contact center, hybrid, in-house and virtual.

Despite these centers being feature-rich and technologically advanced, their digital nature makes them cheaper to build and maintain for providers and cost you much less to deploy.

If you want to read more about how call centers evolved into modern-day contact centers, you can find it in our Complete Guide to Contact Centers and Running Them Successfully.

Contact Center vs Call Center: Key differences

Aspect	Call Center	Contact Center
Communication	Voice	Omnichannel
Approach	Reactive	Proactive
Technology	Traditional	Cloud-based
Automation	Limited	Advanced
Scalability	Fixed	Flexible
Data Insights	Basic	Advanced
Support	Single channel	Multichannel
Infrastructure	On-premises	Cloud-based
Reporting	Manual	AI-driven
Customer Experience	Standard	Personalized

Now that we’ve briefly discussed their similarities and history, we can get down to the main agenda of this blog—how contact centers are better than call centers. To identify that, we look at their differences given below:

Narrow vs. in-depth customer data

Due to call centers being restricted to a single channel for customer interaction, the data they gather is limited. They may use speech analysis to understand the customer’s preferences and emotions, but it won’t be enough. Contact centers, however, provide omnichannel support and gather data from multiple platforms for a deeper understanding of the customer’s preferences.

Traditional vs VoIP calling

Traditional calling systems, which most call centers deploy, fall behind in providing top-notch calling experiences as compared to VoIP. The traditional system restricts calling to a single device (for instance, a landline), while VoIP calling lets you make calls from any device. All it takes is an active internet connection and a portal login.

Read this blog “VoIP Vs Landline” here.

Rigidity in features vs. customizability

Contact centers offer much more customizability than traditional call centers. Traditional communication systems are often limited because any modification requires expensive hardware changes. On the contrary, voip phone system offer many features that you can pick with a single click. For instance, at Acefone you can choose from 65+ customizable features that constantly update and witness additions.

You can also check out those Contact center software features on our website by clicking here.

Reactive vs. Proactive Customer Support

Call centers primarily operate reactively, meaning agents only respond when a customer calls in with a query or issue. This limits engagement opportunities and often leads to longer resolution times.

Contact centers, on the other hand, use automated follow-ups, and predictive analytics to engage customers proactively. You can send appointment reminders, follow up on abandoned carts, or notify customers about service upgrades—ensuring a smoother customer experience while reducing inbound call volume.

Limited vs. Omnichannel Communication

Call centers focus solely on voice-based interactions, restricting customer communication to phone calls. This can be inconvenient for customers who prefer messaging or digital platforms.

Contact centers provide omnichannel support, allowing customers to interact via email, SMS, live chat, social media, and video calls. This ensures customers can connect through their preferred channel and switch between platforms seamlessly while maintaining conversation history for a unified experience.

Manual vs. Automated Workflows

Traditional call centers rely heavily on manual operations, including call routing, agent assignments, and customer data entry. This can lead to inefficiencies and human errors.

Contact centers automate these processes with smart IVRs, chatbots, and intelligent call distribution. Automated workflows reduce agent workload, speed up resolutions, and enhance customer satisfaction. For instance, chatbots can handle common inquiries 24/7, while smart routing ensures customers connect with the right agent instantly.

Basic Reporting vs. Advanced Analytics

Call centers provide basic reports focused on call duration, call volume, and agent performance. While useful, these reports offer limited insights into customer behavior.

Contact centers leverage advanced analytics tools that track sentiment analysis, real-time customer interactions, and engagement patterns across multiple channels. Businesses can use these insights to personalize customer interactions, identify service bottlenecks, and improve overall customer experience.

On-Premises vs. Cloud-Based Infrastructure

Most traditional call centers operate on on-premises systems. This means that they require costly infrastructure, dedicated IT teams, and frequent hardware upgrades. This limits scalability and flexibility.

Contact centers are cloud-based, allowing businesses to scale operations effortlessly without investing in expensive hardware. Your team can work remotely with secure access to customer data, ensuring uninterrupted service even during disruptions. Cloud solutions also offer regular software updates, ensuring businesses always have access to the latest communication technologies.

Why are companies switching to contact center solutions?

Drew Kraus, the VP Analyst at Gartner Customer Service & Support, said, “Contact center as a service (CCaaS) is a growth market; The technology offers greater software agility with a tower cost of ownership, making it a key area of investment in innovation and customer service applications that surpasses the offers of legacy premises-based or server technology.”

Recent studies validate this. According to global statistics the Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) market was valued at approximately USD 5,108.4 million in 2024. Projections indicate that it will expand from USD 5,799.06 million in 2025 to approximately USD 7,473.13 million by 2033, with an estimated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.52% over the 2025–2033 period.

If you’re still not convinced whether you should use Contact center and call center differences, here are a few benefits that will help you decide.

Cost-effective

Contact center solutions come at cost-effective rates compared to call center business pbx systems. To set up a contact center system, the only investment you need is a device and a VoIP-enabled calling solution. You save money on hardware installation, excessive hiring, and infrastructure maintenance.

Scalability

Any changes you wish to make to your calling solution can be made with a few clicks. If you need more extensions or user logins, you can simply ask your provider to include them in your subscription. You can add more agents to the system instantly if you experience a rapid increase in your daily calls.

Unified view

A key benefit of using a cloud contact center solution is that it gives you access to all data on one platform. The calling portal showcases customer information from multiple channels on one dashboard.

Future proof

Google says, “Moving to the cloud is giving organizations of all shapes and sizes the ability to move faster, be more agile, and innovate their businesses.” That’s true for cloud solutions of all sizes—any technological innovation in the cloud telephony space will be a part of your solution sooner rather than later. This way, always rest assured of better automation, productivity, and reliability.

Agent productivity

Contact center solutions make it easy for agents to deal with higher call volumes without getting overwhelmed and still provide meaningful solutions. With features such as call recording, call barging, call transferring, and live call monitoring, managers can supervise agents more efficiently and help them reach their goals faster.

Top 5 contact center features

VoIP offers endless features that enrich your contact center. Therefore, we came up with a list of critical ones every contact center must have to function optimally.

IVR

An interactive voice response or IVR system is highly critical for inbound calling. It is a calling menu that lets the caller route themselves to the right agent by navigating through the given options. Any inbound contact center is incomplete without an IVR.

Call monitoring and supervision

Contact center solutions often provide both bird’s-eye and detailed live monitoring of calls and other channels. It is possible to view what agents are up to via a live dashboard, while call detail records or CDR help supervisors gauge an agent’s performance.

Similarly, features such as automatic call distribution (ACD), access management, ring groups, conference calling, and blind call monitoring help supervisors assist agents.

Integrations

Top contact centers solutions allow telephony integration with CRM and helpdesk tools, which helps teams deliver personalized experiences and manage customer information across platforms. You can integrate Acefone’s contact center solution with 20+ popular CRM integrations for better lead management.

Automated dialers

Automated dialers help your agents focus on the most important aspect of any business—customers. They reduce any time wasted on manually dialing numbers and switching between calls.

These dialers are programmed to identify genuine calls. They also monitor operator availability and route calls accordingly to minimize call-drop rates.

At Acefone, we offer two types of predictive dialers—ratio dialers and preview dialers. You can get in touch with our experts and to know more about them,

Calling analytics

Calling analytics provide detailed insights about the quality of service, average and max call waiting time, average handling time, and the average number of agents available. This helps stakeholders make informed decisions in alignment with the organization’s objectives.

The takeaway

While call centers focus on sales, contact centers are the go-to option for overall customer services as they provide better agent assistance and analyses.

Investing in a cloud contact center, however, is a wiser decision for overall productivity. You get an omnichannel solution for smoother communication with access to 75+ customizable and future-proof features. Scaling a contact center solution is also easier as it doesn’t require adding any expensive hardware. You can even add and remove agents from the dashboard with a few clicks. Thus, getting a Contact Centers Are the Future of Call Centers for your business can yield better ROI and later upgrading it.

