For as long as there have been contact centers, these facilities have used traditional telephony as a way to communicate with customers. This only makes sense - everyone has a telephone of some kind in their possession or close enough to access easily. But what happens to the old standby telephone as the primary means of communicating when your customers are increasingly using digital devices?

In the digital age, more and more call centers are relying on a digital voice solution to ensure the best sound quality, greatest reliability, and best possible service to consumers. Does your contact center need a digital voice solution? Is the one you have outdated and ready for a tune up with today’s latest technology? Here’s what you really need to know about this modern call center standby:

What’s the Big Deal About Voice, Anyway?

Why is your center’s voice platform so important? What makes voice such an integral part of the contact center customer experience?

The first element is tradition. As long as there have been telephones, there have been contact centers of some sort designed to take consumer questions and complaints. These have evolved from single-person answering services and small, dedicated departments to outsourced giants taking hundreds of thousands of calls a day. However, many of the principles of customer service via phone haven't changed, and voice exchange is one of these.

Customers expect to call and talk to someone. Even if they aren’t speaking to someone directly, they expect to listen and speak to a recording - a voice exchange is a forgone conclusion. While offering other channels of communication is great in a changing world, consumers still largely prefer voice.

That’s another reason why your voice solution is so important. Most consumers are calling with a question, complaint, or concern. They want answers and solutions, yes, but they also want to feel comforted in a way that text-based applications simply can’t offer. They want to feel like your agents empathize with them and are prioritizing their concerns. You cant do that with text-based applications - at least not easily. Voice makes this simpler and is still the preferred method of communication for most consumers as a result.

Lastly, there’s efficiency. Humans are capable of speaking and listening at a rate that is three to four times faster than they can type, on average. Even fast typists and faster readers are better and talking and listening than they are at using text-based applications. Don’t believe that? Try typing a few sentences and reading them aloud as you go - hear how slowed down and disjointed they sound. If you want to avoid that slow pace - which could be costing your center time and money - use voice as a primary means of communication.

Finding the Right Digital Voice Solution

Now you understand why a solid digital voice solution is important, but how can you choose one that delivers on all of these needs? Traditional telephony is still a standby in many areas, but it simply doesn’t have what most centers today need in terms of reliability, voice quality, and more. So, how do you choose a solution that gives you all of this - without compromising other aspects of your daily operations?

First, begin by searching for reliability. Everything else comes second to this. When you’re looking for a VoIP - voice over internet protocol - provider, it stands to reason that finding a reliable provider of overall internet services is a safe bet. You’ll need a wide bandwidth and stable, reliable service to ensure that a minimum amount of calls are dropped or interrupted.

Remember, too, that this isn’t your average conversation - your consumers may be sharing important and sensitive information with you. Look for security and stability so that this information is delivered correctly and consumers feel safe handing it over.

Next, you’ll need a platform that offers that kind of bells and whistles that your modern consumer is looking for. Can their be this kind of additional content, when it comes to voice? Isn’t voice a straightforward medium? Not in today’s world. These days, consumers want more than just talking and listening - and it’s up to you to find the programs that offer them what they need.

Features to Look For

What are your consumers in search of when it comes to your voice platform? Start with smarter artificial intelligence. Your software should be designed to not only handle real, live conversations with clarity and concision of sound, but also to deliver that same audibility to automated prompts and more. This is where your software can really show its stripes in the modern market.

Today’s consumer is busy. They need more automated prompts and more self-service options to ensure that they can handle business on their own terms, on their own time. However, too many IVR systems are delivered via traditional telephony and other methods that leave sound quality wanting - and leave consumers wasting time, listening to the same prompts over and over again.

You don’t have to be that business! Improving your voice delivery system is a simple way to ensure that not only are live calls handled better, but so are automated ones. Your consumer may never even speak to an agent, but you can still deliver top-quality service that fits the needs of the modern customer.

For everything you need to modernize your voice delivery system, contact the industry experts at ChaseData. We have the software solutions you need to go fully digital, or simply add a fully-featured digital voice solution to an already robust tool set. Whatever your center’s needs are, we can help you meet them. Give us a call today to learn more!