FAQs

A contact center solution enhances the customer journey by enabling seamless customer communication across multiple channels like email, social media, and chat. This is unlike traditional call centers that rely solely on phone calls. AI-driven tools and automation help contact center agents deliver faster, more personalized support, exceeding customer expectations.

Yes, modern contact centers integrate with CRMs, ticketing platforms, and contact center software, allowing you to streamline customer interactions. These integrations ensure that contact center agents have real-time access to customer history, enabling personalized service and smoother customer journeys.

An inbound call center equipped with an interactive voice response (IVR) system can automate routine queries, reducing agent workload. You can ensure outbound calls and support requests are assigned to the right contact center agents, improving response times and optimizing customer communication.

Yes, when comparing a call center vs. contact center, the latter is often more cost-effective. A contact center solution operates on cloud-based infrastructure, eliminating hardware costs. Advanced automation reduces dependency on manual processes, allowing you to scale operations efficiently while meeting customer expectations.

Cloud contact center software includes end-to-end encryption and compliance measures to protect sensitive data, such as debt collection records. This helps secure customer communication through encrypted email, social media, and phone calls.

Yes, modern contact centers use advanced analytics to monitor real-time data on customer interactions. Unlike traditional call centers, a contact center solution provides insights into multiple channels, helping you understand customer journeys and adjust strategies to meet evolving customer expectations.

With cloud-based contact center software, agents can work from anywhere with an internet connection. Secure logins and AI-driven workflows ensure that customer interactions remain seamless. Unlike traditional call center setups, which rely on on-site infrastructure, contact centers support remote collaboration effectively.

With an interactive voice response (IVR) system, modern contact centers ensure that phone calls are routed to the most qualified agents. With advanced insights and centralized customer interactions, you can reduce transfers, resolve queries faster, and enhance customer expectations.

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Ritwik Raj

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The key to good CX is to use your data well: Alan Pennington

Shrishti Mathew

Author

Expert Opinion

December 13, 2022

5 mins read eye

Table of content

Data can be a very useful tool. But in the field of CX, when used well, data can be a game changer. It can help bridge that very vital gap between a business and their customers. This is something Alan Pennington, deputy chairman of SuiteCX, a US-based CX software company knows very well.

His specialty lies in advising FTSE 100 & Fortune 250 companies on assessing, measuring and re-designing their customer experience. Pennington was one of the first pioneers of good CX, seeing that there were ways to attract customers but none to keep them happy.

“Back around the turn of the century CX was just in its infancy, it was dominated by research businesses that told you the problems with your customer service,” he said. “But not how to fix them. Advertising agencies were creating amazing campaigns to build demand, but creating expectations that could not be delivered by the operation.”

According to him, there was a big gap in the market for a firm to take the research and advertising data and translate that into deliverable experiences.

“While it is true that just because there is a gap in the market it does not necessarily mean there is market in the gap, fortunately, our hunch turned out to be true,” he said.

He has since gathered two decades of experience in CX, working across the world for top companies. We asked him for some quick advice he could give us from his vast repertoire.

What strategies do you follow while creating a business plan for the operations group?

I focus on real-time in-year deliverables where we can engage as many individuals a possible across functions and where we can demonstrate line of sight business along with measurable improvements. I make sure to focus on the quarter ahead but with an eye on the longer-term cumulative goal. Ensure that your deliverables are customer-outcome focused.

So, start with what you want to achieve, by when, then create the plan of actions.

Based on your experience, what are some common mistakes that businesses make that hinder their customer service?

Many believe that CX is very complicated, that it is an expensive undertaking and that it is a project. In reality it is a never ending journey of changes and adjustments.

They spend too much time fixing recurring problems rather than redesigning the experience based on the known issues. Data, information and research are too often used as reasons not to act. The phrase, “we need more data” means it is not turned into actionable change; too many times the default is to create a huge program and then to wait for the 2-3 years it might take to deliver on that.

In the meantime the world has changed, you need to make hundreds of tiny changes that require little or no governance. When it is a collective cross functional approach making lots of tiny changes that will really evolve your CX/EX to the next level, in the words of Nike “Just Do It!”

How do you implement your strategy at the ground-level, when dealing with a frustrated customer for example?

I take them back to basics. I destroy the often-held myths that hold leaders back from fully embracing the huge commercial wins available from integrating CX/EX as PART and only part of their business strategy and business solution toolkit.

By doing this I give people the confidence that they can succeed, then I go ahead and prove it to them. Now you have a fully engaged sponsor.

Remember that CX is not an input, it is the output of activities inside your company. We are in the memories business in CX, and this is about designing positive ones, attention to detail is critical to success. Remember customer centricity is rarely if ever the answer, it is about dialing up the CX component of your business strategy to the right level for your brand position.

Acefone’s contact center solutions allow for you to collect and access all the data you need. Our manager portal allows for managers to listen in on calls, advise the agent privately and get downloadable data on agent performance. Furthermore, the system can be tailor-made for your needs, your customers and your agents. Call us today to get a free trial and plans starting as low as $19.99.

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About the expert:

Alan Pennington is a CX expert and one of the world’s Top 25 Global CX Thought Leaders and Influencers for 2019, 2020 and 2021.

He began his career at the Royal Mail where he was retail director and eventually became commercial director of its subsidiary call center business. He was then managing director of UK-based management consulting firm, Mulberry, after which he began freelance, working across the world with companies like Emirates, Vodafone, Reed Elsevier, City & Guilds, British Council and Aviva. Currently, he sits on the board of SuiteCX in an advisory role.

His specialties are customer experience management, CX strategy, CX team development, education and deployment, CX experience design and measurement, CX organizational design, CX coaching and Advisory.

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Shrishti Mathew

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Shrishti Mathew is Acefone’s assistant content editor. After three degrees and a year in journalism, she moved into tech marketing. When she isn’t writing, you can find her reading, sleeping or trying out a new recipe.

Fulfilling a customer’s needs also depends on the process: Carsten Ley

Shrishti Mathew

Author

Operations

December 12, 2022

4 mins read eye

Table of content

An idea is only as good as its execution. The same can be said for implementing a CX strategy, right from the first idea to an agent’s interaction with a customer. Managing the project is as important as the concept and ensures a good finished product, which in this case is the customer’s experience.

We spoke to Carsten Ley, expert extraordinaire in project management, change management, business transformation and customer experience. After leading large-scale project implementation across Europe, Latin-America and Southeast Asia for companies like Deloitte, Volkswagen, Rolls-Royce and Lazada, Ley founded a management consulting firm of his own to take his method to others.

His firm, Asia PMO, focuses on helping companies efficiently implement company objectives, build a team-oriented environment, get clients quickly and improve customer experience. Ley is now passing his knowledge on as a certified project management professional, public speaker and podcaster. He is also an internationally known keynote speaker, management trainer and coach.

We sat with him to pick his brain and get some of his top tips on customer experience and strategy, a subject for which he was elected as one of the Top 150+ Global Customer Experience Thought Leaders and Influencers of 2020.

Fulfill your customer needs flawlessly

Ley believes that when it comes to customer experience, there is no room for error. One must anticipate the needs and issues of consulting customers based on experience and advise them before things get urgent. However, in the event that this hasn’t happened yet, he has a step-by-step method.

“First you need to listen and understand the underlying frustration,” says Ley. “Fix the issue as soon as possible personally, and then make sure that a similar issue will not occur within the organization again.”

Develop a good CX strategy

Ley also attributes good customer experience to good CX strategy. He believes that companies, especially startups, should build their teams, products, services and processes with future customers in mind.

However, the pandemic with its requirements of social distancing and no contact eliminated the possibility of a human touch as we knew it. Ley believes that despite these circumstances, adding any sort of personal touch to an automated process is a huge plus.

Apart from customer centricity, Ley is also a proponent of developing a great employee experience and keeping up with new technologies and communication channels.

“It is very important especially for frontline and customer-facing employees to have them (customers) in a situation in which they feel good and empowered to fully focus on customers,” he says. He believes that CX professionals should never stay the same and keep reinventing themselves to stay up to date

Personalize the situation even when automated

One of Ley’s most important rules of thumb is to remember that while AI makes lives significantly easier, one must still do their best to give their customers exactly what they want and need.

“Automate with personalization,” he says. “Do not forget that you deal with individuals who have different journey and communication needs.”

With Acefone’s contact center, you can use the best of AI to design CX that is unique to your customers. Using the manager’s portal, your managers can ensure that every customer has the best experience they can have with your company. Call us now for a free trial and plans starting as low as $19.99.

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About the expert

Carsten Ley is the founder of Asia PMO, a management consulting firm specializing in project management, experience management and business management. With over two decades of experience in the field, Ley is also a keynote speaker, giving talks on the above subjects across the world. Ley is based in Vietnam from where he runs his firm.

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Shrishti Mathew

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Debbie Akwara explains how customer experience is the key to business growth

Acefone Editor

Author

Expert Opinion

November 30, 2022

4 mins read eye

Table of content

According to industry veterans, it is easier and more cost-effective to have customers make repeat purchases with your brand, as opposed to onboarding more customers.

Surprising. One would expect most companies to work for a larger customer base rather than extract the most from their present clientele. But that’s precisely what this is: Quality over quantity.

A loyal customer base means more opportunities to upsell and cross-sell your products, fueling your growth. To build this loyalty, businesses need to invest in developing a dynamic customer experience strategy.

Debbie Akwara, founder of the NicheCX group, is a customer experience (CX) expert who has been helping businesses scale up by working on their CX practices. We picked her brain for some new insight on the topic.

Products vs product experiences

What sets a company apart is not only a high-quality product, but one that comes with good product experience. But the only way to understand what experience a customer is looking for is through regular feedback and communication.

In Akwara’s words, “If, as a customer, I get value from using a product, i.e., it solves my problem, for sure I will be happy.” She adds, “Customer feedback is highly valued because it is how businesses know if they’re delivering value to customers through their products or services.”

When a customer communicates that they are satisfied, it helps stay on track with the services provided. When they say otherwise, it is important to ask why and how to make those changes accordingly.

This process will boost your word-of-mouth marketing, with existing customers referring their friends and family to your business.

Hidden barriers faced by businesses

Brands often have a tough time communicating their intentions with their customers.

Akwara said, “The real barrier faced by businesses while building brand trust is brand motive.”

According to the Harvard Business Review, there are 10 high impact emotional motivators that cause customers or employees to trust a brand:

Being the person you want to be
Enjoying a sense of well-being
Standing out from the crowd
Protecting the environment
Confidence in the future
Sense of belonging
Sense of freedom
Succeeding in life
Feeling secure
Sense of thrill

If your business reflects any or all of these in your brand motives, you can build trust with your customers and employees effortlessly.

Customer service practices to achieve loyal customers

The practices that help businesses gain loyal customers can be put together as the LACID principle. ‘Lacid’ is an actual word, but to Akwara, it’s an acronym encompassing the practices she recommends for businesses to retain their customers. It goes like this;

L- Listen to the customer’s feedback and track their experiences before and after buying your products. Check whether your products add value to their lives or not.

A- Act according to their feedback. Make changes to your brand motives and products to match the customer’s needs.

C- Communicate with your customers to assure them their feedback has been looked into.

I- Innovate new ideas to meet customer and employee demands and keep the relationship alive.

D- Design structures and products that align your innovations with the customer’s demands, fear, and expectations.

Implementing self-service in the customer support department

Akwara’s thoughts about implementing self-service in customer support is that “it has to take into cognizance the organization’s customers, their preferred channel of communication and of customer support operations (people, processes and systems).”

What that means is that businesses should consider customer expectations and experiences. Simply adding self-service options to your organization might have a negative impact on your branding.

There are many companies that add self-service channels to their operations without consulting with the frontline operators. As a result, customers are driven away rather than being reeled in.

Simply adding self-service technology from big name brands to your business is not going to benefit you from any end. If you do apply it to customer support, make sure they are oriented towards improving your customer’s experience.

You can also work on designs and technology inspired by respected brands that use self-service in their businesses as a mode to improve customer support.

The bottom line

“My tip on how professionals can scale up their businesses effectively, is to let customer needs and not business needs inspire innovation. Don’t be caught in a vortex by Keeping up with the Kardashians and doing everything your competition does,” Akwara says.

What Akwara means here is that businesses should be customer centric. They should prioritize customer needs and expectations over everything else. It helps innovate and come up with products and services that help customers solve their problems and improve their state of life.

It’s even better if you provide a unique solution to your customers that no one else does. Akwara suggests businesses “start with the need of the customer, the gap in the market and how their solution can solve real problems that customers have.” Ultimately, this practice leaves a positive impact on the brand reputation and helps scaling up faster.

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Acefone Editor

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Acefone provides a broad range of cloud communication services to businesses of all sizes, which includes Hosted Phone Systems, Free Phone Numbers, and Cloud Contact Center Solutions. Being the UK's leading provider of VoIP service provider, we always strive to provide excellent customer service and high-quality custom solutions to our customers.

CX Expert Jim Bass on how to improve CX through better communication

Acefone Editor

Author

Expert Opinion

November 20, 2022

5 mins read eye

Table of content

How does one company stand out in today’s highly competitive world, where there are alternatives to almost every brand?

Some say a solid business plan, some emphasize a well-defined pricing strategy, and some still swear by a talented employee pool.

But there’s one most important aspect: Enhanced and personalized customer experience.

According to Gartner, the modern customer wants to be satisfied. 78% of customers would back out of a purchase after a poor customer experience. This whopping number is enough to convince business owners to ramp up efforts in the CX domain. However, many often treat it as an 11th-hour task.

CX Expert Jim Bass sits down with Acefone to discuss why this shouldn’t happen. Bass has been in the industry “before it was even called CX,” a certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP), a CX-Pro, and the VOC manager at Verizon’s SaaS division.

What’s the most crucial part of building a CX plan?

It’s empathy. Demonstrating true customer empathy requires us to be empathetic to everyone we encounter, both personally and professionally.

You cannot turn empathy on and off for specific people or segments. To be good at empathy, we have to practice it with our family, friends, team members, bosses, and peers, as well as with people who serve us in restaurants, retail stores, and the person in line with us at the subway.

To truly understand empathy, one must know how it differs from sympathy. We consistently demonstrate this and walk the talk for our children, team members, spouses, friends, and strangers.

How does one optimize the customer’s online journey?

Listen to the customer. Don’t assume you know what’s best for your customer. Instead, find out what they are currently experiencing. Deeply understand the ‘what, how, and why’ of their experience expectations and how they impact them or their business. Once you know this, design an improvement model and ask the customer to validate it before, during, and after the launch. The goal is to keep listening.

How important is it to build personal and deep connections with customers?

This is a part of the equation but does not tell the entire story.

What if the employees with whom deep relationships are built leave the company? What if the customer contacts with whom deep relationships are built leave their company?

Culture drives much of this. Businesses must develop a culture of closing the loop with customers and employees in every interaction (not just survey responses).

This type of focus generates a culture of advocacy, empathy, and listening. Focus on this first; deep relationships will become sustainable during employee and leadership turnover.

What is the impact of digitalization in the world of CX?

This can be either awesome or disastrous. Many businesses are ‘transforming’ digitally to reduce costs. When cost reduction is the driver, CX suffers further.

However, when the experience of the customers and employees is the driver of digitalization, the result can reap great rewards. Remember, technology should add value to the experience rather than replace it.

Can you suggest ways businesses can use customer data and insights to increase engagement and drive revenue?

One of the best ways to create better engagement using customer data and insights is to share what you’ve learned from the data with your customers.

Let your customers know what they are telling you in aggregate
Tell them you want to take action and have a sincere desire to improve
Ask them to help you validate/prioritize the improvements
Close the loop with their feedback when you’ve delivered.
These four items are the path to improving and cultivating engagement and driving revenue through re-purchases, renewals, and add-on products and services.

What are your thoughts on the rise of chatbots?

My thoughts on this are to tread carefully when it comes to chatbots. The chatbots and other digital interfaces must add value to the experience.

My experiences with chatbots as a consumer have not been good. Initially, it felt like they could help me, but they could not. They waste my time and frustrate me. They don’t understand my problem or question and then provide incorrect information. Or they direct me to a phone number, which I was looking for when the chatbot popped up and enticed me to interact with them.

Remember that chatbots interact with humans of all different perspectives, needs, cultures, and education levels. Invest heavily in their design and put them through many test scenarios. Design, design, design! The chatbot’s purpose cannot be to reduce costs for the business—the purpose must first be to add value to the experience or don’t do it.

Can you share some tips for newcomers on successfully delivering a personalized experience to their customers?

Active listening. Don’t assume anything. When you think and act with empathy, you will understand what the customer needs and wants. When businesses think about delivering a personalized experience, they must first consider ‘why’ they want to provide one.

Is it more important than delivering a low-effort experience? If the effort in the experience has not been significantly reduced, then no amount of personalization will matter.

Before you go

While he provided many insights into achieving specific objectives, his overall message can be summarised in one word—listening. Business owners should not assume they know their customers’ preferences and experiences.

Establishing a two-way communication stream with your customers is critical in building a successful CX plan. Bass says this is one of the most credible methods for designing and measuring a CX strategy’s success.

Acefone’s cloud phone system automation and features help your clients listen more. Once set up, your agents can save time on dialing, filtering, and gathering caller information. All they are left with is communicating with customers and helping them solve their problems.

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Acefone Editor

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How VoIP can give SMBs an edge over your competitors

Shrishti Mathew

Author

Small Business

November 17, 2022

17 mins read eye

Table of content

Introduction

Your business is your baby. You made it, built it, helped it grow and gave it all your time and effort. Your baby is now an SMB with a sizeable workforce.

Now you’re looking to scale. While you find markets, managers and investors, we know you’re going to want efficient communication processes in place as the next step in your business’s growth.

What if we told you that you could kill two birds with one stone: improve your team’s communication system while also improving your customer experience and retention?

With a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) communication system, you can streamline all your business’ communication needs, give your customers better service and make room for expanding your business. All your communication is done over the Internet via a convenient digital portal supported across devices.

The technology is timesaving, easy to use, great for a hybrid work system, and customisable to your needs and operations set up.

According to TechCo, small businesses that secure VoIP phone service save 40% on local calls and 90% on international calls. They also have the added bonus of saving 30% on teleconferencing by integrating VoIP.

What’s the technology behind VoIP?

VoIP introduces a revolutionary new way of communicating. Instead of using voip standard PSTN lines and bulky hardware, VoIP zooms your voice calls across the Internet. The result is a faster, smoother and much cheaper communication system between towns, cities and even countries.

The software was so revolutionary, the world decided to do away with PSTNs altogether, something Forbes predicted in 2018, adding that by 2025, it is likely that AI chatbots will do 95% of customer interactions over the phone. According to Gartner, 50% of IT leaders ceased purchasing on-premise communications in 2018. You can learn more about that and how to prepare for the future here.

Still confused about the benefits of cloud-based VoIP over PSTN? Then check out the infographic below.

Learn why you should shift to modern VoIP sooner rather than later

How does it work?

Like its name, Voice-over Internet Protocol, VoIP functions over the Internet. In this system, voice is transmitted using small data packets. These data packets travel between the caller and the VoIP phone provider in the minimum possible time. They are then converted back to audio signals for the agent to listen to.

To break this down, when one of your customers makes a call, their phone connects to the switch or the router in their Local Area Network (LAN), wherever that may be. When you choose to connect over to a particular number, the request is sent over to your IP provider. Your VoIP provider then establishes the connection between the other party and your number by exchanging data packets. Your VoIP phone then converts these signals into a voice that you can hear.

5 flow 2

Types of VoIP systems

VoIP systems may be broadly classified into two types based on where the equipment is maintained, whether they require staff and how much labour goes into the maintenance of the software. While both are helpful, it is best to read more to determine which system would suit you best.

On-premise VoIP systems

As the name suggests, on-premise VoIP phone system are those that are maintained within the premises of the workplaces. This includes everything—be it infrastructure or technical equipment.

On-premise solutions give managers complete control and supervision of data, but this comes with several limitations:

As the technology is located on physical servers usually at one place, any loss of data can be catastrophic.
Any changes in technology will require a technical team with the right expertise.
The possibility of work from home is minimised as the infrastructure is only accessible in office.

Hosted VoIP systems

Hosted VoIP systems on the other hand, are provided by service providers specialising in this arena. According to Persistence Market Research, there has been an impressive Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7.8% between 2016-2024 in the hosted VoIP market.

Hosted VoIP systems have the advantage of not requiring much maintenance. You need not worry about the technical or infrastructural setup. All you will need to do is provide your list of requirements to your service provider and sit back.

Furthermore, the need to maintain a dedicated team for the VoIP systems is also eliminated. All your system upgrades and patch management are completely taken care of by your service provider.

You can go into detail about the differences between the two systems here.

Why do you need to invest in a VoIP system?

Investments are big decisions, especially in a growing business. We’ve been there and know how important it is, which is why we’ll begin with this: it is cheaper.

VoIP phone systems offer services for a fraction of the cost of legacy phones. Using the Internet, VoIP has made it cheaper for calls to be made across locations by removing the need for installing and maintaining any form of hardware. Microsoft reports that 82% of businesses have seen cost reductions as a result of moving to cloud-based operations.

Secondly, VoIP systems can be customised to the last detail and can be made to suit any industry. From connecting to businesses and customers across the globe, to tracking the inbound and outbound calling activities of a call center with in-depth reports, modern phone systems now offer features specifically tailored to businesses of all sizes. You can have a system that caters to both your employees as well as your customers, improving customer experience and retention.

Security is a top priority in any business and another factor that makes VoIP systems so much better. With widespread movements against phone giants over privacy concerns, a VoIP or business phone system is built for trust and security.

It comes with multiple data centers across different locations with backups, which means your data is more secure; along with 256-bit encryption, which makes it impossible for hackers and malicious actors to infiltrate your data.

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You also get to have more control over your own security. VoIP portal access can be assigned and limits can be set, so that the right employees only access what they need to.

Taking advantage of the cloud, service providers offer guaranteed protection to all your communications and regularly update security patches. You can read more about how it works and how we make your data secure here.

The most obvious reason to choose a VoIP system is that its flexible. Businesses can access their phone system portals on smart devices such as mobile phones, tablets, and laptops from anywhere in the world with just an Internet connection. With most Internet-enabled devices already a part of almost all organisations, businesses don’t need to invest in additional infrastructure.

Additionally, VoIP provides for scalability. Businesses can add lines to their VoIP phone systems with a click of a button. This allows for easier entry to new markets and lets businesses scale up (or down) on their own time frames.

Finally, the software is tech-forward, which means that even years after the technology has existed, its digital nature will let it grow and adapt to changing technology and markets.

We understand that this is a lot of information. If you need further convincing, you can read this.

When should you consider using a VoIP system?

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We know you do your research before making any major changes, which is why we thought we’d start by linking you to a quick guide that will bust some VoIP myths for you. But here are a few points to keep in mind when considering a VoIP system.

Do you offer work from home to your employees?

The primary advantage of VoIP systems has been connectivity even when working remotely, something COVID-19 forced us to do. Read more about the role of VoIP during the pandemic here.

According to McKinsey, 58% of Americans work from home at least once a week. So, if you have moved your employees to a remote working ecosystem or a hybrid environment, a VoIP can make your life much easier, staying connected and efficient. Even if your work demands your employees to stay on the field while remaining connected and updated, a VoIP can still help.

Do you have a global presence?

If you operate across countries, you know as well as we do how important it is to maintain a local presence. Furthermore, your customers are more likely to communicate with someone who is nearer to them. Check if your provider offers local numbers in the regions you operate in.

What is your budget and does it cover the cost of installation?

Every service provider offers different types of packages. While a few may provide their equipment, others may leave it to you to choose one from a retailer.

Points to consider are:

The monthly charge

How much will you have to pay every month per extension or agent? Does it fit your budget? There are many service providers out there and it is important to do your research to find one your budget can accommodate.

Any additional or hidden charges

While you will have to make a basic monthly payment, you may incur additional charges depending on any features you choose and a possible initial installation fee. This is something you must ask about. At Acefone, to avoid such confusion, we provide a detailed breakdown of your charges.

Will training be included in the package?

While a VoIP is easy to use, depending on the existing skills of your staff, you may or may not want training included in your package. It is important to evaluate the skills of your staff beforehand so you know exactly what you need.

What kind of equipment will be provided?

We have already discussed the different kinds of VoIP systems. There are a few minor features that you may have to invest in like headsets. Check what comes with the package and what you need to invest in before agreeing to any plan.

What features are they offering with plans?

A VoIP system can come with a number of features. Make sure to find out each and every feature your provider offers along with their costs if any, so as to get the full benefit of this technology.

Are the plans customisable?

Customisability is the beauty of VoIP. Be sure to find a provider who can customize your system to YOUR needs. There is no point investing in technology unless it makes your workflow that much more efficient, which is why it is important to keep the same in mind for VoIP to ensure that you get the most out of it.

What does the migration process look like?

The typical migration process will include software installation, sourcing of phones, number porting, connecting the phones, and porting the phones.

Though this migration process should be done with minimal or no downtime, it is best to understand and learn the intricacies of the migration process from your service provider to avoid any inconveniences.

What does the final list of features contain?

Business VoIP systems come with several features. Consider reviewing them and choosing the ones you will need for your business. Here are some that are perfect for SMBs looking to improve their sales and support processes.

Features info

What is your network bandwidth like?

A strong network connection and bandwidth is the base for a seamlessly performing VoIP system. Check if your existing network connectivity will suffice or if you will need to upgrade your bandwidth and Internet connection.

Some providers even offer HD calls on low bandwidth. Look for providers that offer better communication regardless of your Internet speed.

Does it come with inbuilt security?

With cyber threats and attacks on the rise, it is pivotal that your telephony system is upgraded and patched regularly. You should discuss with your provider about compliance-related issues and ensure that your system is protected from malicious activity. Look for features like two-factor authentication and end-to-end encryption. We put together a list of dos and don’ts for the same.

Do they have alternate power plans?

Make sure that your service provider has an alternate power plan in place. This will help in the case of a power outage. They may provide you with a mobile app or any other alternate source of electricity to have your system up and going even during a power shut down.

Check if they offer 24×7 support

Support is critical when you’re working remotely and checking your providers’ uptime and a support system is imperative. This varies across providers, but it is something that should be emphasized. Acefone for example offers 24×7 support, a SPOC and agents on call.

Acefone’s VoIP plan for you

At Acefone, we offer plans catered to every business requirement. We understand various use cases and priorities, so we’ve built you a table that will help you decide which Acefone plan to go for.

To know more, check out our plans here.

Size of your team (agents with extensions)	Your requirements	Your key priority	The plan you need
0-5	– Setting up a helpline – Equipping agents with calling capabilities	Cost saving	Acefone’s basic plan – Includes one UK number – Unlimited inbound minutes – 24/7/365 customer support
5-50	– Optimising Communication – Streamlining processes – Internal collaboration	Client retention	Acefone’s business plan – 1,000 outbound minutes – Call transfer – Real-time call monitoring
50+	– Global Communication and collaboration – Integrating communications with various SaaS apps	Brand building	Acefone’s premium plan – Unlimited outbound minutes – Unlimited audio conferencing – Call recording

Benefits of VoIP phone systems

Now that you’re convinced about the viability of cloud phone systems, you must wonder—will it really suit my business, with its niche operation style and specific industry? Is it worth all this brouhaha? We’ve already told you that it can help make your business easier to run and efficient, but it can do so much more than that across industries.

Interactive voice response

Cloud phones come with easily-programmable interactive voice response (IVR) menus. These are virtual receptionists that existed even in the traditional telephony era, but can now be easily configured by anyone using an online portal. No technical expertise required. Read here to learn how they can benefit small as well as large businesses.

Great numbers

You can also customise your number and make it either regional, national or free phone to attract customers and put across whatever message you want to your customers. You no longer need to be located at a particular location for a regional number, but simply let the cloud provider know what area code should prefix your digits.

These are just a few of the many features a VoIP system can offer you. You can read more about it and how it helps any sort of enterprise.

Make calls anywhere, anytime, from any device

Cloud telephony frees you from the restrictions of a traditional phone system. Whether you use a mobile, tablet, desktop, laptop or all of these devices; you can switch your calls seamlessly with no interruption to whichever device you need and can take your phone system anywhere.

Employees can make and take calls on the move, allowing them to freely go where they need to go without losing out on leads or enquiries. This has been especially beneficial for businesses that rely on high levels of logistics like the shipping industry.

With VoIP phone systems, your business is free to do what you do best, and your phone system will move with you.

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Expand your business worldwide

Businesses in today’s hyper-connected world need to expand beyond their regional boundaries. Cloud-based VoIP systems make this arduous task as simple as pie. With just a few clicks, organisations can add or remove extensions allowing them to scale up (or down) at their will. As you grow, you can build a local presence, no matter where you are. With a VoIP, you can get numbers local to the markets you cater to from anywhere in the world. For example, you can run a business based out of the UK and cater to customers in the States.

Monitor staff from anywhere

With Acefone’s easy-to-use online portal, you will have full control over everything on your phone system. The online portal gives you access to detailed analytics on call costs, call time, waiting time, number of calls per agent and much more. With the hybrid work model becoming more of a norm, VoIP systems make it much easier for the workforce to balance work and personal lives while making it easier for managers to monitor them. Here’s how it can help with ed-tech

This means that you can manage your team if you are not in the same country or even continent. Furthermore, you can use it to gain valuable insights and sync your sales and support teams for better customer experience.

These tools are invaluable for business owners and can be the key to ensuring you have highly trained, effective staff serving your customers; plus, with conference calling you can ensure the team is on the same page.

A phone system that grows with you

With lots of extra features at your fingertips and the added flexibility of your phone system, the business is sure to start growing. VoIP phone systems will not hold you back and allow you to add as many extensions as you need to your phone system.

This gives you the chance to hire as many agents as you need to keep up with customer demand – which is particularly useful in peak sales seasons. This doesn’t only apply to large scale operations. VoIP systems are very helpful for small businesses too!

Once the rush is over, you can remove these lines easily and can, therefore, take advantage of the ability to hire temporary workers to get you through the rush. Apart from agents, a VoIP system also has a high capacity for data and can be customized to your data requirements.

A traditional phone system requires a lot of work to add and remove lines. With a VoIP phone system, however, this can be done in a few simple clicks and you can start monitoring the flow of calls through your business immediately through the online portal.

Ready to enter the world of VoIP? Before taking the plunge, go through this infographic that highlights how to pick the right VoIP provider for your business.

Still unsure about VoIP? This infographic will convince you otherwise

The Future of VoIP

Like your business, VoIP is also software that is growing and has a long way to go. We have already explained the issues with a PSTN system and why it became unsustainable before being gradually phased out (You can read more about that here). The advantage of VoIP is its minimal hardware and that the software can keep updating, not different from your cellphone. Furthermore, VoIP is multichannel and omnichannel software, customisable to the size of your business. Think of it as a set of building blocks that can be scaled up and down at your convenience.

A VoIP system will never get old as it continues to update on its own. You won’t have to spend on a completely new communication system a few years down the line. However, you will possibly have to replace your earphones!

The Acefone guarantee

Most of the above-mentioned issues are often what hold back businesses from adopting cloud technologies. However, with Acefone, we assure that your experience is as seamless as possible.

Our services use high-end encryption software so you never have to worry about losing your valuable company information. Moreover, with our refined VoIP technology, your business can experience true HD calls as our VoIP systems are multi-channel. Our systems work even on low bandwidth and come with 99.99% uptime along with a 24×7 support system to cater to every small need.

In conclusion

VoIP has changed the way businesses communicate with their customers and employees. It has eliminated the need for bulky, space-consuming hardware and has turned communication into a seamless process so that you can focus more on running your business and staying connected with your customers.

You are the focus of a VoIP system. It is built for you and according to the needs of your business and employees, something you can change with your business’ changing needs and with the changing world.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

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Shrishti Mathew

Author

How startups can retain their customers long term with Brad Cleveland

Acefone Editor

Author

Expert Opinion

6 mins read eye

Table of content

Startups have taken over markets across the globe. More of them come to existence in a day than they used to over months.

In such a saturated market, startups need to stand out from the crowd. However, most of them focus on scaling up rather than building a loyal customer base. And the latter is what makes the difference.

But how do you ensure that your customers remain loyal?

The answer is quality customer experience.

Brad Cleveland, the founding partner and former CEO of the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI), shared some insight on this with us. During our recent discussion on customer experience and startups, we talked about how startups can retain their customers.

How can startups earn customer loyalty right off the bat

The best way startups can ensure that their customers stick longer is to establish a broad understanding of quality customer experience throughout their organization. Cleveland says, “Build a customer-focused culture. Goals, objectives, what you celebrate—everything should be centred on customers.”

Every employee from the bottom to the top, must have this factor engraved in their mind. To ensure this, you must communicate your goals with them. Set benchmarks for customer experience so that every employee can strive for their fulfillment.

Ensure regular communication with your employees, and also your customers through direct conversations, social posts, product reviews, operational data, etc. The idea is to direct the company’s objectives towards the needs and expectations of the customers.

Ensuring a better customer journey

Find out ways to gain information about your customers’ experiences. Use surveys, forums, interviews, or employee enactments. In those enactments, ask your employees to act on what the customers go through during their experience with your business. In the meantime, surveys and interviews can help you get direct information from the customers and employees.

To support this concept even more, have departments collaborate to come up with better designs and processes that resonate deeply with the customers’ unmet expectations. Organise operations like marketing, billing, product management, contact centers, etc. to better suit the customers.

Lastly, you want to establish effective governance. Having control over how the departments churn out results matching your objectives, ensures a better buyer’s journey.

Maintaining minimal service costs without affecting quality

—Ignore customer service at your peril—

Customer service is your way of telling customers that you value your relationship with them and understand what they need. You can take the information that you gain from their feedback and use it to structure your designs and processes.

Hence Cleveland suggests—that customer feedback is something that gives you insight to what they experience, while customer service gives you the chance to respond accordingly. It is your golden opportunity to show your customers how much you value their inputs and needs.

He further says “Customer service can help you see where and how to improve, simplify products and services, fine tune processes, etc.—all of which can reduce the need for customer service. So, ironically, you have to make an investment in customer service to keep those costs down.”

With that, you get the significance of customer service costs. You must invest actively in customer service to keep the customers satisfied which can help you keep those expenses down.

The importance of customer feedback to improve overall service experience

We just read that customer feedback is a tool that tells you about the customer’s expectations. To know truly how important it is, you must listen to the experts here. In Mr Cleveland’s words, “feedback from customers and employees is like oxygen.”

He talks about the “Voice of customer (VoC) program” and finds it highly strategic. He further explains “the process and initiative captures a wide range of feedback, analyzes it, identifies priorities, and ensures the organisation is taking action.”

Nonetheless, there aren’t many organisations that give importance to customer feedback as much as they should. Those who do it at all, use surveys as the only means to gather feedback, and still don’t look into it.

Therefore, the key factor that’s going to help you stand out, is utilising customer feedback. Listen to what the customers have to say and design your processes in that manner.

Creating a customer-centric thinking in your organisation

Cleveland calls this “ developing a culture of customer advocacy.” It entails the actions you take to keep your organisation focused on doing what is best for your customers. In return, your customers advocate for you and your business.

To bring this practice into full effect, you must encourage it into your conversations and operations. Teach your employees to advocate for your customers’ needs and operate accordingly. Doing so might require you to realign your business’s vision, objectives, and functioning to do right by the customers.

Is Artificial Intelligence an ally?

AI is a powerful tool, yet not many companies are utilising it at its full potential. While it is quietly and significantly improving customer experience, its effects are not properly being looked into.

On the other hand, there are a few companies that have been making headway with it. AI has been working hand-in-hand with employees to improve the customer’s journey and enhance the human touch simultaneously. It has been able to reduce many working hours spent doing lengthy, repetitive, mundane and less important tasks.

According to Mr Cleveland, “most are working in tandem with employees, enabling technology to do what it does best—and humans to do what we do best.” Therefore he suggests us to look at AI as an ally rather than a replacement for humans.

The verdict

The single solution that will make startups survive and grow is focusing on providing their customers with the best experience possible. Give importance to customer feedback, and allow that insight to reflect in your services. The more you focus on satisfying your customers, the longer they will stay with you and even bring more with them. In return, your business will flourish not just today, but also in the long game.

If you’re a startup too, and wish to get the same results, we can help you do that. At Acefone, we focus tremendously on quality customer services which is why we have also been rated as one of the best in the industry by Capterra.

You can check out our solutions page to know more about our products and services. You can also book a call by simply following this link here.

About The Expert

Mr Brad Cleveland is a speaker, consultant and author. He has worked across 45 states and 60 countries, with clients like Apple, American Express, USAA, University of California. All the more, he still serves at the ICMI as an advisor, and other organizations as a keynote speaker, and workshop leader.

One of his bestselling books is– Leading the Customer Experience: How to Chart a Course and Deliver Outstanding Results. It has been nominated among numerous lists for best reads on CX in 2021.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

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Acefone Editor

Author

A Complete Guide to Contact Centers and Running Them Successfully

Ritwik Raj

Author

Contact Center

November 15, 2022

17 mins read eye

Table of content

Remember the 2006 Hollywood film Outsourced? The protagonist Todd flew all the way from the US to a small town in India to set up a call center for his company.

This was pretty much how things worked back in the early 2000s—while globalisation had enabled multinational corporations to take advantage of lower wages in countries like India, a sizeable managerial workforce had to be shipped out as expats to get the job done. From setting up the infrastructure to training agents, there was no real remote alternative.

Today’s Todds, however, needn’t even leave their desks: digital-era technology lets you set up and run modern-day call centers remotely from anywhere on the globe. Bye-bye, expat culture. Hello, VoIP-enabled contact centers.

It makes sense for businesses of all sizes to switch to a cloud-based contact center given the popularity they have gained recently. The global cloud contact center software market is valued at $339.4 billion and is expected to reach a whopping $496 billion by 2027.

From call centers to contact centers

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Call centers have existed since the 1900s. During their heyday, telephone operators had only one goal: to sell. These operators or ‘early’ agents were given a list of numbers to cold-call, hoping to strike a deal.

Thus, the earliest call centers were strictly outbound. Things however changed with the invention of the toll-free number. These numbers were programmed to not cost the caller a penny, inviting more inbound calls. With this, the scope of call centers expanded beyond outbound sales to include support and inbound sales.

Things remained this way until the Internet revolution, when for the first time call centers faced obsoletion. Traditional centers were limited to on-premise operations and defined by heavy infrastructure.

They could in no way keep up with the pace at which companies were expanding in the new world. Offices had to multiply fast. People were shifting to smartphones and laptops, which traditional centers didn’t directly support.

This gave rise to modern-day call centers that existed entirely on the cloud, ran on any device, and could be easily operated via a portal: contact centers.

Soon enough, contact centers become the preferred customer support and sales apparatus for businesses. The pandemic was the final step in this transition.

Today’s contact centers provide omnichannel communication to customers, empowering them to reach out to businesses using email, chat, SMS, calls, social media, etc. Businesses, similarly, benefit from the large number of features contact centers offer at a cost-effective rate.

Learn more: Why contact centers are so important for today’s businesses

Different types of contact centers

Inbound & outbound

Inbound contact centers are designed to receive incoming communications from customers and potential leads. They mainly provide support to individuals who engage with your business, i.e., those who have purchased a product or service from your company.

At the same time, they can be used as an effective inbound sales tool. For instance, companies can promote offers on different channels such as their website or landing page, and list a toll-free number for lead inquiries.

Furthermore, inbound contact centers are equipped to handle all sorts of customer queries, ranging from setting up the product to issues arising through daily usage.

Outbound contact centers focus on reaching out to customers—both current and prospective—via numerous channels. These can include promotional calls for deals and offers, broadcast SMSs for announcements and survey links, chat support, etc.

With the increased use of data analytics to drive business decisions, outbound centers are also now using their services for feedback and customer surveys. Agents ask customers about their experience, where they got to know about the product, and whether they’re living up to the market standards or not.

Finally, outbound contact centers are tailor-made to handle outbound marketing campaigns. 62% of marketers say their company’s outbound marketing efforts are effective. This is achieved by launching systematic campaigns that use a mix of mediums to reach customers, give them relevant offers, and reduce steps for them to respond to us.

Multichannel & omnichannel

Multichannel contact centers, as the name suggests, use a flurry of mediums to;

Get in touch with customers
Let your customers get in touch with you

With customers using an average of 3-4 channels to interact with companies, a multichannel center is a must. Multichannel contact centers provide support via calls, SMS, social media, mobile apps, website portals, chatbots, and more.

If you’re new in the market and looking to establish a presence, we suggest investing in a multichannel contact center. Your competitors may not exploit multiple mediums right from the start, so you can gain quite the advantage through this endeavour.

Omnichannel contact centers are similar to multichannel contact centers. They, however, have managed to combine all communication channels into a unified platform. This unification makes it easier for contact centers to make customer experiences more personalised. This helps immensely with customer retention.

Learn more: Omnichannel Contact center

The case against traditional call centers

We’ve spoken in brief about the advantages of modern contact centers over traditional call centers, but many companies continue to operate with a traditional setup mainly due to these reasons:

Traditional contact centers keep infrastructure and employees in one place. This assures better control.
These centers don’t rely on the Internet, so they are not prone to security and data breaches.
They have negligible call lags and offer higher-quality calls.

With the advancement in modern contact centers, however, many of these issues have been addressed. For instance, modern centers let supervisors, managers, and agents access the same portal for operations and analytics. This assures great control, as everything has one digital address.

At the same time, to operate traditional centers, you have to start from scratch—assembling a team, buying the technology, training the agents, etc.

Modern virtual contact centers are equipped with all the security provisions you need, be it 256-bit industry-grade security or antivirus protection at all levels. There are even multiple data centers where your data is backed up. At a traditional call center, on the other hand, all your data is present in one place and any calamity can result in its destruction.

Most modern contact centers promise a minimum of 99.99% uptime and can transport the highest quality calls via VoIP.

Put simply, cloud contact centers are the go-to solution for SMBs. Not only do you save costs, your systems will always be up-to-date with the latest software and technologies.

Learn more: Contact Center vs Call Center

Why does your business need contact centers?

Every mid-sized business that has a product or service to sell needs a contact center. Let’s look into why you should consider getting one for your business.

Your customer service can be better

While IVRs pre-date modern contact centers, only contact centers allow you to easily build and modify them online, usually through a simple ‘IVR builder’ present in your portal.

Intelligent IVRs aren’t the only way contact centers assure better customer service: From supervisors being able to easily whisper information to agents mid-customer-call, to call recordings that a manager can access anytime, there are no roadblocks to better customer care.

The tools used in contact centers allow you to store customer information that equips you with all you need to boost conversations. As per Zippia, 77% customers appreciate a business that takes customer service seriously—contact centers will ensure you do that.

Which is why Acefone’s cloud contact center can be a perfect fit for your business. Apart from the above-mentioned benefits, you get enterprise-grade encryption, affordable plans, and 70+ industry-leading and customisable features that you can handpick for your business.

You can save costs

We’ve already established how contact centers today only require a stable Internet connection and a device, such as a computer or phone, to work. This makes them independent of the complex machinery, physical servers, and hardphones that traditional call centers require. So you needn’t invest much in infrastructure and hardware set-up.

In fact, the onboarding experience simply implies remote installation of the software on your device and aligning your current tools and hardware with the contact center. Together, these processes make contact centers affordable for all business sizes.

You can build a global presence

Remember the Outsourced example we gave above? Now imagine this: You could be a company located in the US that wants to build a presence in India. So, you hire a group of agents and a manager in India, all of whom are equipped with laptops. Then, give you them a contact center solution and a ‘softphone’ app that they can easily set up on their devices.

The softphone will let them make calls anywhere in the world. Thereon, you forward support calls and ensure that your customers are always looked after.

You can repeat this process and set up a contact center anywhere in the world, complete with local numbers that give you a local presence.

You can boost customer loyalty

With better and more intuitive customer care, expect your customers to stay. Did you know 94% customers are willing to buy from you again if they have a positive experience with your brand?

A business with better customer experience will retain clients for longer and build a high degree of customer loyalty.

Read what a customer experience expert we interviewed had to say about this.

You can stay updated with the latest technology

Contact centers are based on cloud technology. This means any upgrade or change in technology will simply require a software update. The technology improves day-by-day, without any charges for the updates.

Contact centers, due to their digital nature, can easily be integrated with other SaaS tools such as CRMs and helpdesk apps. Some of these include Pipedrive, Zendesk, ZohoCRM, and Hubspot. Acefone supports them and many more integrations.

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Top 6 features every contact center needs

Every contact center provider will offer you many features with your solution—but how will you prioritise these? Hence, we have gathered a list of must-have features for contact centers that SMBs can benefit from.

Interactive voice response

An interactive voice response system or IVR is critical to all inbound processes. It refers to a pre-recorded calling menu that a user can interact with as soon as they call you. This menu helps them link to different departments with ease, access self-service queries, and even make requests. No inbound contact center is complete without a calling menu.

Here’s how it works: You open the IVR builder tool that most contact center providers include with their portal. You then upload a script, complete with recordings and instructions. For instance, press ‘1’ to get latest product information, ‘2’ to connect with the billing department, and 3 to talk to a support agent directly. You can even add on-hold music.

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Multi-device support

Portability is critical these days, even for sales and support agents, many of whom are constantly on the move. With most companies introducing hybrid work for their employees, agents need to be able to work as efficiently from their homes as they do in the office.

The best cloud contact center providers will always have apps that support calling and other features across devices such as smartphones, tablets and desktops. Equally important are custom apps catered to each device and the possibility to shift between devices even during live calls via features such as call flipping.

Call features

As per this article, 59% callers prefer to discuss their concerns over live calls over other mediums. Therefore, ensure that your contact center solution offers sufficient calling tools and features to make your callers’ experience better. Some relevant contact center software features include call recording, live call transfer, call whispering, call barging, and skill-based routing.

Call recording lets you re-listen to key points from customer conversations, gauge how your agents performed and strategise improvements accordingly. Live call transfer allows agents to transfer calls to supervisors and other agents. Call whispering is a vital feature that lets managers make suggestions to agents during live calls without the caller being aware of it.

Predictive dialers

Predictive dialers ensure you do not have to waste time calling clients and potential leads manually.

You simply upload a contact list to the dialer tool and wait as the tool calls multiple numbers for you, as per your configuration. The dialer is programmed to identify genuine calls and avoid missed, spam, and busy calls. Only when a genuine connection has been made, will the call be forwarded to the agent.

Dialers also monitor operator availability and route calls accordingly. They help you minimise call drop rates.

At Acefone, we offer two types of predictive dialers—ratio dialers and preview dialers. To know more about them, get in touch with our experts.

Automatic call distribution

This feature lets you route calls to the appropriate department or agent, which reduces your customer wait time and encourages first-call resolution. Top contact center providers have various ACD strategies and techniques in place for you to exploit.

For instance, if a customer calls to complain about a product, they get directed to an agent in the product support department. If callers have billing issues, they’re routed to the accounts department, and waiting calls are connected to idle agents.

Reporting and analytics

While many provide analytics and data reporting, the best providers let you customise data and present it as convenient graphs and tables. They also provide a vast array of performance indicators for your supervisors to access.

Your managers and stakeholders can monitor agent performance, evaluate call quality, identify hiccups, and contribute towards the overall improvement of processes via reporting and analytics.

You will also find a list of key performance indicators that Acefone provides later on in this article.

Learn everything you need to start a successful contact centre

Top 6 factors that constitute a successful contact center

It’s one thing to have a contact center, and another to run it successfully. Therefore, we came up with a list of factors that are critical for the success of your cloud contact center solutions.

Always. Stay. Updated.

Empower your agents with the latest software and tools, but do not be resistant to new updates and technology changes. Thanks to VoIP, keeping up with upgrades and the latest software becomes easy, and these updates will always help your agents communicate better. You can update every tool and extension with only a few clicks, or enable auto-updates.

Unified communication

Unified communication allows agents to manage and switch between multiple channels through a single cloud-based platform. This way, customers can get in touch with your company easily, and you can reply to them there and then.

Learn more: Why you should integrate UCaaS and Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) into your business

Customer centricity

Customer centricity is all about putting your customers first. Use analytics, tools, integrations, and the various features your contact center provides to constantly improve services for your customers. Gather customer insight and feedback, and use them to understand their pain points and design processes accordingly.

Better trained agents

Your agents form the bridge between you and your customers, and a contact center is only as successful as its agents. You must ensure they have enough training so that they can service clients better and convert more leads.

Great management

Teams can work more efficiently with optimal supervision and goals in sight. Use the live dashboard to keep track of your contact center. See what your agents are up to by accessing call recordings, and be present for them via features like whisper, barge, and call tracking.

Setting goals

Contact centers offer plenty of reports and analytical features that let you keep track of performance on all levels. You can set goals using those analytical inputs, which are important for agents as they provide them a plan of action.

By setting goals, you can also reward agents and give them something to work towards. Some of the more agent-centric indicators include first-call resolution, average handling time, and customer satisfaction score.

Check out these latest contact centre trends to gain a competitive edge

How to recruit the right contact center agents

There is no magic to contact centers. They are as much susceptible to failure as other solutions are, so it is critical to have the right team working towards the right goal. Here are some things to keep in mind while hiring your agents.

Ideal agent profile

Begin with creating an ideal agent profile, consisting of key skills and attributes that your contact center needs. To identify those, you can study your current top-performing agents and note their best skills and attributes.

Communication skills

Your agents should be able to communicate well with customers over every channel—be it voice, chat, or SMS. This is irrespective of whichever channel your center deals with. Some of the key communication skills that agents must possess are active listening, empathy, compassion, and confidence.

Pre-employment Assessments

Once you know which skills you’re looking for, adequately assess those skills by including relevant questionnaires and tests in your recruitment process. These assessments can include tests that evaluate the candidates’ technical skills, temperament, and social skills.

How to measure your agents’ performance

Today’s cloud contact centers present an array of key performance indicators and analytics that managers can use to track and improve their contact center’s performance. These metrics help businesses define and stick to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Keep in mind the below mentioned indicators; over 65% of our clients use these for their benefit:

First-Call Resolution (FCR)

Customers don’t like to call multiple times for the same query. Hence, a high fist-call resolution rate is a great indicator for the efficiency of your contact center.

Abandoned call rates

Customer calls that disconnect before being answered are always a bad sign for a contact center. This can mean your center has an inefficient call management system, leading to long queues and hold times for customers.

Average handling Time (AHT)

Customers like quick resolution to their issues. But, call center agents can take a long time to assist them. Thus, tracking the call time of individual agents can help improve overall efficiency.

Call transfer rate

Customers can get frustrated repeating the same issues to different service agents. More than 80% customers prefer to speak to a single agent to resolve their issues. Thus, contact center agents must be trained to handle queries efficiently and transfer calls only when needed.

Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)

A good CSAT score can help you get great word-of-mouth from existing customers. It lets customers rate their experience and contact centers to improve their services using these metrics.

What is the future of contact centers?

The COVID-19 pandemic changed a lot of business operations. What was done merely three years ago is now seen as the older way of doing things. This is true in the case of contact centers too.

Contact centers are going virtual

Thanks to the cloud, businesses could quickly get back on track after the world had gone into strict quarantine. And despite being confined indoors for over a year, they did not lose out on productivity.

In fact, studies have now listed several jobs that can completely go remote, while the others can opt for hybrid working. One such is the role of contact center agents.

As traditional communication methods fall flat when compared to the cloud, businesses are beginning to take note. Rather than setting up clunky, traditional offices, the future represents a more ergonomic space for these agents.

Moreover, with cloud services becoming industry standards, switching to a virtual contact center is only a matter of time.

Self-service will continue to rise

A study in the Harvard Business Review discovered that “across industries, 81% of all customers attempt to take care of matters themselves before reaching out to a live representative.”

This continues to align with the increasing demand of self-service options by customers. These include AI-enabled chatbots for quick FAQs, IVR systems with voice recognition software to assist in all sorts of customer queries, and many more.

Man-machine-mix

While automation has swept across almost every industry, contact centers have always been wary of complete automation. This is because, when it comes to quality service, the human touch still reigns supreme. But, the advantages and benefits of automated tools cannot be ignored. Thus, while automation is ‘in’ right now, the hybrid model of man and machine for contact centers is gaining popularity too.

In conclusion

With this guide, we covered the fundamentals of contact centers to help you set up your first contact center with ease. It covers their evolution from traditional call centers to contact centers, their importance for today’s businesses, features, ability to track performance, and plenty more.

The bottom-line is, to be able to run a contact center successfully, you must focus on three key aspects: your team, the service, and customer experience. If these things are central to your process, there is no way a contact center will fail you.

If you have any further questions, you can always connect with our experts by clicking here.

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